Good family truckster

We have a 1998, about 2.5 years old with 38,000 miles. It's a very comfortable car, rides well, holds vast amounts of people (7 comfortably) or cargo (we've taken all the seats out and used it as a moving van). The V6 engine gives just enough power - occasionally it seems a little sluggish at highway speeds when heavily loaded, but a larger engine would probably make the fuel economy even worse than it is (20mpg city on a good day). It hasn't needed any major repairs yet; under warranty, they had to replace the radio (twice!), plus some minor fit-and-finish problems. It just had its first out-of-warranty breakage: one of the hydraulic struts that holds open the back gate broke off. (This has always been a problem with the Voyager.) We've experienced some very minor transmission slippage, but we're hoping this incidental and not a symptom of the transmission problems that have plagued past years' Voyagers.

It's far easier to reconfigure the interior than older Voyagers, but still you're going to need to be pretty strong, or have two people, to take out the rear seat. And there's really not enough room for stuff in the main cabin; we keep ending up with piles of stuff between the middle two captain's chairs, rolling around all over the van when we start and stop.

All in all, we're very happy with it. It's been a very comfortable and (so far) reliable family cruiser. We would certainly consider buying it again, though we would probably check out the competition first (especially the Chevy Venture, which didn't exist in an extended-length version when we bought our Voyager).

One final note: if you have children, especially if you have or plan to have more than one, BUY A VAN AND NOT AN SUV!!!! With all but the biggest SUVs (like the Suburban), you put two adults, two kids' carseats, and two strollers in, and the car is full. Our van can carry 3 parents, 3 or 4 kids, and all their paraphernalia comfortably.

UPDATE: I must have jinxed myself by writing about my lack of maintenance problems. When we took it in to have that liftgate strut fixed (3000 miles out of warranty), they found that the water pump was failing, a tensioner arm for one of the belts was broken, and a myriad of smaller problems, for a grand total of $650. (I got a second opinion because it seemed suspicious to have so many problems just out of warranty, but they were all legit.) I wrote a nasty letter to Chrysler about it; we'll see what they have to say.