Faults:
Power steering pump blew up 300 kilometres ago.
The van eats brakes, have replaced both front and rear twice and rear once by themselves, plus new rear drums, I think due to anti-lock rears.
Hard on tyres and alignment, has eaten a set of top of the range Canadian Tyre in 70,000 km, despite several alignments and rotating the tyres.
Engine was totally gutless until a dealer replaced some chips in the computer, afterwards whilst overtaking there would emit a distressing series of clicks from under the dash and the engine would respond by heaving away.
After the power steering pump was replaced, the new one was three times as noisey as the original, and I don't know why, but we started getting a random series of what can be only described as hissing from behind the passenger's seat, maybe a electrical switch?
BTW, when we asked why the power steering was as noisey as it was we were told by the dealer "it's just the way it is with those things"...
General Comments:
Cannot fault the practicality of the van.
It has been a reliable vehicle, despite the annoying problems.
On the highway, it is very comfy to drive and be a passenger in, even at time when I've really overloaded the thing.
Other than the items I've mentioned, it has been a great wagon, hence the high marks, it's not hard to see why people hang on to them.
Never drive this thing in the snow without really good snowies or sticking on some iron, it is absolutely uselss, it was a embarrasment to me several times last year...
14th Jul 2005, 21:44
I have an ex US Govt. van with 54K on it. The 3L engine works hard, but I usually get 21 to 25 on highway with it. Had a '91 AWD 4L that was fantastic, it probably is still on the road somewhere. It had a starter go out and broke the overdrive band in the transmission while I had it.
Overall these vans should go for 300K or so... if we can stand them that long.