Introduction: The Dodge Caravan is one of Chrysler's most successful vehicles since its introduction in 1984 as the first minivan in the world. It was produced earlier than the next closest vehicle the Renault Espace. The Caravan used a modified K-car platform called the S platform meaning this vehicle also belonged to the K-car generation that would help Chrysler exit for financial ruin. While the iconic K-cars the Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant would retire, the Caravan continued to be a great hit even to this day.
The vehicle featured in this review is the fourth generation of Caravan. The unique feature of this one over the previous older Caravans is in 2005 it used a unique seating storage arrangement called stow n' go which allowed you to stow the middle row seats into the floor without the need to remove them. This allowed you to have a cargo van arrangement without the need for heavy lifting to remove the trouble some middle row seats.
Performance: The Caravans that were in our fleet used the 3.3L V6 which produced 180 hp and 210 lb.ft of torque. This never moved the Caravan particularly quickly and despite its torque it never seemed to accelerate very quickly either. The 0-100 speed is about 9.1 seconds meaning this one was not particularly quick. I cannot imagine using the 2.4 4-cylinder in this thing because clearly this V6 wasn't enough to seem adequate. The V6 is reasonably smooth but not nearly as refined as many other V6 units out there including GM's 3.8L V6s on their minivans.
My Score: 6/10 - Not a horribly slow engine, but not an impressive engine at all.
Handling: I understand the Caravan is a minivan and that I shouldn't expect all that much out of its handling ability. Much to my surprise this Caravan was not as horrible as I expected. Its not as good as an small SUV or any car but it does feel like a big car. The steering wheel has some feel to it and thus making this van a mild surprise considering I was expecting something very numb and boring. The short wheelbase also makes this vehicle easier to park than I thought.
My Score: 6/10 - Its not good at it, but for something this heavy it did surprisingly well.
Interior: The Caravan does not have a pleasant interior to sit inside, the plastic are easily classified as cheap. The seats are not that particularly comfortable either, a little bit on the hard side to be honest. Yet, the clearly innovative stow n' go has made this interior at the very least cleverly designed. Getting the seats out and putting them in was not the most user friendly experience but I expect the newer one to iron these problems out(sadly they never did). This interior is pretty much saved for the fact it has this innovative interior layout item. The Caravans in Canada are all made in Windsor, Ontario. I didn't notice any real build quality issues with them.
My Score: 6/10 - Very innovative stow n' go, making a normally ugly interior into a decent one
Styling: The Dodge Caravan didn't really change very much from the last generation. The overall shape of the vehicle remained practically the same and much of the key identifiable exterior features also remained largely the same. The major difference is mild styling difference in the front making the van certainly more modern than the previous generations. They didn't change the style because the van still looked distinct from all the other vans back then in 2001.
My Score: 7/10 - Yeah they were lazy but it still was unique, you can easily tell a Caravan from the rest of the minivans.
Value for the money: This is a little bit harder to score. Clearly the stow n' go system gives this Caravan a big advantage over the other ones especially if you need both a cargo van and a passenger van. This van is also not very expensive to buy, it is actually one of the least expensive ones available. The only problem is reliability, these vans and their predecessors suffered transmission failures, they also depreciate very badly since so many are in the used market. These issues are why the more expensive Toyota Sienna and Honda Odyssey manage to sell rather well despite being on the high end of minivan pricing.
My Score: 7/10 - Its mostly good except for that annoying transmission and you need to run it down to the ground yourself to get the most out of it.
Overall: 32/50 - Not a bad minivan at all in hindsight, the innovation is really why this minivan scored well. What hurt the van was the low quality items in an attempt to keep costs down.
No comments:
Post a Comment