Ack! I Drive a Minivan -and I Love it!

In December of 97, we were looking for a new (to us) vehicle to replace a company car that we no longer had access to. Already the mother of two children and a huge labrador, I knew we had to go the minivan route (not something I was really looking forward to!)

We began our search for a good used vehicle in the normal ways, and quickly narrowed the field to the Nissan Quest. We had had a Maxima in the past, and I had never felt more comfortable than when driving that car. The Quest is built on the Maxima chassis, so it was a natural choice for us to begin test-driving.

I was immediately comfortable in the van. The pickup is smooth and quick (in the power/sport transmission mode), the seating is very comfortable, even in the rear bench seat. (Having very long legs, I made sure to sit in every seat in the vehicle. If I could not comfortably sit in any of the seats, the vehicle was immediately removed from our list of potential purchases.) Seven adults can truly sit comfortably in this van, and, perhaps more importantly for us, our now three children and very large labrador all have enough room.

This van gets good gas mileage, and has very low maintenance costs. The seating is comfortable, and the rear-controlled HVAC unit is an added plus, as are the rear-controls for the stereo system. The seating configuration can be easily manipulated for additional cargo space. The next time, I will buy a van with both a passenger and driver's side rear door, as this makes loading young children into the vehicle much easier. The Quest does now have this feature, although it was unavailable for the year model (1995) that we purchased. Other than that, there is not much that I would change about this vehicle. I definitely will buy another when the time comes.