Best minivan for Lemons? (Page 2 of 2)

Yeah, don't sell it on the street.  Way to obvious there.  Oh wait, you meant in general. 

Guess that rules out The Mystery Machine too.

You could always do The Straight Arrow from 1977's movie "The Van."

Who needs one theme when you can do three?

If i was running a minivan, I'd either take a 93-94 caravan with the 3.3L (that engine's torquey and nigh indestructible, plus tha't new enough to mostly avoid the major transmission issues) I also like the old previa mid-engine jobs, and an early 90s MPV van simply because it's small and RWD/AWD

'93 VW Eurovan- German handling, super cheap, 5-speed available, and the I-5 engine is the same as an Audi (but sideways), so you can cobble in a Turbo.  Factory 2001+ springs drop it like it's hot, and the 2001+ rotors are bigger bolt-on upgrades.   

I happen to know where' there's one with a camper pop-top for sale at a VERY Lemons-friendly price.   I think the guy has a 10vT motor lying on the floor of the shop too.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that for Lemons, handling matters more than speed, and to that end, a FWD vehicle might fare better.  Or am I missing something critical here?

Chris, I forgot to mention that if you want an Odyssey, you might have better luck finding an Isuzu Oasis for cheap.  Sold in the US from '96 to '99.  They're the exact same vehicle, except for '99 when the Isuzu was the old body style and the Honda was a new body style.

Also, if you found an Odyssey/Oasis for around $1000, you could probably recover $500 selling off door panels, seats, carpeting, etc on eBay.  Also A/C, climate control, dash, etc.  You won't need any of that for Lemons.

I drove to Cincinnati, so about 1.5 hours / 100 miles each way, to get the Honda.  Given the number of hours I knew I'd be spending on the car, that was a drop in the bucket.

If there was a likely candidate in the Columbus area I would be willing to take a quick look at it for you.  (But not too far out - hopefully!)

Thanks! And if there's a donor car around here that you need checked out, let me know.

AWD would almost certainly break on track .. and even if it didn't, the rest of the van is much more difficult to work on.  Keep it simple, IMHO.  (Says me .. with my broken engine swap.)

Not to sure about the AWD being unreliable, my van Grumpy is ridiculous reliable, but then I haven't been hammering it on a track for hours on end.  I would hate to do any bottom end work at the track though as the front diff has to be removed in order to pull the oil pan, BTDT.

Given that Honda Civics, which normally go 300,000+ miles on the street, have about a 60% failure rate at Lemons (the normally reliable small-block Chevy is even worse), I'd say that you won't know until you actually do some hammering on a track.