Trip to Cleveland
 

Tuesday & Wednesday I was in Cleveland (Willoughby), Ohio for work to test out equipment. The most interesting thing was that Hertz screwed up again and I wound up with a 2004 Ford Freestar (Windstar) mini-van. This is a real big tank on the highways. The ride is soft and mushy and it tries to isolates you from the road similar to the way the Caddys rode in the late sixties. It wallows like a pig around 65-70 mph. and I learned that it takes alot of road to stop. The Outback has much crisper handling. The oddest thing about this vehicle was the control for the rear wiper. This wiper is controlled by a roll swith on the signal light stalk. You can roll this switch either clockwise or counter-clowise to actuate the wiper. The 'Stop' detent is in the middle. This was quite annoying last night driving thru 'lake effect' snow on I-90W to the airport. I kept overshooting the stop detent and the rear wiper kept going. The seats a comfortable but I felt like I was driving a bus. I have driven my wife's niece's 2002 Caravan and it is much crisper riding car and handles way better.
The Ford Freestar does have tons of room. Heck, it has more room than some apartments I've lived in. They should sell an optional John for this thing.

I drove a Grand Caravan for a few hundred miles a couple months ago. It was okay. I wouldn't call the handling 'crisp,' but then I haven't driven a Freestar for comparison.

It drove fine for what it was. And what it is isn't for me.

Nick,

To quantify the "Crisp Handling" term. I would say that the Carvan is halfway between the handling of our '97 Outback and the 2004 Freestar.
In orther words if the OB handling is rated as a 10 , then the Caravan handling would get a 5.5-6.0 and the Freestar wouuld be a 1.0.

In this system I would rate the SVX at about 25 and a Porshe about 31-35.

It's just a personal judgement.

We have, a 95 Grand Caravan, its really powerful and the handiling is great for the size of the darn thing. The guy we bought it off of added a ECU upgrade, a better throttle body, and a better intake, so i guess thats why.

Re: Trip to Cleveland
 

Funny thing. I went to pickup my brother on Tuesday. Guess what I got. Ford Freestar. The room is good for picking him up for the summer and moving his stuff out.


I guess I was not the only person that thinks this car has not gone through noise proofing. I think it's a little under powered but it was pretty decent (in terms of room).