Road Tests: Long-Term Test

Video highlights of this vehicle

Corvettes. Porsche 911s. Hummers. A dishwasher. Out of all the different types of vehicles we drive, the minivan comes closest to being a household appliance. There's no passion or excitement about ownership, just an expectation of utility and trouble-free use. Fill it with 87 octane, load up the kids and drive off to the grocery. Pure brainless transport. With its white paint, our new Dodge Caravan certainly fits the bill. Or does it?

We gave our Caravan to Senior Editor Brent Romans this month. He's probably not the best editor on our staff to evaluate a minivan, since he doesn't have any kids. Or a wife. Or a dog. Or much furniture. But he does drive just about every vehicle that comes into our offices, and he piloted our long-term Honda Odyssey last month. Oh, and he also says he once drew a minivan on an Etch-A-Sketch. Hmm. Well, for better or for worse, his commentary follows.

While it might be an appliance, Brent says it's at least a luxurious appliance. He found the exterior styling to be rather pleasing, actually. The tinted windows and chrome wheels add a bit of class to this minivan, and the overall styling is pretty sporty for a minivan. Of the minivans currently on the market, Brent says he prefers the styling of the Caravan and Odyssey.

During his commute, Brent found time to evaluate the interior. The amount of feature content impressed him, specifically the leather seating, automatic headlights, power doors/mirrors/locks, automatic climate control, seat heaters and moveable center console. The console's flip-out cell phone holder earned a thumbs up, as it held his Nokia 6160 perfectly. And while this van can't be ordered with a navigation system, it does have a compass mounted in the rearview mirror, a feature Brent used on a couple of occasions. He also really liked the audio controls mounted on the steering wheel, saying that they are perfectly placed on the back of the wheel and are easy to use.

Mr. Romans found the ergonomics to be disappointing. The main offender is the parking brake release. It is mounted underneath the dash near the hood release and requires the driver to stretch down in order to pull the release handle. The type of parking brake that releases by pressing down harder on the pedal is much easier to use. Brent also commented negatively about the fussy climate controls and the driver seat armrest that gets in the way of the seatbelt buckle when it is folded down.

Contributing Editor Erin Riches, who drove the Caravan for a couple days, echoed Brent's complaints in the vehicle's logbook: "The center stack controls can be difficult to manipulate in the dark if you aren't entirely familiar with them," she says. "The climate controls are the main problem, because the power and temperature adjustment buttons are small and fussy."

She also offered up some comments about the driving experience: "If I were looking for a minivan and I didn't have to consider rear seat accommodations or price, I would always choose the Grand Caravan over the Odyssey. The Dodge's seats are so supportive and extremely adjustable. The transmission also makes better use of the engine's power (merging onto the freeway is a lot easier) and the Infinity sound system with in-dash changer ensures a happy environment. It also feels smaller and more maneuverable than the Odyssey, and it steers neatly, too, though there is some extra play in the wheel that occasionally makes it a bit difficult to place when coming around a curve."

Earlier updates contained comments about Chrysler's new power-operated liftgate. Unlike some other members of our staff, Brent actually found the power liftgate to be useful. "There's no question that it's rather gimmicky," says Brent. "And most of the time, you don't need it. But one night I was unloading grocery bags from the rear. The bags were attached to the bag holders on the back of the third-row seat. I had about six plastic bags full of stuff, enough for both arms to be full once I was done pulling them all out. Normally, I would have had to put down one hand's worth of bags in order to close the liftgate and lock up the vehicle. This would be a major pain since I park on the street outside my house. But since I had the key fob handy, I just hit the button and it closed automatically."

Most of the time, Brent just used the Dodge to haul himself around, but he did use it once to take a futon mattress to a local recycling center. He says that a disappearing third-row seat would have made the trip a lot easier. As it was, he didn't have a place to store the third-row seats, so he just flipped them forward to maximize cargo space. That provided enough space for the mattress, but Brent says he would have preferred to have the Odyssey for this particular task.

Our final comments revolve around a mystery. During a stretch of a few days when nobody drove the Caravan, a large dent on the passenger-side rear quarter-panel mysteriously appeared. No Edmunds.com employee confessed to hitting anything. The red paint marks were inconsistent with contact from another vehicle, and our office's parking structure has only gray and yellow poles. Even weirder, the Caravan's front brakes became warped over this period of time. The possibility exists that somebody took our Caravan out for a bit of a joy ride, but there's no way of confirming. All we know is that our van has a dent on the side and warped brakes. Oh well. At least the Caravan is official now. If you're a frequent reader of our long-term updates, you'll know that no Edmunds vehicle is complete without some sort of body damage that we didn't cause ourselves.

We hope to have these issues addressed next month. Until then, happy motoring!

Current Odometer: 3,325
Best Fuel Economy: 18.5 mpg
Worst Fuel Economy: 16.1 mpg
Average Fuel Economy (over life of the vehicle): 17.2 mpg
Body Repair Costs: None
Maintenance Costs: None
Problems: Warped brake rotors