Thank you to all of you for your advice. We went and looked at the Toyota's and Honda's, but at both dealerships, there where used Chrysler Town and Countries either right next to them, or close enough to easily compare them. Both Toyota and Honda where nice, but not luxurious in our price range. Cloth seats, basic interiors and no remote power rear doors. To get similar features in those brands to what the Chrysler has was about a $10,000 jump in price. Karen really loves the leather seats. They feel so much nicer, but she knows how much hair the dogs shed and what it will take to clean a cloth seat compared to leather. This became a very big deal to her.
The seating was really bad on the Toyota's and Honda's. You just can't do anything with those middle seats and have any room in there unless you remove them. While we agreed that she didn't need to be the one to haul her friends around, when they all have mini vans with stow and go seating, we didn't like the idea of finding a home for two seats in the shop. I did't care for the job of taking them in and out all the time either.
The Chrysler has a key fob that locks and unlocks the front doors just like most any other vehicle out there. But it also has a button for each side door and the back door. Just standing there and pushing those buttons, and then watching the doors close and open by themselves if fun!!!
So after a couple weekends of looking locally, we drove off to Dallas. Prices are always several grand cheaper there, then here in Tyler. I guess there are enough people willing to pay a grand or two more for the same vehicle locally, but since I don't make anywhere near a grand or two a day, I don't have any problems driving two hours to save that much money.
After going to six dealerships yesterday, we found this one.
2 16 Chrysler Town and Country Touring In Sachse TX - LAKESIDE MOTORS INC.
They had two of them for the exact same price. They where identical, except the other one, the one we bought, only had 18,354 miles on it. Of all the vans we test drove, they where all fantastic and none of them where any better then the others. What really amazed me is that amount of visibility you have when driving one. It's like being on the UTV, you can just see so much more!!!
I tried to get it for 20, but ended up at $21,000. They had recently reduced the price from $23,995 and where asking $21,890 for their Black Friday sales price. After my down payment and 3% interest, my payment is going to be $288 a month. For what we got, I think it's a really great deal for the money.
Of course, the big question is how well will it last? All the ladies at the dog shows drive them. Shows are anywhere from close to home, to a couple hundred miles each way. We don't know of any who have had issues, and all of our friends are driving vans older then this one with a lot more miles on them. Some take really good care of them, others treat their vans fairly rough. Karen is really good on maintenance, so that should help.
Best of all, she absolutely LOVES HER VAN!!! She keeps telling me over and over again how much she loves it. I'm also done Christmas shopping.
