CHRYSLER GRAND VOYAGER 3.3 Limited 5dr Auto (2001)

Grand Voyager - Got too expensive to run in the end

For a family car this was a fab buy. It got us everywhere in comfort and class! We took it all round Europe one summer and it was the easiest trip of that length we'd ever done, and my hubby and I said all the way it was down to our lovely old Chrysler Grand Voyager. We bought it second hand in 2005 (I think it was a 2003 originally) and the size of the engine did concern us a bit, but the price of fuel has just got completely out of hand since then, and last year we had to trade it in for a Skoda that uses half the fuel.

As for the Chrysler Grand Voyager itself, if you maybe get one with a smaller engine or one with an LPG conversion, then it's mostly a good choice. The thing I would say, which always bothered me, was that it's so very big. Parking could be a major pain at times. I know that nowadays a lot of cars get parking sensors as standard, and probably more modern Chrysler Grand Voyagers get them too, but not ours. That was a big down side.

However, it did come with air conditioning, which was a massive plus in the hot summers, especially those longer holiday trips. Towards the end the air con needed to be refilled quite often, which became annoying and expensive. There were some other ongoing repairs needed, like two of the motors that wind the windows up and down went (at different times) and the hand brake needed replacing when it got too weak to do the job properly. By the time we sold it the interior was in a pretty bad way, but then that's fair enough really with four kids in it!

If you're after space above all else though, the Chrysler Grand Voyager is hard to beat. First of all it's just huge inside, even with all the seats up it got in all our luggage and the big old engine happily tugged us and our trailer along without any trouble (although with a lot of fuel!). Also it has a million and one little cubby holes and things to store bits and pieces. If you take all the seats out you get basically a van to move with. That was really useful for moving my sister between flats, did almost all of it in two trips, with our trailer. The only thing is you have to have somewhere to keep the seats in the meantime, so not much good for people without a garage.