A step up from GM and Chrysler products, Still a Step behind the Japanese

(UPDATE at the bottom of this review)

With a family our size, there are very few vehicles that will fit everyone comfortably with room enough for the luggage.

We started on the minivan kick in 1998 with the GM "dustbuster" on wheels, the Chevy Lumina APV. We bought it used. While it had seating for seven, the seats were not user friendly and the transmission dropped out of it around the 65K mile mark. After shopping around and checking the wallet, we found ourselves in a 2000 Chevy Venture.

I know, I know... Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.

In truth, the Venture was head and shoulders a cut about the APV. It handled decently and the 3.4 liter V6 had adequate power to haul us all, loaded for bear on the Christmas trek to North Jersey. It gave us very little trouble. But, with 50K miles on the odometer, my wife and I agreed that it was better to get out before the extended warranty ran out (and while the gettin' was still good).

One of the nice things about having brothers in the car business is that I always a deal on cars - usually "onion skin" price or better. The bad part is that I can only choose between Chevy, Hummer, Daewoo, and Ford.

We did the Chevy thing already, can't afford the Hummer (not that it would fit all five kids anyway), and Daewoo are crap (too small as well). That leaves Ford.

With a call to Southern New York State, I had a 2003 Ford Windstar SE waiting for me this past September. I never go top-of-the-line, but I never go bare bones either.

Nicely dressed, my Windstar came with backing sensors, "advanced trac" traction control, power sliders on both sides, power driver's seat, front and rear climate control, and a VHS entertainment center.

It's engine is Ford's workhorse, the 3.8 liter V6 with 200 horsepower and a 4-speed automatic transmission with overdrive. My van gets somewhere in the neighborhood of 18.5 mpg average (16 or so in the city, and around 20 on the highway). Every Windstar comes well equipped with things like power windows, door locks, AC, and ABS. Plus, the CD player is standard on the SE model.

You're probably well aware of Ford's 5-star safety ratings on front and side impacts from the NHTSA. And, it's styling is unmistakably Windstar.

It's got clean lines with just a hint of curve. The Windstar is much less the "saltine box" on wheels than the GM family of minis (or the Kia, for that matter). When you're next to or behind one, you know it's a Windstar. They seem to sit a little lower and a little wider than other vans.

The seats, particularly the front driver and passenger seats hold you in place and are comfortable in the "good" to "very good" range. The middle row are quad, captain's chair-like seats. And the back row is a bench that holds three kids (two booster seats and a skinny butt, to be precise) or two adults comfortably.

Here's my usual breakdown from what I love to what I hate or could do with out:

WHAT I LOVE:

There are a few things here.

I love the extra power of the Ford 3.8 liter. It kicks out an extra 15 or so horses more than the GM 3.4 liter.

The traction control, or stabili-trak system, has come in handy on more than one occasion. Each time the little green "trac" light went on, all the slippin' and a slidin' stopped... that's nice.

Once during a nasty downpour, friends were out in the parking area at their house pushing cars out to the main road - and there were about a hundred people that showed up for their fall pig roast. It was pretty much a mud bowl from the lot to the curb.

The 4x4 crowd got out okay, but the minivans and 2-wheel-drives had to get the "shoulder-to-the-bumper" treatment. My friend, his wife and two of his kids were literally covered in mud from head to toe.

We'd just gotten the Windstar, so it was a good opportunity to see what it would do. On went the little green light on the dash and away we went - no need to get out and push.

I also really love the VHS entertainment system. In fact, I will never, ever in my life own another family hauler that does not come with one of these things. I know they make better systems for cars, like DVD systems with the widescreen, or with screens built in to the backs of the headrests. But again, I'm no top-of-the-line kind of guy.

For years, we endured long trips to the beach or to family far away without - OIY VEY! Of course, now the kids argue about which movie they get to watch first. Ahhh, it never ends, does it?

WHAT I LIKE:

For a minivan, this thing is pretty damned attractive. I like the curves, and I like the feeling of sitting lower in a fatter van. It's so much more car-like than the GM fleet.

In fact, the overall ride can be put in the "what I like" column as well. It's a solid, but not perfect, handling vehicle. It's a little dicey on rough pavement. But around town and highway driving is solid, predictable, and very car-like.

I like the back up beepers - sensors in the back of the vehicle that tell you when you're about to hit something. I'm sometimes tempted to see just how close I can get to something to make the beepers "flatline." But then I remember, I would be backing a $30K automobile into something just out of curiousity - probably would not be my brightest moment.

WHAT I DON'T CARE ABOUT ONE WAY OR ANOTHER:

Well, this one's going to be a short section. In the Windstar, you're taking the good with the bad. Lotsa room in exchange for the stigma of driving a minivan. You get a VHS system on board, but they don't give you any room to put actual VHS tapes. I guess they expect that you'd stow them in the waaay back or in the footwell on the passenger side.

But, as far as stuff I don't give a poop about.... hmmmm. Nope, nothing going on here.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE:

Ford as come a little ways on this, but I find the engine noise in the passenger compartment to be excessive. I like knowing that the 3.8 is there, but on quick acceleration, I'd rather hear it from the tail pipe not at my feet.

Also, while braking, I can hear the low hum of the brakes being applied to the discs. Maybe there's something wrong that I need to get checked out... more likely though, this is just the way the bigger braking systems on Fords actually sound. I'll let you know after the first service.

Speaking of maintenance, I haven't up to this point been a really big fan of Ford service departments. A few years ago, I bought a Ford Contour (what the industry knick-named the Detour with its sister vehicle the Mercury Mistake). When I called the service department where the vehicle was purchased, they were less than helpful.

There's this long skinny radiator of sorts that is attached to main radiator on the Contour. I really have know idea what it was or what it did. All I knew is that it wasn't re-attached the last time this service department had the vehicle in (on one of the many recalls inherent with the Contour).

Well, not only were they (Francis Ford in Harrisburg, PA) less than interested in helping me get the thing reattached, but they said that since Ford didn't make Contours anymore, they didn't manufacture "those kind" of bolts anymore.

"Okay, thanks for nothing."

After a few tries at different dealers, I found one that I liked and that they seemed to like/respect me. If I were to buy another Ford (and I didn't have a brother who ran a dealership already), I'd buy one from them - L.B. Smith Ford in Lemoyne, PA.

The hit-or-miss quality of service is something every Ford owner lives with. And, it just shouldn't be.

WHAT I HATE:

This is closer to a "what I hate" than to "what I don't like" so it got thrown in here. Actually, this complaint is something more like "what I REALLY don't like." I've got five kids - three teenagers, a six year old and a two year old. The youngest two have to be in booster/car seats. With my family situation, I really do not like the middle captain chairs.

The little ones can't go in the middle row because it would make it difficult, bordering on being a pain in the butt, for the older kids to climb in and out. So, the little ones have to go in the way back. With two car seats back there, we're limited as to who can sit in the middle spot in the three-spot bench in the back.

If you have more than two kids and you've got kiddie seats to deal with, seriously consider getting the two-place bench for the middle row instead of the cap't chairs. It makes it so much easier to get in and out of the way-back.

And, the final "what I hate." I hate that they've made some basic improvements on the vehicle's flexibility, engine, safety and styling for 2004 and want to call it something else. Seriously, I like the Windstar. Why does Ford dinker with success at the edges and call it by a new name??? The Freestar?

The new Freestar will actually have engine choices (optional 3.9 and 4.2 liter engines that put out roughly the same hp as the 3.8 that is synonymous with the Windstar). In fact, the SE Freestar (like mine) will come with a 3.9 liter, which would turn out 7 less horses while giving the buyer less on the mpg side of the equation. This is progress??

It will have a fold-flat third row bench with a couple other bells and whistles inside the cabin. And, it looks as though it will be slightly heavier, longer, wider and taller than its Windstar predecessor. Its wheelbase will be effectively the same, though.

I guess I'm parroting the experts here when I say that the changes may be good, and if they get rid of the excessive cabin noise all the better, but the changes are not so dramatic that the vehicle needed to be renamed. I never knew what a Windstar actually was, but was more accepting of it than the Aerostar (man, I hated that thing).

Now I have to figure out if a Freestar something more than "Windstar facelift."

And on that note, I will depart. Happy trails.

UPDATE: July 18, 2004

July 15th. It was your typical Thursday morning. For me, it's the day that I drive the minivan in to work because my wife takes the little car to work in MD (that's just too much mileage to put on a vehicle we're still paying for and she's only gotta go into work once a week).

Going North on the interstate, there's a point we call the "York Split" where an interstate and state highway converge and one can either take the state highway to the malls or the interstate towards the state capital.

The closer one gets to the split in morning, the more it becomes stop-and-go traffic. On this particular morning, I was "stop." Unfortunately, the car behind me was still "go."

A 1993 Ford Mustang GT with out-of-state tags, de-celerating from 55 mph, was caught by surprise and couldn't keep from plowing into my rear, passenger side, causing me to be pushed forward into the 4x4 in front of me.

The Mustang hit me going around 40 mph. The 4x4 (with the steel bumper) was undamaged and the Mustang was totaled.

In the words of the state trooper writing up the accident report: "Are you kidding me? His vehicle is totaled and that's all the damage that was done to your van? Wow."

Wow is right, we're talking bumper damage front and rear, some broken lenses, replacing backing sensors and a little crumple on the passenger rear fender. In all, it's $4,000 worth of damage that we know of (they still have to get it on a lift and give it a complete check up), and no injuries.

This update gives me the opportunity to write about a few things:

Van Safety:

When they talk about three 5-star safety ratings, they're not kidding. Were I in the old van, the Chevy Venture, the damage would have been more substantial. And, if I were in the little econo-box I usually take to work... well, let's just say it probably would have been an injury/accident and BOTH cars would have been totaled.

Van Reliability:

I've had this van for nearly a year and it's got 11,000 miles on it. The only real quirk or problem I've had was
that the front rotors needed to be cleaned. Naturally, you should expect trouble-free driving for the first three years of the life of any new vehicle. I'm just saying that I'm not disappointed.

The New Freestar:

Another "on the bright side" moment... I got a Ford Freestar minivan as my replacement vehicle for the next month while they fix my Windstar. It's a Freestar SE.

On all points I've observed so far, the Freestar is a better vehicle than it's older brother. The engine noise isn't nearly as noticeable in the Freestar. It handles better. The interior is much cleaner - almost minimalist, with subtle lines and an uncluttered dash design (I think they borrowed that from the new F-150 trucks). Finally, there's actually more space in the Freestar than in the Windstar.