MPV Vans

What is your intended use for the van? Will you be towing a trailer ever? Highway driving or soccer mom use?

The MPV is going to be smaller than the Freestar and a more sporty feel when driving.

Either way you go Bill Ford will still make a profit. LOL.

We have a 99 MPV with 231,000 miles. 4L 2.6 in about 1992, my wife and kids were coming back from visiting her folks. My daughter managed to loose control (maybe fell asleep?) jerket the wheel, and started a slide. The van ended up on it's side in a grassy median 300 miles from home. A few days later, I went up to the wrecking yard that had the van. The sheet metal down the passanger side was dented, and the mirror broken off. We reinflated two tires, added oil to the engine and tranny, used bailing wire to reposition a broken plastic fan shroud, and drove it home. The frame was still true, and the alignment was ok. I did have problems with various items that should have been covered under warrenty, and were not, since the cures via TSB came out after the warrenty expired. If you live in an area covered by the southeast Mazda Zone office, you can expect this sort of problem to occur.

Mazda claims the MPV has the soul of a sports car. If that's true, then the poor things must be depressed to the point of being suicidal. I'd avoid them -- you never know when one is going to decide to swerve into an oncoming cement truck in an attempt to end it miserable existance as a van in hopes of being reincarnated as an MX-5 or RX-8.

A minivan with the soul of a minivan is bound to be a much happier and more well-behaved vehicle.

A TSB is not the same as a recall and the dealership does not have an obligation to repair it for free after the warranty expires. This would be especially true of a wrecked vehicle with a quarter-million miles on it. I think you got your money's worth out of it. :-)

The "soul of a sports car" ad campaign, along with that "Zoom-Zoom" song is the worst marketing that is being done by any auto maker, imho.

If a purpose-confused van tries to swerve into my cement truck, I will easily steer out of the way. I had a "sports car soul" installed in the truck last week, and the thing handles like a dream now. I salvaged the sports car soul from a Mazda Tribute that had rolled over. All I need now is a couple of "zoom-zoom" stickers and my cement truck will keep up with the miata and the RX-8 on any track in the world. :-)

Pat '96M

Cool, I bet that works better than a dozen Type-R decals!

Actually, the symptoms occurred before the warrenty ran out. The problem was that the dealer and the factory rep denied knowledge of a repair process, and in most cases claimed "that's normal". I have the same problem with a 99 Miata --leather seat wear and soft top problems that were later the subject of TSBs. The MPV is an 89 not a 99 as I mistyped. The L4 was a good engine. The early V6 engines and auto trannys were not. The L4 used an auto tranny that was built for commercial use, and was quite different than the electrically operated tranny on the V6.

Get an Odyssey instead of either of them and you'll be happy.