Best Used Van

Baby #3 is expected to come first week in June. My husband is a full time unemployed student and I am a SAHM. Too sum up, we live on student loans and are very strapped financially. Our car only seats 4...it's technically a 5 seater but don't get me started.
Our car has been totaled twice so I know for a fact it's not worth much.
What is the best older van? I know that's pretty generic but we don't have any specific needs except 5 seatbelts, doors that open and close, and 4 tires - LOL
My husband would love something more along the lines of a Chevy Astro or GMC Safari...in other words, something on a truck chassis.
What should I be looking for safety wise? Any years to avoid certain vans?

Look for top tethers for the kids seating positions and any positions you may want to put a harnessed car seat someday. Some older vans don't have top tethers or not enough of them to be useful. Some vans don't have them but they can be put in for free or less than $20. Some can't have them added.
Check the seat belts (all of them) before buying and make sure they work and see if they lock.

Honestly, unless you are planning to have more kids, you will get more for your money if you get a family sedan rather than a van. Vans are just more expensive for comparable quality/age/mileage, because they are bigger. And they typically get worse gas mileage than smaller cars as well.

I have found that msn autos is a good source of information when researching used cars. You can search by make/model, and they list cars by their model years and give reliability information for each year, as well as lots of info about features, crash test results, and so on. One thing that is lacking is information about LATCH (location/number of lower anchors and top tethers), but if you can find a vehicle manual online, that should be in there, so you can check it out before you actually go to look at a vehicle.

If you go to autotrader.com and search for minivans (or cars in general) in your price range, you can figure out what your options are and then research the reliability/safety/etc aspects of the various vehicles and decide which ones you're interested in.

I don't think a van is a practical option in your case. With the right carseats you can fit 3 across many sedans. What are you currently driving and what carseats are you using? How old are your kids? What are their height, weight and, if possible, torso heights? A van is going to be far less fuel efficient than a car (which will add up considerably in your costs) plus the vehicle itself will cost more to purchase. Depending on the vehicle some people here may have suggestions that would allow you to keep your current car with a third kid and put off this purchase at least temporarily.

I know I've fit a few different seats 3 across in my mother in law's 2007 civic and my sister's 2002 would also fit 3 across easily (having put 2 in many times and fit an adult very comfortably with them). I would look into

Her car is a Suzuki Grand Vitara. It's tiny. There is no way 3 seats of any kind will fit in there. There is only a few inches between her kids seats, which are both outboard. Her kids are in a Roundabout 50 and a Maestro. Her infant seat is a Keyfit. She's planning to have more than 3 kids too.

I'd honestly look for private sales, even on Craigslist; maybe someone would be willing to do a partial trade who wants a small SUV in trade for a minivan or even full-size sedan. If you get a full-size sedan now, you could start saving for a larger vehicle before you have a fourth.

Also, we found when buying our van that the guy that sold to us was more willing to bargain when I was there with my almost 8 month pregnant belly and small children...

Holly said:

Her car is a Suzuki Grand Vitara. It's tiny. There is no way 3 seats of any kind will fit in there. There is only a few inches between her kids seats, which are both outboard. Her kids are in a Roundabout 50 and a Maestro. Her infant seat is a Keyfit. She's planning to have more than 3 kids too.

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You are incorrect. You CAN do a 3 across in a Vitara.

I had a Suzuki Vitara as our only vehicle when we had the girls. We had a FPSVD & 2 flex locs (baseless, they didn't fit when the base was use).

Recently we just had 2 RNs & a Vivo.

LuckyFins3Lil'Fish said:

You are incorrect. You CAN do a 3 across in a Vitara.

I had a Suzuki Vitara as our only vehicle when we had the girls. We had a FPSVD & 2 flex locs (baseless, they didn't fit when the base was use).

Recently we just had 2 RNs & a Vivo.

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Given that someone here has had success with this vehicle, I would try that to get more time before making a vehicle purchase under the circumstances. Otherwise, I would try to get a sedan (civics fit 3 across well) to save on gas while your husband is in school and try to make that work as long as possible.

She'd have to get all new seats to try to make it work. Her keyfit won't install baseless in there and her Maestro won't install without LATCH so it can't be scooted more towards the door to free up some space. The seats are both outboard but so close to each other that she couldn't even fit a briefcase between them. She's tried a lot of combinations with her seats, some of Anne's seats, and a radian she used to have.

Holly said:

She'd have to get all new seats to try to make it work. Her keyfit won't install baseless in there and her Maestro won't install without LATCH so it can't be scooted more towards the door to free up some space. The seats are both outboard but so close to each other that she couldn't even fit a briefcase between them. She's tried a lot of combinations with her seats, some of Anne's seats, and a radian she used to have.

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I can't imagine she could get a larger vehicle for less than the cost of 3 new seats. It may be possible to puzzle one or two of her old seats in with a radian or two (or she may need three radians to fit), and radians go for about $250 (so about $750 max, add in a bit for taxes, and possibly shipping). I'm not sure what reliable larger vehicle they'll get for $800 including taxes, tags, inspection and other start-up costs for a vehicle. Just a thought that in their case she may want to explore any and all options to avoid the costs of a new vehicle.

I'm glad Holly responds for me since I've had a crazy day
You can't fit Radians RF in our car very well at all. I had to turn the boys FF pretty early because of this problem. In fact, I borrowed a seat from KetchupQueen so my son could RF longer. There isn't much of any room to RF anything actually. When we had to have the infant seat I had to put it behind mine (the passenger) seat because my 6'1 husband has to have his seat all the way back. With that I had my knee tucked awkward under the dash and my face inches from the dash airbag.
I was curious about arranging and tried the three seats we have in every way possible. There is a small hump in the middle so it was very difficult to FF a seat there and I can't put the RF there because it interferes with the drivers seat.
It's an extremely poorly designed vehicle.
We have a 2002 Suzuki Grand Vitara that has been wrecked about 5 times and deemed totaled 2 more times. It has served us well but I wonder how safe it is anymore. The windshield never got replaced after we rolled it the last time. The seatbelts look frayed to me. It's just a nightmare of a car with 2 kids I can't imagine with 3. Talking about the non-cargo room. With the seats tethered in the back we have to unhook them to fit the double stroller or any luggage in there. I'm grateful we have it but it's just not practical anymore.
My FIL works in an auto body garage so I have options to talk to him and he'll be on the lookout for a totaled car and fix it up for at cost. We can walk away with something for $1000 or less. I just need to know if I should ask him to be on the lookout for anything specific.
I'm not too stressed. We live in a small town and walk everywhere anyway. I could walk home from the hospital if I have to. LOL
A random sad side story about our car. We were having a girl babysit one night. I went to pick her up and she couldn't fit in the car. She's on the taller and larger side. I had the KeyFit in there behind the passenger seat. She couldn't even get her legs in. She didn't fit on the seat at all. We ended up driving home slow while she held the door as closed as she could.

With that update that makes a lot more sense! I will say that with the new diono angle adjuster you might be surprised. My 6' husband can now drive our beetle with a RF radian behind him!

But if you can get something that will meet your needs for $1000 or less that will make more sense. Unless you have connections like that you'll never get a reliable vehicle that cheap. In that case, I would probably look into minivans over full sized vans just due to gas mileage. My sister has a 1992 dodge van of some sort and it gets 13 mpg, whereas a minivan will get you closer to 20.

Since you have kids, you also want to look at having lap shoulder belts for once you have kids in boosters instead of harnesses (lap only belts are very dangerous and are incompatible with booster seats) and headrests in as many seating positions as possible since once children are in backless boosters they will need headrests (and some boosters require them in high back mode). Also, if seatbelts have been used in an accident or are over about 15 years you'll want to replace them with new seatbelts.

Oh yeah, that's another downside to our car. It came without the headrests in back. So I guess it wouldn't work anyway after a few years. Although my peanut kids will be in a full harness for a long time. Not sure on height but both weigh 30lbs at ages two and three.
By the way - I applaud LuckyFin and am amazed you were able to get three seats to fit in a Grand Vitara - wow!

beetlemama said:

Since you have kids, you also want to look at having lap shoulder belts for once you have kids in boosters instead of harnesses (lap only belts are very dangerous and are incompatible with booster seats) and headrests in as many seating positions as possible since once children are in backless boosters they will need headrests (and some boosters require them in high back mode). Also, if seatbelts have been used in an accident or are over about 15 years you'll want to replace them with new seatbelts.

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I agree with this too!
Lap/shoulder belts
Headrests in many (if not all), positions
Top tether anchors and enough of them (or the ability to have them added).

When we were looking into getting a van in October, I vetoed anything that had a position with a lap only belt or without headrests. I knew that once we had more space, we'd be transporting more kids around, and we are. We drive a neighbor girl to school and give a ride to two other girls after school. If we'd gotten a van without head rests or with a lap only belt, I wouldn't be able to safely drive them.

Our van is a Toyota Sienna, 8 passenger. The middle and third row seats all have a top tether except for the 3rd row driver's side. I can't put a harnessed seat there unless it's untethered which I don't want to do. It's not a problem for me because we put Hannah's booster there and there are tether anchors everywhere else, but before buying, I made sure I knew what locations had anchors and I mapped out who could go where.

My cousin has a really old van, it seats 8 people. The middle of the 2nd and 3rd row are lap only belts. She babysat my kids once and took them home in her van. We put the two harnessed kids there and it was fine, the other kids had lap/shoulder belts. But once my kids get older, they will no longer be able to all go with her because it won't be safe to have anyone without a shoulder belt.

I much prefer an Ody or a Sienna for safety. If you have that much of a choice. Of course, if you'll be doing salvage, you'll need to make sure all seatbelts are replaced, and you'll want to check tether anchors for deformation to see if they need replacing (and lower anchors for that matter, to make sure they don't show any stress- if they do, don't use them.) Text me any time to run number/location of TAs on a given van by me, I'll happily look them up for you.