ideal family vehicle

[Amiens]

When I told my mil this, she in so many words asked "Why do you need to buy a minivan?"

That's kind of funny....

If you do go with the Odyssey -- I had the wholesale price for the Odyssey EX with leather. Anyway, I think I passed it along to Dagny, maybe she still has it. I looked at the Sienna too and though they are really similar, thought the Odyssey was better for gas mileage, safety, features for price. I don't think you can lose with either!

When she was alluding to that question- I explained that it would be borderline unsafe to squeeze three car seat in the back, and I literally mean squeeze. I also told her we would most likely have a fourth, and would like to have some growing room in our car, and not have to trade in our second car in a couple of years. When I told her all of this- she said "Oh yeah now I can see why you need a bigger car."

About the Odyssey EX-L, the one's we have found in our area have been $30,000 to $32,000 and then the touring edition has been ~$32K to $35K. It's about $30-$35K for the Toyota Sienna LX-Limited. Matt isn't too put off by the price considering that's about average even for the upscale Caravan, plus he said he is in a position to pay for value. I keep telling him it's in the budget.

About your Microbus- I don't know a lot of Spanish- I know French. I can gather the gist of things-- it sounds they are going to start building it. To make sure I was getting it right I sent it through http://www.freetranslation.com (it's not perfect but you get the main idea): "Volkswagen has announced that the concept Bus will be produced. The Bus wrote down on a version of the platform Eurovan, with style that recalls al Bus of the years 50 and 60 that walks over there still. While the New Bettle is built in Mexico and is sold, mainly in North America, VW build the bus in Europe, where is probable that obtain but sales that the compact one. VW plans to build 80 thousand Buses yearly for the world consumption, what is equal to the sales of the New Bettle in the United States. The production began in Hannover (Germany) in 2005 and around two third of this will be assigned to the sales of North America. " The future looks bright for you Nellie!!!! Don't give up!

Crystal

You're a star, Crystal! :star: Thank you!! You made my day.

I agree with paying for value. I think that around $30K for a loaded Odyssey EX w/ leather sounds good -- you might want to ask Dagny what they paid.

I love my Volvo V70. It has a 3rd seat to seat 7. The third row is for older children (ages 5-10) and under 100 lbs. We have built in booster seats. We get good gas mileage for something so big (about 30). Of course, DH wants a hybrid or a biodiesal which would get even better gas mileage.