two steps forward, one back (workshop build update)

[JosephP]

102k is just broke in. You should double those miles.  What brand gives trouble at 100k miles?

Yeah- that's the one that caught my eye.

I was gonna offer the only obvious answer....but he beat me to it 

It's a 2011 Grand Caravan, the sixth one we've owned.  All have gone well past 100K (except one) with few problems.......

. ...... Now we'll drive it 'til it dies.

Kinda like winning 5 times in a row at Vegas and thinking that means you'll win the 6th time.  Hopefully you get many more miles out of this one...but the brand does have a reputation and it is not a 200,000 mile one.

[Wild Turkey]

LOML wore the salesman down and he took her offer.

We're off to trade vans.


Another day I won't get to spend working on shop.

[Mr_Mike]

LOML wore the salesman down and he took her offer.

We're off to trade vans.


Another day I won't get to spend working on shop.

Well if your land is like mine, you need pontoon shoes to work outside, so no big loss. Today is a clean the shop day as nothing outdoors is happening.

[JosephP]

Is that a step forward or back? One worry off the list at the loss of another day!

[Wild Turkey]

Well that was an adventure.  Drove two hours to get there.  They had the new van ready and waiting, but paperwork seemed to take forever.  We'd already spent an hour at our credit union getting the loan settled and payoff details, etc.

Then we did paperwork with the salesman, paperwork with the manager, paperwork with the insurance guy (real quick, we had our own already) and then the finance guy.  No problems, just pages and pages of "yes, we were told that" and "No, we don't want that".  Somewhere in the middle of all that we discovered my license lapsed in April


Finally got everything signed, got the last of our stuff out of old van and into new Pacifica and headed off the lot.  She was driving and I was checking out all the new controls.

Didn't get far off the lot when I noticed that the AC was blowing HOT -- hotter than outside.  Checked all the buttons (there are two ways to control the AC) and got the owner's manual out and followed it's instructions and still hot air.  Turned around and she went in to spoil the salesman's day.  Since it was Sat PM there were no mechanics to be found.

Another half-hour or so we were in their "courtesy" Cherokee and headed home.  They'll fix the problem and bring the van to us.

Not the way any of us had intended for the day to end.

[BrokenOlMarine]

Well that was an adventure.  Drove two hours to get there.  They had the new van ready and waiting, but paperwork seemed to take forever.  We'd already spent an hour at our credit union getting the loan settled and payoff details, etc.

Then we did paperwork with the salesman, paperwork with the manager, paperwork with the insurance guy (real quick, we had our own already) and then the finance guy.  No problems, just pages and pages of "yes, we were told that" and "No, we don't want that".  Somewhere in the middle of all that we discovered my license lapsed in April


Finally got everything signed, got the last of our stuff out of old van and into new Pacifica and headed off the lot.  She was driving and I was checking out all the new controls.

Didn't get far off the lot when I noticed that the AC was blowing HOT -- hotter than outside.  Checked all the buttons (there are two ways to control the AC) and got the owner's manual out and followed it's instructions and still hot air.  Turned around and she went in to spoil the salesman's day.  Since it was Sat PM there were no mechanics to be found.

Another half-hour or so we were in their "courtesy" Cherokee and headed home.  They'll fix the problem and bring the van to us.

Not the way any of us had intended for the day to end.

Dealer failure... they should have made sure the van was ready to roll.
I'm assuming it worked on the test drive?   

[EricU]

102k is just broke in. You should double those miles.  What brand gives trouble at 100k miles?

We had a Pontiac van and it started having weird electrical problems about 130k.  Still physically okay, although I had to do a little welding on the body, replace the tranny, you know, normal maintenance.  Started searching for solutions, and it seems that a lot of those vehicles had electrical problems starting at 100k or earlier. So it turns out we were lucky. I always figured the design life of an American vehicle is 30k, that's when the engineers get a new car.

[Wild Turkey]

Dealer failure... they should have made sure the van was ready to roll.
I'm assuming it worked on the test drive?   

We test drove the "base" model, then LOML decided she wanted the power doors on the other van.  Same color, etc but we didn't test drive the second one.