On Buying a Minivan

An unexpected loss of our 2015 Kia Sorento turned into an exciting day trip from Manchester to Manheim and back again in a 2020 Toyota Sienna.

Dear Friends,

On February 29th, as we were eating dinner at home, a driver crashed into the back of the 2015 Kia Sorento parked in our driveway and caused enough damage to total the car. Not the best news, but at least nobody was hurt in the accident.

That next week, we put in a claim with our insurance company and they had it towed over to a collision center in Hooksett, which estimated the damage to cost $9,614 to get repaired, which was too high a percentage of the value of a Kia Sorento with 132,000 miles after it was repaired for it to make sense to fix it.

A total loss. The insurance company would settle for an amount sufficient to replace the car at retail, and I would relinquish title to the wrecked vehicle for them to sell at Copart auto auction to offset the loss.

With the unplanned destruction of Valerie’s primary vehicle, a nice AWD SUV that held our family of six with one seat to spare, we got to talking about what to get next. Should we get a Palisade or a Tahoe for the extra room as the kids got bigger? We definitely wanted 4WD or AWD for the winters here in New England.

We’ve never owned a minivan, but we had a great ride in one the last time we went to Disney World coming back to the airport and with the kids getting bigger and needing more leg room, the additional cargo capacity for road trips, and being lower to the ground for safety, a minivan seemed like the way to go.

But which one?