Dodge Caravan Minivan at a Glance

If you would like to have that car that serves well as a family car then you actually don’t have to look far. Dodge Caravan minivan is an exclusively family car with a very roomy interior enough to carry you and your family. The minivan is an easy to drive car and has currently became the alternative choice to family transportation. While other vehicle models entirely revolutionize their segments, the Dodge Caravan never hesitated but decided to come up with a new one – the Dodge Caravan minivan.

It was actually one of the first vehicles to come with such safety precaution measures such as airbags. It has always maintained to stay a head of all the known caravans and other family cars in the entire market. Apart from all those it has always been regarded as the most easy to drive, most versatile and the most pleasant to drive minivan. The Dodge Caravan minivan first came with a single sliding door but later integrated the use of two sliding doors.  In the recent past years this minivan was the most selling minivan alongside its kind known as the Grand Caravan.

There hasn’t been much competition to the Dodge minivan in the entire US because most American auto makers either gave up competing with it or just decided not to get into the minivan production. There are some competitors though, that have come along – Japan and Korean auto manufactures. These competitors actually came in full swing and decided to raise the bar much higher. The involvement of both the Japanese and the Korean car makers made the Dodge Caravan minivan lag behind in terms of safety content, interior design, easy driving and power. Dodge has always been known to produce the short wheel base caravan but in the year 2008, it introduced another model which comes in an extended wheel base like the Grand Caravan type.

Did you know that most Dodge Caravan minivans extended to a 200 inch mark while the most recent one which has been in production from the year 2001 to 2007 and which actually represents Dodge’s fourth generation of vehicles has a measurement of 189 inches? It came with a 113 inch wheel base making it one of the easiest minivans to park in the smallest place. Compared to other minivans it was actually the cheapest.

The Base Caravan SE had a four speed transmission that was completely automatic with also a four cylinder engine. This Base Caravan SE was sparsely equipped and came only with a CD stereo and an air conditioner. It had bench seats on its both second and third rows. The Caravan SXT also commonly known as the Caravan Sport since its introduction and until 2004, also had a four speed transmission that was automatic had a horse power of 180 and also came with cruse control, power accessories, air conditioner and power sliding passenger door. In the 2003, it actually had a version known as the V6. This version was a powered cargo van and was entirely manufactured for business purposes. Also see: Advantages and Disadvantages of the Dodge Caravan Series

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Dodge Caravan Series

One of the many caravan models manufactured by Dodge is called the Dodge Caravan. However, this minivan would seem capable if the four cylinder engine was actually avoided. The four cylinder powering is simply under powered. Even though it has enough space for almost seven or eight adults and a space for cargo which expands when the rear seats are removed, it still has to put up with the extra heavy rear bench seats showing its strength. This is one of the problems it has is when it comes to the road. Even though it is easy and fun to drive around, its engine and four speed transmission which is automatic lacks both good performance and is not fuel economical compared to its competitors. Another problem rises with its interior design. It has the cheapest and poorly finished interior and compared to other caravans its reliability record is not pleasing.

Adding to this Final generation of Dodge caravans, Dodge did away with its front seat side airbags in the year 2005 and came up with curtain ones which are able to protect all the three rows. That seems like the only significant change ever made to the Dodge caravan minivan. But even though that change was significant, it still lags behind in class compared to its competitors.

The third generation caravan model was produced from the year 1996 to the year 2000. All these newer models trace their designs from it. The third generation model also had the Grand Caravan’s 180 horse power, the 3.8 liter V6, and another fourth engine. Among the caravans trim lines was the ES model which was discontinued in the year 1998 because Dodge decided to change the regular known length caravan to a minivan.

Other caravans trim lines which were there initially included SE, LE and the Base models. At first the Base model came with a 3 liter V6 and a four cylinder but later upgraded to 3.3 liter in the year 1997. The known midrange was only available until the year 2007. The SE dropped its four cylinder option in the year 1997 and later also decided to drop its 3 liter V6 option exactly after the year 1998.

The second generation caravan was produced from the year 1991 to the year 1995. This second generation trims lines offered three engines. They included Base, SE, LE and ES. It came with removable rear seats with only the front seats as the ones having the head restraints. This model had its major significant update in the year 1994. They actually opted for more dashboard adding and another airbag altogether for protection from side impact.

Even though the second generation model offered an all wheel drive, it is highly recommendable for one to go for these newer recent caravans because of their safety compared to the other generation models. The Dodge caravan minivan is more convenient as it does not come with the four speed automatic which has a high breakdown rate.

Characteristics of a Good Dealership

Choosing a good car dealership is just as equally as important as buying the vehicle itself. Many people tend to ignore this fact thinking that all the car dealers are the same so long as they have the car they are interested in buying. Choosing a dealership is like choosing a customer. A good customer means a long time friend in trade, so it should actually be taken very importantly. Sometimes you might be a family man with kids growing at a very fast rate and you know how kids behave when they finish that high school or college. They will always want to own their cars. Choosing a long time dealer with good characteristics therefore makes it an advantage if you are in such a situation or in a similar situation.

Most car dealers are known to be full of scams especially when it comes to financing. Taking risk all the time is a practice that is just hard to put with. How do you feel  with the fact that  every time you step into that dealership store you continuously have to exercise caution and great care in order to get yourself a fair deal with the car dealers? Isn’t that process just too cumbersome and tiresome? As to the popular belief that all car dealerships are untrustworthy, actually not all of them are that bad. There are very good sales managers out here who are not into the scam business that kill their reputations. Most of these good finance managers don’t allow risky behaviors that might destroy the name of their business.

There are a number of characteristics that a good dealership has. These are the kind of characteristics that one needs to check in order to settle down on a good dealership. Actually because of the high competition in the car dealership business, most dealerships have decided to protect their names in order to keep and win more customers. Bad dealers always think that cars are a long term items that takes time for a person to buy again after he or she has purchased the first one. Is that not wrong thinking? A customer can always bring friends if you deal with him or her in a correct and fair way. Here are some few characteristics to look for in a good car dealership.

A good dealership always has a good detailed and large inventory. Even though checking and buying through classifieds is an alternative to buying from the dealer, it is too much full of ups and downs that leave your body too exhausted at the end of the day. Those classifieds are always too limited. You might find yourself driving from store to store and city to city while looking for that favorite car of yours that you have always longed for. A good dealership will definitely take care of all that. It will be able to hand you an opportunity to check its large selection of vehicles while in the same place.

A good dealership should have good amenities. A dealership can be professionally placed in a suitable location, with a wide variety of vehicles to choose from and with a professional staff, but if you didn’t know, that does not actually make it the best dealership around. Also see: Selecting the Right Dealership

Selecting the Right Dealership

A good dealership should be able to offer good services that apply to any type of vehicle and such services include good financing options, and good routine maintenance services. The staff should always be committed to satisfying the customers with the best of services. In most cases a dealer’s amenities are always hard to know how and when they work. The best way therefore is to have a more personal check by asking questions and demanding satisfactory answers from the dealerships. You may ask to know when and for how long is their garage always opened, how available their services are whenever you are in need of them, how they will respond to you incase of an emergency etc.

A good car dealership must always consider the customers interest first.  A dealer should actually take time and listen to the need of the customer. If in case they find out that a customer somehow has difficulty in understanding their terms, they should not take advantage of the customer and try to dupe him or her. What they should do is to give the customer satisfactory information and educative tips on what should take place. When a customer is provided with such valuable information, he or she will be able to make a better decision on what to go for.

Therefore, a dealership should have salespeople who work to build long term customer relationship with the customers, one who shows that he or she has a positive experience, one who will explain all loan options in an understandable way and lastly one who never pressures the customer in any way to get into the deal. Bad dealers are known to confuse their customers’ with their tricky selling systems. The  moment you step foot right into a dealership and the salesperson is already on your neck trying to convince you to accept a deal, then I must say you better think twice because that does not look like a characteristic of a good dealer. Good dealers are a very ethical lot. They won’t even try loading car price quotes with add-ons just to raise their earnings like other unethical car dealerships tend to do. A car dealer is supposed to honestly follow the basic codes related to the business of car dealership.

It is advisable for one look for such characteristics when trying to get a good car dealer in this car dealership market which is full of untrustworthy dealers. Any who lacks one of the mentioned characteristics is not actually worth doing business with because you might end up hurt in the long run. There are sites in the internet which shows different characteristics of a good car dealer in regard to different regions and countries. You can search the net and find out the characteristics of a good car dealership in your location.

Car Dealerships – Understanding the Buying Process

Most car dealers are used to the idea of straining their salespersons to deliver in their selling system. As a customer do you actually know what that entails? That makes the salesperson to go with you through a selling process that is full of manipulation. These people are well trained manipulators from their sales managers to their “closers.” They are known to use professionally designed sales system that are hard to understand. They easily use this to manipulate their customers, especially those that are not well informed about car buying procedures. As a car buyer, get to  know from today that whenever you walk into that professionally established car dealership don’t always think that you are  only up against the sales person. Actually one is always up against the whole entire team. What you need to do therefore as a customer is to have yourself well prepared before you step foot into one of those car dealer stores.

These car dealers typically use different ways of influencing their customers to purchase their cars. But there is one common process that almost all of them use on first time purchasers. As you walk into that store, the salesperson is always there to greet you and welcome you to the dealership. After teasing you with some funny talks they will always ask you whether you are trading, financing or if you owe money to the trade. If you are financing they will actually want to know who your financers are, how much you are able to put down and what kind of a monthly payment you feel comfortable with. Sometimes you might leave without holding any transaction with them and you wonder how they are able to keep up with you. The reason why they are always able to keep up with you after you have left is because the questions they always ask includes questions concerning your personal information like address, full name and phone numbers. These car dealers have the ability to call you until you either end up buying or until you die.

It is advisable not to give the salesperson your social security number. They always asked for it but I repeat again, don’t ever try giving them your social security number. If you do that then he or she will be able to run a credit report to find out about your credit history. They will be able to find out whether you are able to do the purchase. You can easily be manipulated and end up being duped in financing scam if they actually get to know your social security number. Give them that at your own risk. Car dealerships always have a special person dealing in finance problems that is trained to handle those with bad credit. It sounds nice for those people with bad or no credit, but do not forget that almost 70% of car dealership scams are financing related and is known to target those with bad or no credit.

Once the salesperson is always through with his or her questions they will always fight as hard as possible to fix a deal with you. One of the ways they do this is by convincing you to have a test drive. Just imagine yourself as a potential car buyer test driving your dream car. You will find it hard to let the car go. Most sales managers prefer price negotiations to come after test drives, so if the salesperson didn’t manage to convince you to go for a test drive then he or she will hold a brief consultation meeting with the sales manager. Also see: Car Salesmen – The Details of their Job.

Car Salesmen – The Details of their Job

Car dealership sales managers and salespersons are trained professionals who know how to read people’s minds. From the questions they will ask you, they are definitely able to tell from your face, reactions and answers that you are willing and able to purchase the car. Once they know this they will pull out all of their abilities to get you in and finally close a deal with you. It might be a sad story if you are financing because they will try very hard to close you on payment. Do you know what that means? It means they go happy and you go sad because you will remain not knowing what the selling price is.

Doing a trade with them is also risky, so one must also take caution while doing that. In trading, they always start low but you will sure fight for your every cent as they deliberately increase their offer. Their moves are a bunch of calculated steps and they won’t let go easily of you in any way possible. Their goal is to win you and settle a deal with you and once you sign those contract papers there is always no looking back.

Here are some few helpful tips that will help you a lot in the car dealership buying process. One, when going into dealership car buying, take time and do a proper research on the type of car you are interested in. There are a lot of sites in the internet that show free car price quotes. The good thing with internet is that you can even have a little research on car models, invoice prices and other accessories. Two, don’t ever negotiate on payment but negotiate on the selling price. These guys can easily dupe you   on payment. Three, never agree that you have reached a deal until you are comfortable with the selling price. About trade-in prices, remember to negotiate them separately or you might get a scam hanging over your head.

It is advisable to arrange for your own financing before starting a deal. The whole dealer financing thing is relatively costly. Don’t allow for the dealer to arrange a financer for you. Try and use the internet as an alternative way of purchasing your car. Internet saves time and money. Internet also gives you a variety of choices to choose on. If you didn’t actually know, internet is also the place to get the car price quotes which you can use in negotiation. Lastly, one must know that once he or she buys a car it becomes theirs so long as you successfully transferred the ownership rights. This issue of a 3 day right of cancelation does not exist.

Only a number of dealers use selling ways that are strict. The bottom line is for you to watch and be ready to face the car dealers with all their tricks so that you don’t end up in a system of selling which is actually a trap. There are a number of websites that offer information that might help you in beating car dealers in their dirty field. Some of this information also contains both terms and slang used in car dealership.