Minivan Shopping: Which Would Be Safer/Better?

This is a heck of a first post, but here it is, in a nutshell.

My 1999 dodge caravan died shortly before christmas. The cost for needed repairs would be about equal to replacement. So my husband and I talked it over and agreed to look for a new van. We have about $8,500 to spend. After looking over highway safety ratings, local availability and our price range, it was narrowed down to a 2002-2005 Town & Country, a 2002-2005 Grand Caravan, a 2004-2005 Freestar, or a 2002-2003 Windstar. Of these, I would prefer a Town & Country based on available options, price, and reviews. But I'm concerned about the repeat transmission & engine issues with all of them. I need a safe, reliable van to transport myself and my 3 girls, aged 9, 7 and 2.5 while my husband is deployed {We'll be saving part of his pay to put a down payment on a sienna when he gets home}

Any advice, experience, thoughts or comments are welcome. I have a window of about 2.5 weeks to find and purchase the van between the time my tax check arrives and the time I need to load up the new purchase with kids and suitcases and go see my husband off to war in Georgia {1,800 miles round trip}

I've only had expierience with the Windstars and Freestars so between the 2 I would Highly recommend the Windstar over the Freestar! It is MUCH nicer and the seats are much more comfortable. Once they put the "stow and go" or whatever it's called seating in the back of the freestars, that ruined them for comfort IMO!

I love my 2000 windstar!

Well the van I went after didn't pan out, but on the way home I found a 2003 Windstar with tons of neat options [no DVD or power doors, no stow & go] it's a 1 owner, was bought by the owner with 100 miles on it, and the same people sold it back to the same dealership they bought it from last month with 95,000 and change miles on it. Perfect condition, runs like a dream. My only real complaint is that there's not a whole lot of head room.

We're on our third caravan. This time a grand caravan. We love them. Now we haven't had the transmission problems some people have had. The first was a lease though and didn't go past 50K miles. Our second got totalled this past summer at just over 100K. When we were looking desperately for vans after the accident I drove a freestar and I just didn't like it. So make sure to drive it most places would even let us take it overnight. I don't know if it's because I'm used to Dodge's or what. I'd had friends and relatives with Windstars and it seems it's a love or hate relationship. I think there were some years with problems. If you can get a Town and Country for the same price as a Caravan I'd do it. Just be careful if you're looking for extended length some older Town and Country's are regular length.

We had an 03 Windstar for a while and although it did have annoying little niggly problems (i.e. the power windows stopped working frequently) we didn't have any major issues.

We had the kind with the bench seat, the LX model. Pretty easy installs on all my carseats. Got decent safety reviews, as far as I remember. No issues with headroom, and my dh is 6'2".

HTH!

We have a grand caravan sxt and absolutely love it. we had a freestar I think it was as a rental car and oh my gosh that was the longest week ever. We were using all 3 rows and it was so noisy in the 3rd row we couldn't believe it.

And we previously also had a fully loaded Sienna and that van was awesome! It sadly got totaled though and we had to replace it with something cheaper with the time being so thats how we ended up with a cheap lease with the grand caravan. And all the features that we loved from the Sienna and not in anything else are all now available in the new 08 Grand Caravan so we are excited about our new options when our lease runs up.

Town & Country or Grand Caravan. Both are essentially the same vehicle, just different options. Fords (including Mazda's) have always given us problems. Including engine problems. Chrysler products (including Jeep) never have, despite their reps. We had a 2000 Caravan. Should be same model as 2002 Caravan, and up for a little bit. Ran perfectly fine for over 100,000 miles.

Certainly nowhere near as smooth as an Odyssey or Sienna, but it didn't die and ran every day.