WWYD - Vehicle budget buster

[nilseks]

I would like some opinions from you thrifty folks!

Right now I have a 7 year-old Dodge Grand Caravan that was bought used, still making payments on it. From the day we bought it, it has just been the biggest lemon ever. Without going into all the sordid details, it is just absolutely horrible. We could not enact the lemon law on it b/c we bought it used, but the dealer did send it back to Chrysler for 2 weeks at one point because it kept dying and nobody could fix it (still happens occasionally). It has been in the shop countless times, and cost us tons of money. We have a friend that is a mechanic so he gives us a break on repairs, but of course we do not expect him to give his time for free and we still have to pay for parts. It has about 80k miles on it. About a month ago we put $1k worth of work into it, yet again. It would have been $2k if we had anyone else do it, but like I said our friend gives us a break. Here we are one month later and a week ago I realized it was leaking all over the garage floor again.

I am just DONE with this vehicle. I'm so over it, I'm tired of pouring money into it left and right. My gut reaction when I saw that it was leaking again was to just cut our losses and buy something new. I have been looking at the new Kia Sportage. We could essentially break even on the trade with the dealer and our payment would end up being about $100/month more than what we currently pay for the lemon. I think we can swing the extra $100 without feeling the pinch too much, and I would have a 10 year warranty and finally be able to stop worrying about paying for repairs alllll the time. A big part of me wants to do this but I am not 100% sure if it's the right thing to do.

What would you do?

 

[pixiewings71]

Well I have a Dodge Grand Caravan SXT and it runs great.....but that's a different thing than what you were asking...I think that I would have already gotten rid of it! lol That's why we got rid of the van we had before this one, it was constantly having problems (it was a 96 iirc, maybe 98) and we were putting more into repairs than made sense..it was paid for but we were still fixing things left and right. So we bought the '05 that we currently have. I think if I was you and I could afford it then yes, I'd get rid of the minivan and get something new. As for Kia's, we also have an '09 Spectra and we LOVE it!!!! It's a great car, runs great and we have no complaints at all. I love that they have the long warranty, that makes it easy to decide to go with Kia, at least for me it does.

 

[nilseks]

So glad to hear another vote for Kia...since I have started looking, I have heard many many positive things from Kia owners. Our mechanic recommended that we look into Kia, otherwise I honestly probably would not have thought of that. I have always been a Honda/Toyota gal. Before we had this van my husband had a Dodge Stratus and it was great. Drove it into the ground and never had a problem, so that's we we decided on Dodge for a van. That was one of the worst decisions we ever made. I truly believe it is just this particular van that is a lemon, because I we used and abused my husband's Stratus and it ran like a champ. But after this you could not pay me to ever have another Dodge!

I absolutely love the Sportage and the superficial/material part of me wants to buy it very badly. But I'm having a hard time with getting rid of a car that's not yet paid off, even though we could pretty much break even. My husband wants to sell it outright so we can make more $$$, but I would feel bad saddling some other family with this terrible car. I do NOT feel bad trading it in though, since it would be to the same dealer chain that sold it to us in the first place (same chain, different location).

 

[Anne34]

I would like some opinions from you thrifty folks!

Right now I have a 7 year-old Dodge Grand Caravan that was bought used, still making payments on it. From the day we bought it, it has just been the biggest lemon ever. Without going into all the sordid details, it is just absolutely horrible. We could not enact the lemon law on it b/c we bought it used, but the dealer did send it back to Chrysler for 2 weeks at one point because it kept dying and nobody could fix it (still happens occasionally). It has been in the shop countless times, and cost us tons of money. We have a friend that is a mechanic so he gives us a break on repairs, but of course we do not expect him to give his time for free and we still have to pay for parts. It has about 80k miles on it. About a month ago we put $1k worth of work into it, yet again. It would have been $2k if we had anyone else do it, but like I said our friend gives us a break. Here we are one month later and a week ago I realized it was leaking all over the garage floor again.

I am just DONE with this vehicle. I'm so over it, I'm tired of pouring money into it left and right. My gut reaction when I saw that it was leaking again was to just cut our losses and buy something new. I have been looking at the new Kia Sportage. We could essentially break even on the trade with the dealer and our payment would end up being about $100/month more than what we currently pay for the lemon. I think we can swing the extra $100 without feeling the pinch too much, and I would have a 10 year warranty and finally be able to stop worrying about paying for repairs alllll the time. A big part of me wants to do this but I am not 100% sure if it's the right thing to do.

What would you do?

This is one of the reasons my husband refused to buy a used car. We used to have a Dodge Durango and it was fine, but this one sounds horrible.

I probably would get the Kia just for the peace of mind of having a reliable vehicle. If the $100/month is doable I would not hesitate.

 

[cmwade77]

Ok, this is something that I know a bit about. A little over a month ago our car was hit by a drunk driver while it was parked in front of our house. He hit it with such force that it shoved it up on the side walk, broke the passenger front wheel, broke the brake drum clean in half and destroyed the driver's side. It was totaled (we have been paid out for it, but are still waiting on rental car reimbursement). Anyway, way more back story than is needed. We looked around at various cars. We found that in many cases used cars are more expensive right now than a new car of the same model (Clark Howard explained on his show the other day that this is because of there being fewer used cars out ther due to things like cash for clunkers and people holding onto their cars longer, funny though that we had just figured it out ourselves a couple weeks earlier). We ended up choosing the Ford Fiesta, it is surprisingly roomy inside (depends on your needs though) and the 29/39 MPG is worth it. (We actually are getting about 32/42 mpg though, after the first 1,000 miles. It should be noted that the first 1,000 miles will get worse mileage though and it seems to constantly improve after that.) Add to that the low price and we did really well. Now as for warranty, the finance company paid for an extended warranty (yes, I am sure that this is factored into the breeder rate, but there is no prepayment penalty, since weplan to pay it off faster, they will make less interest), so our warranty is bumper to bumper for 6 years or 72,000 miles. Another reason we decided on the Fiesta was the crash ratings were really good and the features that it comes with are great for a $16,000 car.

I would definitely get rid of the lemon, but make sure that you check out the mileage, safety ratings and that it iis comfortabe for you. Maybe even rent the model of car you are thinking about getting for a week.

 

[nilseks]

Thanks, cmwade. You are so right. And one of the reasons I'm looking at the Sportage is the great mpg and it has the highest safety rating of any Crossover. Also rated highest by Consumer Reports. The dealer has offered to let us take it for a day or two. Feeling more and more like this is the right thing to do.

 

[Schotz]

I would like some opinions from you thrifty folks!

Right now I have a 7 year-old Dodge Grand Caravan that was bought used, still making payments on it. From the day we bought it, it has just been the biggest lemon ever. Without going into all the sordid details, it is just absolutely horrible. We could not enact the lemon law on it b/c we bought it used, but the dealer did send it back to Chrysler for 2 weeks at one point because it kept dying and nobody could fix it (still happens occasionally). It has been in the shop countless times, and cost us tons of money. We have a friend that is a mechanic so he gives us a break on repairs, but of course we do not expect him to give his time for free and we still have to pay for parts. It has about 80k miles on it. About a month ago we put $1k worth of work into it, yet again. It would have been $2k if we had anyone else do it, but like I said our friend gives us a break. Here we are one month later and a week ago I realized it was leaking all over the garage floor again.

I am just DONE with this vehicle. I'm so over it, I'm tired of pouring money into it left and right. My gut reaction when I saw that it was leaking again was to just cut our losses and buy something new. I have been looking at the new Kia Sportage. We could essentially break even on the trade with the dealer and our payment would end up being about $100/month more than what we currently pay for the lemon. I think we can swing the extra $100 without feeling the pinch too much, and I would have a 10 year warranty and finally be able to stop worrying about paying for repairs alllll the time. A big part of me wants to do this but I am not 100% sure if it's the right thing to do.

What would you do?

Send a letter to the holding company, with a copy to the dealership, with what you wrote here. Get the vehicle checked by an ASE cert mechanic to find what the leak is from and the cost to fix it. If it's not affordable, have the vehicle voluntarily repossessed if you owe more than the car is worth.

The wrong thing to do is what I am doing with my 1995 chevy lemon. After 300,000 miles and 16 years it begins to leak. It has never leaked anything ever. Why should it breakdown now? When I don't have the time or the money to fix it? The water pump is bad and it leaks 2 gallons of water every 30 minutes. All I'm doing is just keep adding water, I wouldn't suggest you do that as it's not safe. Some vehicles will ruin your day. Next vehicle I get won't be a chevy.

 

[mrodgers]

The wrong thing to do is what I am doing with my 1995 chevy lemon. After 300,000 miles and 16 years it begins to leak.

Your car is a lemon because the water pump leaks after 300,000 miles and 16 years?

You got 300k miles on a Chevy! That's about as far from a lemon as you can get.

 

[Janet Hill]

Huge fan of Kia with one major exception. We have an Optima and my father has a Sedona and the cars of been very good and reliable. What is not reliable is the service work done by the dealership. Between my father and me we have used 6 different dealerships in 3 different states for minor stuff and so far they have all sucked.

Everytime we've taken our Kia to the dealership, my husband has had to fix their repairs. My husband generally does all of our repair work anyway, we were just strapped for time and it ended up costing more money and time in the end.

That said I will buy another Kia in the future as the price is very good as are their safety records. I love my Optima - I hate the every Kia dealership, I've ever been to.

 

[Mickeyluver37]

I was where you were about 10 years ago. I will never buy another Chrysler minivan again. We also bought the van 2 years old, and ended up replacing the transmission 3 times, as well of a plethora of other problems, including electrical. Then the A/C died when we still had about a year of payments, and I had enough, so we traded it in slightly upside down. (It was a 96, bought in 97, traded in 2001.) Oh, and we fought Chrysler on some of it, as we bought it used from a dealer and found out their vans were notorious for transmission problems. There solution? They gave us half off on repairs as long as we had it done at their dealer- nevermind the fact that they cost twice as much as everyone else, so it was a non-savings.

I don't know much about Kia except that they don't retain their value well. I bought a brand new 2005 Toyota Sienna in 2005 and am one payment away from owning it outright. It has over 120K miles on it and we've still never had a single problem with it, and had bought the extended warranty on Day 1, just in case. What we traded the Crapavan in for in 2001 was a 2001 Honda Civic, which is also going strong with no problems- it's 10 years old! After owning several American cars, I didn't know there was such thing as having something paid off that actually still runs.

We're actually looking into buying another car soon and keep coming to the conclusion that we should just get another Sienna. We had to buy something we could afford at the time we bought that Caravan, but in the long run, buying a used American car when we had to finance it wasn't the smartest financial decision. So yes, if I were you, I'd unload it and not look back!!

 

[PA DISNEYLOVER]

We have 2010 Dodge Grand caravan and we are having the exact same problem. It has been in the shop 70 days this years. It just randomly doesn't start. Chryslers answer is "Your not starting it right". AARRGGHH extremely frustrated.

I would go with getting something else. GoodLuck.

 

[timmac]

Just wanted to add another vote for Kia. DXW has a Sedona that I purchased when we were still together (a 2006 model) that has had basically nothing go wrong with it outside of a set of brake pads and standard oil changes... all typical wear stuff.

I have a 2007 Kia Rio, now with 160k miles on it; I've had to replace the starter, the clutch, one dead battery, a set of brake pads, and several sets of tires. Only the starter is something I wouldn't consider a wear item, so I'm pretty happy.

I'd definitely recommend Kia to anyone.

 

[Marymom]

I would get a new car. The van is just not worth the time and frustration of having to send it to the shop every month.

 

[seashoreCM]

Once a part is replaced, that part should perform "as good as new".

If you leave the radiator cap loose, a leaky water pump won't leak as fast and you can go farther before having to stop and pour more water in.

have the vehicle voluntarily repossessed if you owe more than the car is worth.

Don't do this without advice from an attorney, which for all intents and purposes means don't do this. You will be sued for the difference between what the vehicle fetched at an auction and the outstanding balance plus penalties plus fees.

 

[okeydokey]

Our Dodge Caravan also was horrible. Never again. We bought a Honda Pilot and LOVE it.

 

[jmunutt]

Here's another vote for replacing the minivan with the Kia Sportage. I think that I would have traded in a long time ago, I like my vehicles to be reliable and it sounds like yours isn't. I bought a 2011 Kia Sportage two months ago and I love it. I test drove every crossover out there and kept coming back to Kia. I'm glad I bought it and plan on keeping it for a long time. Funny thing, because of the great safety ratings, my insurance dropped when I bought the Kia. Not by a lot, but every little bit helps.

Good luck with your decision!

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

I'd say trade it in. If you're planning on driving your Kia until the wheels fall off, then not holding their value isn't material to your calculations. Depreciation really only factors in when you're a corporation, or plan on trading in vehicles every 3 - 5 years. Otherwise, if you're like us, and you drive 'till they just won't drive any more, get the one you like. I would ask the dealer for service references, just to see if they're as much of a dud as the PP has found.

 

[tarheel618]

I would like some opinions from you thrifty folks!

Right now I have a 7 year-old Dodge Grand Caravan that was bought used, still making payments on it. From the day we bought it, it has just been the biggest lemon ever. Without going into all the sordid details, it is just absolutely horrible. We could not enact the lemon law on it b/c we bought it used, but the dealer did send it back to Chrysler for 2 weeks at one point because it kept dying and nobody could fix it (still happens occasionally). It has been in the shop countless times, and cost us tons of money. We have a friend that is a mechanic so he gives us a break on repairs, but of course we do not expect him to give his time for free and we still have to pay for parts. It has about 80k miles on it. About a month ago we put $1k worth of work into it, yet again. It would have been $2k if we had anyone else do it, but like I said our friend gives us a break. Here we are one month later and a week ago I realized it was leaking all over the garage floor again.

I am just DONE with this vehicle. I'm so over it, I'm tired of pouring money into it left and right. My gut reaction when I saw that it was leaking again was to just cut our losses and buy something new. I have been looking at the new Kia Sportage. We could essentially break even on the trade with the dealer and our payment would end up being about $100/month more than what we currently pay for the lemon. I think we can swing the extra $100 without feeling the pinch too much, and I would have a 10 year warranty and finally be able to stop worrying about paying for repairs alllll the time. A big part of me wants to do this but I am not 100% sure if it's the right thing to do.

What would you do?

I could have written this exact post 3 months ago. Same vehicle, same problems, just a money pit. I was six months from paying it off and finally just had enough. We traded for a Nissan Rogue. I will never own a Dodge again ever! I can not tell you how relieved I am to be rid of that van, even though I have a new payment, I am 100 times happier not dealing with that piece of crap.

 

[spacemountainmom]

I don't know about all these bad Mopars. I used to drive a 96 Grand Caravan and I loved it. We bought it in 2000 with 80,000 miles on it. We did replace the tranny at 120,000 miles, but our mechanic warned us about that issue before we bought it. We got such a great deal that it was worth spending the money on the transmission. We ended up selling it in 2006 with 165,000 miles on it to a friend's dad. He is still driving it in 2011.

I know a lot of people who drive or have driven Dodge vans and never heard of one with so many issues. I am sorry you are having such a headache and would agree that you should get rid of it.

 

[disneyofcourse]

Trade that sucker in! You've put up with it for way too long.