How important are power sliding doors? Are they a must-have? I'm having trouble finding that option in my price range. Should I hold out for finding one with power doors, or settle for manual doors?
It's the feature I like most in my minivan honestly.
Eta: But I have two babies so being able to open the doors with the push of a button while carrying two babies is huge! or open the doors while approaching the car etc So J can hop in while I am strapping a baby in on the other side.
We have had a minivan for 3 years and are currently looking at highlanders. The power doors are the one thing I will miss on the minivan. I LOVE them. Hold out if you can.
Post by CrazyLucky on May 26, 2015 11:02:21 GMT -5
We have the power sliding doors and they are so great. We don't have the power lift for the backdoor, but it's not too hard to live without. The power sliding doors though, I'd hate to not have them.
Post by DarcyLongfellow on May 26, 2015 11:06:25 GMT -5
Hold out for them. The only requirement for our minivan that I insisted on to DH was power sliding doors. And now he agrees I was right. I LOVE being able to pull up in the carpool lane, push a button, and let DD out. She can't figure out how to open even a regular door on her own, so she wouldn't have a prayer of opening a sliding door that wasn't power.
I'm only two weeks into minivan ownership but I love the power sliding doors. I imagine holding B's hand plus the infant carrier and my purse and how the hell am I going to get the door open without B running into traffic? Oh look, it's open, climb right in.
To be honest I didn't even know they still made minivans without power sliding doors.
Yup they do, lots of them. Minivans are expensive guys!! Our budget is $20K, which gets us a 2012 Odyssey with roughly 50K miles. I can get non-power doors for that price, power doors cost another $3-4K which is more than we want to pay.
The price of a van is a hard adjustment. I got my Prius brand new in 2007 fully loaded for $23K. It's hard to stomach paying roughly the same amount for a car that's already 4 model years old and 50K miles. But it sounds like power sliding doors are very important!
Also, @supergreen, we just bought ours a week ago and did a ton of shopping, research, test driving, etc. I'm sure you have, too, but let me know if you have questions!
I love mine too. I can't tell you how many times I've had my hands full (usually w/ groceries) and would have to put everything down in order to open the car. But w/ the power doors - I can either open the door from a little bit of distance or if I keep my keys in my hand while piling bags onto my arm - as I approach, I can easily hit the button w/ my thumb and we're all good.
I seriously want a power lift gate w/ our next car!!
To be honest I didn't even know they still made minivans without power sliding doors.
I know! I have a pretty base model Odyssey, but clearly not as base as I thought. I don't have any bells or whistles on my van at all but we have power doors.
I'm only two weeks into minivan ownership but I love the power sliding doors. I imagine holding B's hand plus the infant carrier and my purse and how the hell am I going to get the door open without B running into traffic? Oh look, it's open, climb right in.
Exactly. Right now I have to set DD's infant seat on the nasty parking lot ground, let DS in and buckle him in, go round and click DD's seat in. All the while my purse is sliding off my shoulder and bumping into everything. And DS always rummaging around the car for something (toy, water, sunglasses) and I'm like GET IN YOUR SEAT, can't you see DD is on the freakin' GROUND here?
I want my minivan! C'mon dealers, just knock off a few thousand and sell me a car!
To be honest I didn't even know they still made minivans without power sliding doors.
Yup they do, lots of them. Minivans are expensive guys!! Our budget is $20K, which gets us a 2012 Odyssey with roughly 50K miles. I can get non-power doors for that price, power doors cost another $3-4K which is more than we want to pay.
The price of a van is a hard adjustment. I got my Prius brand new in 2007 fully loaded for $23K. It's hard to stomach paying roughly the same amount for a car that's already 4 model years old and 50K miles. But it sounds like power sliding doors are very important!
The Odyssey has crazy-good resale value, and we found that it was difficult to find good used ones.
Have you tried the Toyota? I liked the Honda a bit more, but there were a lot more Toyotas on the market. I was able to find some newer but higher mileage vans with nice features around that price point.
We ended up with a new Kia, which will be higher than your target price, but the new model is SO NICE.
Also, @supergreen, we just bought ours a week ago and did a ton of shopping, research, test driving, etc. I'm sure you have, too, but let me know if you have questions!
Thanks! We're really limited by our budget of $20k. That gets us a too old Sienna, like a 2010. We don't want a car that old, that's not much better than the 2007 Prius we already have as our "family car." The Mazda5 is too small. Looks like the domestic minivans (town & country, dodge whatever) have reliability issues and cruddy resale value (no offense if you bought one of those!). So we've narrowed our sights on an Odyssey, a 2012 is the newest model in our price range. As I said earlier, I can get the lowest LX trim level for $20K, but an EX with power sliding doors is around $24K. None of the dealers I've contacted so far will come down. Any advice?
Virginia. Trust me, I've looked at every Odyssey within driving distance. All the dealers are very consistent with their pricing and they won't budge. I'm trying to temper my enthusiasm for wanting a minivan RIGHT NOW with waiting to find the right one Based on this thread, I should wait longer to find one with power doors in our price range. I may have to settle for higher mileage to get it
To be honest I didn't even know they still made minivans without power sliding doors.
I know! I have a pretty base model Odyssey, but clearly not as base as I thought. I don't have any bells or whistles on my van at all but we have power doors.
Yup you have an EX then. There are plenty of base level LX ones without power doors.
This is a long shot but I'll mention it. When you look at dealership ads - look at high end car dealerships. We got our van from a BMW dealership and we feel we got a GOOD deal on it. I think they just wanted it off their lot. Then last year, friends of our just happened to do the same thing - got their van from a BMW dealership. They also feel they got a good deal.
Yup they do, lots of them. Minivans are expensive guys!! Our budget is $20K, which gets us a 2012 Odyssey with roughly 50K miles. I can get non-power doors for that price, power doors cost another $3-4K which is more than we want to pay.
The price of a van is a hard adjustment. I got my Prius brand new in 2007 fully loaded for $23K. It's hard to stomach paying roughly the same amount for a car that's already 4 model years old and 50K miles. But it sounds like power sliding doors are very important!
The Odyssey has crazy-good resale value, and we found that it was difficult to find good used ones.
Have you tried the Toyota? I liked the Honda a bit more, but there were a lot more Toyotas on the market. I was able to find some newer but higher mileage vans with nice features around that price point.
We ended up with a new Kia, which will be higher than your target price, but the new model is SO NICE.
Yup that's why we're looking at the Odyssey, good resale value. The Toyota Sienna is too expensive, our budget would get us a 2010 or so, which is not much newer than the 2007 Prius we already have. I don't want to go older than 2012, that's already 4 model years old. I need this van to last all the way through our kid's young years, at least 8 years.
To be honest I didn't even know they still made minivans without power sliding doors.
Yup they do, lots of them. Minivans are expensive guys!!
I know, I have one. We did lots of research and test drives before buying ours. There were some things we weren't willing to compromise on like leather, back up camera and some other features. In the end we went with a fully loaded Chrysler Town and Country. I don't care for the Odyssey and while nice, the Sienna was more than we wanted to spend with little ones that would inevitably get it dirty and all. I love the stow 'n go feature that the Chrysler has. I think we got out the door for a little over $20k if I remember correctly. Ours was a year old with something like 25,000 miles on it.
Virginia. Trust me, I've looked at every Odyssey within driving distance. All the dealers are very consistent with their pricing and they won't budge. I'm trying to temper my enthusiasm for wanting a minivan RIGHT NOW with waiting to find the right one Based on this thread, I should wait longer to find one with power doors in our price range. I may have to settle for higher mileage to get it
If you end up being interested in a dodge or chrysler PM me. We got our 2014 caravan in Nov 2014 with less than 20k miles on it at an awesome dealership near my hometown. It's in NY state near so my mom actually drove it down to me- their deals are that good. I did everything from NC- they overnighted my paperwork and it was the easiest car buying experience ever. It's 6h45 from Richmond- no idea if that is near you but to give you an idea on location.