Our "new" car/van

Let me tell you about our “new” van – it’s a very unique car. When we took it on our test drive, we accidentally got on a highway that took us about 40 miles round trip (no exits). So, we really had a good taste of it before purchasing. The car lot said they had taken it in trade a week or so previous, and hadn’t done any work on it – so, buy as is.

The car lot was walking distance from our broken down R.V., so that right there was a good thing for us. The price tag on the van was also do-able (they dropped the price). Also, the rear seats all folded completely underneath, so we had lots of open space for filling with all the RV stuff!!

Right off we realized the speedometer was intermittent, which means the cruise doesn’t work. When it does work, it dings – sometimes 4 or 5 times as it randomly turns on and off. The driver’s side mirror looks like it had been in a fire. The “warning too close” sensors are overly sensitive and randomly “dinging”. The passenger door lock doesn’t work – it has to be manually depressed to lock and opened from the inside door handle. The windshield wipers randomly start on their own, go the regular speed and then suddenly speed up & slow down as they wish! Many sensors light and stay lit – like the tire pressure light, check engine light, oil pressure light, low battery light, etc. We realized there was nothing wrong with those things as far as we could determine – except the sensors were off. Another thing we learned quickly; when you start the engine, you have to immediately engage the gearstick or it won’t budge. (Is that a child-safety feature?) That means you turn the engine off, restart and put it into gear! Only 1 FOB works, so we have to guard it!! The other one looks the same, but even new batteries didn’t help it.

You are probably wondering how much they paid us to take this thing off their hands!! Actually, the car runs well with lots of power; good mileage (we used the mile markers to come up with a fairly accurate mpg); solid brakes; a/c puts out – nice temperature controls for each side; no oil burning; cd player works; bright headlights; all the things that make for safe driving.

Driving on the highway, we learned to follow a truck or car to help maintain our speed. Also, we took our own GPS along, and it tracks our speed. (How did we ever drive without cruise???)

One evening at dusk, we were finishing a long day of driving. Heather was driving a mountain pass in ID, when the rear driver’s side window opened of its own accord! I scolded Roger for messing with the windows (although he was on the other side of the car!!). He assured me he wasn’t doing anything. I raised the window back up, but the next time I turned a right turn, it went down again. It was a little spooky!! After about the 4^th time, Roger suggested that maybe something in the back had shifted and was putting pressure on the window switch. We didn’t even know where it was – the car was totally loaded with everything out of the R.V. (When we left the R.V., we didn’t know if it could be fixed and we’d see it again, so we took almost everything out of it and loaded it into the car.)

Turns out, he was right. When we stopped, we noticed a tray close to the door, and situated just where it needed to be to open the window when the back items pushed against it on tight right turns!

BTW – it’s a red 2011 Town and Country with no body damage, but we will probably sell it rather than fix the electrical issues.