best quality vans?

Quality wise all of the GM branded vans are pretty much the same. One basic design and I believe only one factory.

If long term reliability is your priority, go with a Toyota Sienna.

Our '02 Olds Silhoette has had way more problems in 3.5 years than I find acceptable. Big ticket repairs have already included the infamous failed intake manifold gasket and a $1200 air conditioning repair.

John

My wife has an 04 Toyota Sienna and she loves it. We have taken it on a number of family road trips and lots of in town driving, (15 months and almost 27k miles).

She is a Realtor and needs a comfortable, roomy, reliable vehicle.

Down time costs us money, and we could not afford GM products anymore.

Bob

"Toyota" John Horner recommended: "If long term reliability is your priority, go with a Toyota Sienna."

If butt ugly styling is your priority, go with a Toyota Sienna. I.M.H.O., Toyota makes the ugliest and/or most bland vehicles on this planet. I'd buy a 15 year old Lada before I'd buy a Toyota! Well, maybe not.

Bob, not to hurt your feelings, but I.M.O. the Sienna is the ugliest of all those ugly, ugly Toyotas. Brrrr - I get a chill when I think of them. Your wife must not be a very successful Realtor. The successful ones in my area drive Caddies, BMW's, Mercedes and the like. ;-)

Because looking cool and trendy is much more important than how many engineering mistakes you're gonna foot the bill for.

aarcuda69062, here's a News Flash - You don't have to own an ugly car to have a reliable car. The idea that a cool car was unreliable ended when they made the last AAR CUDA! ;-) (That was a joke!) Now you have a lot of choice for good looking reliable vehicles. But I'm sure that you know that.

Ummm, if style is your thing then a minivan probably isn't a good idea :). Even so, have you looked at the new not-a-minivan minivans GM is selling ????? They grafted a more pointed nose on the old body. Looking at the new ones it seems like GM didn't want to spend the money to change anything between the firewall and the tail gate, so they just gave 'em nose and butt jobs. The final result is plug ugly to my eyes, but maybe you like 'em.

I guess the real answer to the original question is that according to GM, they no longer build any minivans. They are now to be called a "crossover sport van". The marketing people at GM are getting their Kool Aid in 55 gallon barrels now :(.

John

Ignore Fool Jet. The simple minded are easily distracted by shiny objects.

For instance?

I have a 2000 Astro van, only problem is one of the things that pops the lock automatically died. Good things: You can seat 6 fairly comfortably, it has power to merge, gets 20 or so mpg with air on and 6people, I would buy it again.

I think 05 is last year for them.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder aarcuda, but if we're talking vans, in response to "Jake's" original question - "What would be the best over all GM van for the year 2005 or 2006. ", the Chevy Uplander is pretty sweet and sports the tried and true 3.5 Liter V6 as its base engine, with an optional 3.9L engine. From Pontiac, there's the new Torrent which also looks hot and it comes with another tried and true engine, the 3.4L V6. It rides the blurry line between Van and SUV though. The Buick line has the Terraza and while it wouldn't be my first choice from GM, it's certainly a lot more attractive than the Sienna. The Terraza also comes with the proven 3.5L V6 as base engine, with an optional 3.9L engine. And finally, the Saturn Relay with its 3.9L V6 engine is a really hot little number with great performance.

Outside of GM, the Chrysler Town & Country is a good looking reliable van.

I'd have to agree with that comment John. I'd also have to agree that the lines have become really blurry between the Vans and the SUV's. But the original poster, Jake, asked "What would be the best over all GM van for the year 2005 or 2006." and he didn't really ask about looks. I don't happen to like Vans as personal vehicles, which is why I don't own one. Having said that, GM does have some good looking and reliable Vans which I commented on in my earlier response to aarcuda.

Nicky, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen young lady. I'd suggest you were better off remaining silent and appearing stupid, than opening your mouth and removing all doubt! ;-)

You're joking, right? The engines in these things are hand grenades. leaking intake gaskets, snapped camshafts and the ever present, been doing it for the last 20+ years, fuel injector problems.

Yeah, the Chinese have been building that "tried and true" 3.4 for what, a _few_ years now? Will we see these vans on the shelves at Walmart?

Very apt description of GM, "blurry lines." When their stock hits $10 a share, I might buy.

GM has no "tried and true" engines, the only thing "proven" about them is that they'll break and cost a fortune to fix. As for "hot little numbers," That's a good reason to go to the beach but a poor reason to make a [car] buying decision.

Yes they are.

Tried and true? The 60 degree V6's have been intake leakers, head gasket blowing, camshaft breakers for 20+ years and even worse recently. GM is having a nearly 100% intake gasket failure rate before 100,000 miles on 3.1/3.4L engines used in the last 10 years. Most are leaking by

60,000 miles. Blown head gaskets also seem to be common in the minivans.

The new 3.5L and 3.9L are based off the old engines. They have a thicker sealing surface and an additional sealing rib on the intake gasket but only time will tell if it fixes the problem. Maybe the gaskets will let go at 120,000 miles now ....

That engine is one of the reasons why GM is in the position they are in now.

"Cool Jet" wrote in news:1135298276.304773.15780 @o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:

Because she doesn't want to drop $55,000 on an impractical car like a Caddy or Beamer and would rather have a practical people/cargo mover for $25,000, then that makes her "not a successful realtor"? Yeah the Siennas are hideous. The Chevy Uplander's front end styling is altrocious. Whoever designed that front end ought to be dragged out of their office and pistol whipped. I guess GM was going for a more agressive 'SUV like' front end, but why didn't they make the front more angular/aggressive? Like the snarl of the Equinox/TrailBlazer/Silverado, etc.? If I were looking for a minivan, I'd go with a Chrysler Town and Country and buy the extended warranty, or a Ford Freestar (beautiful minvan) with the ext. warranty, or perhaps the Honda Oddysey (built in Ohio I believe).

snipped-for-privacy@ReMoVyahoo.com (Dennis Smith) wrote in news:doj8sb$4ds$ snipped-for-privacy@news.doit.wisc.edu:

If the GM engineers/beancounters had any brains, they would have put the way better 3800 V6 (iron block and head) in their minivans. It would only cost maybe a few hundred dollars more per vehicle and result in a more reliable/powerful vehicle. Assuming it would even fit, as the 3.4 is a tight fit already. The GM minivans are of an Opel design (Opel is a German co. owned by GM). It's called the Sintra in Europe. I'm not sure how much input GM had into the design but if they had any input, they should have requested more engine room. The European Opel minivans look just like the Venture/Montana/Silhouette minivans and over in Europe came with a 4 cylinder and manual tranny as the base powertrain, so that tells you about the size of the engine bay. These things are a bitch to work on because of tight space clearances. I had a '99 Venture that was reliable except for the intake manifold gasket which was replaced under warranty.

On the same topic of engine choice, GM should have put a Quad 4/turbo Quad

4 into the Fiero. Just to save a few hundred per car, they went with the 2.5 and then put the quad 4 in the Calais/Skylark econony cars, thus leaving the more fun engine (quad 4) out of the "sports" car Fiero. Stupid GM logic. A Fiero with a Quad 4 and a cool sounding tuned exhaust would have been neat.

The Quad Four was a pretty easy swap into the Fiero, and there were kits out there to do it.

Unfortunately, the Q4 wasn't as reliable as it should have been either. It had some problems, as did the block cracking 2.5 litre Iron Puke.