We hadn’t planned to replace Beth’s minivan for another couple years (based on our “Ten Years Old or 200,000 Miles” policy), but a certain sequence of events led to my locating a one year old 2012 Volkswagen Routan with just over 8,000 miles for not much over 1/2 its original sticker price.
Given the Routan was only offered three years and never sold well, I just happened to hit the timing right to find such a good deal. The Routan is basically a rebadged Chrysler Town & Country / Dodge Grand Caravan. It has the same engine and most of the switches and controls are identical. VW did, on the other hand, improve the handling, seats and styling.
Chad is still driving our old 1998 Grand Caravan (with 275,000 miles on it as of this writing), and we sold Tyler our 2005 Town & Country (185,000 miles and a family discount!). So for a brief period, we had three generations of Chrysler minivans in our driveway.