Fell in Love with the Montana
Pros:
Roomy, Dual sliding doors, driver controls, smooth ride
Cons:
holds 1 CD, was a rental :0(
The Bottom Line:
We would love to purchase this vehicle in the near future, it was a great minivan to take on a road trip.
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Author's Review
I have just returned a rented 2001 Pontiac Montana, which we had for 2 weeks. We drove it from central Indiana to Ocean City, Maryland and back again for a total of 1700 miles. It was a smooth and roomy ride for 2 adults and 2 children and all the luggage, food, strollers,and beach supplies.
Some of the features we loved: separate controls for the front and rear passengers for both heat and air conditioning, lots of vents, cup holders for 6 drinks, CD Player (only holds 1 CD), console/storage areas in 8 places, bucket seats in middle, bench seat for 3 in back, removable compartment in trunk to hold grocery sacks, controls in easy reach of both driver and front seat passenger to open rear side windows, the sliding door on passenger side (which also had a button ride inside the door), turn on interior lights, etc.
Both of our children are in car seats and we used the bucket seats very comfortably for both a rear facing and forward facing car seat. The bucket seats could fold down to make a table complete with cup holders. This was a great feature had it rained and we needed to have an indoor picnic during our road trip.
My husband is 6 feet tall and I am 5 feet 3 inches and we were both comfortable driving the Montana, which is not often the case in most vehicles. The trunk was roomy enough to hold coolers, 2 strollers, 2 suitcases, and more odds and ends. The windows were tinted. The Montana had great pick up, even on the mountains and hills on Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The ride was smooth and uneventful. One of the windows had a rattle, but it was a minor fault of the minivan.
I am not sure of the exact miles per gallon. We filled up the gas tank 3 times completely, and finished with a half tank to get home and back to the rental company (which is another story, but we returned it on empty). Not bad for a trip of over 1700 miles, including many steep inclines and declines over hills and mountains, and a 2 hour traffic jam near Baltimore.
My husband and I have rented several minivans and this one is at the top of our list.