I have an SUV right now and thinking about getting rid of it. The size is a bit awkward (feels like a tall sedan to me) and think a minivan is the best way to go as I’ve got two young kids and could use the power doors and extra space for road trips. I have a 2005 Pilot now and it drives fine, but the doors are starting to drive me nuts as I always need to find bigger parking spots. I grew up in a small sedan and know I could probably live with that, but think life would simply be easier in a minivan.
I’ve been looking at the Odyssey and Sienna and looking to spend ~15k ish. Around this price I’m leaning more towards the Sienna as I’ve heard of transmission issues with the older Odyssey.
My price range I’m looking at:
$15k for a 2010+ model at ~90-100k miles OR
$10k for a 2000+ model at 100-120k miles
I can fix most things on my own (spark plugs, oil changes, brakes etc…) but would never touch things like suspensions/exhausts/tires mostly because I don’t have the space/equipment.
I can probably sell my SUV for 5k easily, so I’m looking at spending another 5-10k on the minivan. Is it even worth buying used at this point, or should I buy something new in a few years and drive it to the ground? My concerns are long term reliability as I usually drive cars up to 150k miles and sell it off before a catastrophic failure, and the fact that everything is moving to hybrid/electric.
Typing this out about spending ~5k on a similarly aged minivan is making me re-think this and instead just save the money and live with the SUV (we did get a great deal on it…). Any thoughts?