Best affordable minivans 2015

israeli83

Mon, Jan 05 2015, 7:58 am

My husband and I are looking into buying a minivan. We were leaning towards the Dodge Grand Caravan since it was cheaper than others, but we're not sure since the safety tests weren't 100% great. Also, I'm not too sure about the child car seats in this van since there's only one Latch system at the third row.

I've noticed that most of the families over here (NYC Queens) have the Honda Odyssey. It got the best ratings and safety ratings. It looks great, but we'd have to go with the most basic model because it's much more expensive.

Any recommendations? we'll need to install three child car seats in the van (one infant rear, two forwards). This van I'll use mostly for driving the kids to school.

srbmom

Mon, Jan 05 2015, 8:11 am

I don't know what the lease/finance options are on a Kia Sedona, but they were the only other minivan to get the 5-star crash test rating and their base price is usually significantly cheaper than the Odyssey.

MaBelleVie

Mon, Jan 05 2015, 10:07 am

You only need more tether spots if you anticipate having more than three forward facing kids riding with you. If that's the case, the odyssey is your best bet, for both safety and tether spots. Did you consider financing?

lfab

Mon, Jan 05 2015, 12:35 pm

We have a Kia Sedona with 4 carseats - 3 forward facing and 1 infant rear facing.
Are you planning on buying new or used and how long do you plan on keeping the car? When we looked into minivans we bought used and planned on driving it for as long as possible (ie. till the car no longer works) so it was worth it to go with the Kia. However, Toyota and Honda have better resale value so if you plan on buying new and selling the car at some point it may be worth getting the Honda.
Another thing to consider; the Kia only has 5 seats in the back while the Toyota and Honda have the option to add an extra seat in the middle row.

israeli83

Mon, Jan 05 2015, 1:14 pm

lfab wrote:

We're planning on buying a new minivan that we could keep for years. Right now we'll have two forward facing car seat and one rear facing. But I want one seat open for an extra car seat for the future. How many car seats can you fit in the third row of the Kia minivan? how many in the second?

srbmom

Mon, Jan 05 2015, 2:43 pm

Quote:

Another thing to consider; the Kia only has 5 seats in the back while the Toyota and Honda have the option to add an extra seat in the middle row.

I'm pretty sure the 2015 has the option of 8 seats

lfab

Tue, Jan 06 2015, 12:35 pm

israeli83 wrote:

You can fit 2 full size car seats in the back row and 2 in the middle (one on each of the seats; although another poster mentioned that the 2015 may have an option for 8 seats so the configuration may be different than our van which is a 2008). If you had older kids riding in back you could probably fit 3 booster seats across the back but I've never tried this. You can also have 1 booster seat, 1 car seat, and 1 child with no car seat across the back (this we have done so I know it works). When there are 2 full car seat in the back row though, you can't fit anyone between. Keep in mind that as your kids get older they won't all need car seats - some can be switched to boosters or sit with nothing so you won't need to have 5 regular car seats at the same time.