I rent vehicles when my family is in town, since our little Prius can’t transport more than my family. With my parents in town, I decided to try a mini-van. Enterprise tends to have fairly nice trim levels, but as mini-van’s go the Town and Country is underwhelming.
I don’t know a whole ton about cars, but I do know what I liked and didn’t like.
Vehicle Type
I’ve never really liked minivan’s. All the cliche’s about them — I agree with them. I’ve driven larger SUVs 7–8 seaters, and in many cases I prefer those, but if you have to haul cargo and people a minivan is probably the best option. A large SUV, like the Suburban, is also useful in this regard. I found it a lot more powerful and fun to drive and the mileage didn’t seem that worse. Unfortunately it’s an upgrade from a minivan so it may not work with everyone’s budget.
Some things about minivans are fascinating. The remote for the door and hatch are great. Unfortunately I found them to be slightly dangerous. The hatch can close on someone. The sliding doors can run over preschooler hands that might be touching the side of the van. Thankfully I caught my son in time, and later I verified that the door didn’t really stop when met with resistance. I feel like this is an oversight since this vehicle type is geared toward families.
Car Seats
My oldest son sits front-facing and we have a new Immi-Go specifically for rental cars. It was easy to install as it just requires the tether part of the LATCH system and both the 2nd row seats supported that.
For my baby who sits rear-facing, we use a Britax Boulevard. I avoided removing it from the Prius for this trip. Unfortunately with minivans having two car seats in the middle section renders the back seat somewhat unusable. My other thought was to place his seat in the third row, but the positioning of the LATCH tethers is weird. I could have used the seat belts, but I didn’t want to waste a half hour going through that.
We avoided this problem with my previous minivan rental (a Sienna) because we were using an infant car seat. My wife accidentally she-hulked the seat so we had to upgrade to a bulkier thing.
Cargo
Cargo was plentiful. My favorite thing about this vehicle was the flexibility of its storage. I could easily fold up the second row seats as needed, and the third row seats easily disappeared. This let me lay all my parents luggage flat. I was able to play a puzzle game and store a a stroller completely upright. I also took advantage of having the van to drop off a bicycle for my cousin. No problems. I can see why people like having minivans at the ready, but I don’t think either my wife or myself would want this as our daily driver.
Electronics
This was a major disappointment. In most cars, even the Ford Sync, I can pair my phone over bluetooth and be on my way. For the Uconnect system I had to dig out the manual. I still couldn’t connect it. I tried a USB cable, and that didn’t work until I tried the USB port in the glove box as opposed to the one on the head unit itself.
Playing music or podcasts from my phone worked, but sounds from my map software would only play if music (or a podcast) was also playing. Sometimes there would be trouble connecting to the phone and I’d have to cycle through inputs on the head unit until it worked.
Another issue with the USB in this vehicle is it would hardly charge my phone especially when it was in use. I’ve never had this experience with other cars and it was fairly frustrating since my phone tends be in the “red zone” by afternoon.
Trim
Enterprise usually gets a level of trim that has leather. This was the touring package, I believe the Town and Country has a few better options, but they are fairly expensive. The interior lighting was nice, but had a very blue color. There’s also an analog clock.
My regular car has keyless entry and push button start which makes me pretty much hate driving any car that doesn’t. At this trim level you still have to use your key like a chump. When you have kids with you, fumbling with a remote that has 5+ buttons is not always the funnest thing in the world.
Driving
So I’m not really a car guy. I’m really at home with my Prius. It gets me from point A to point B reasonably fast. Keep this in mind that this is my frame of reference.
With a minivan I felt totally underpowered, even with just me driving. I felt the shifting was terrible, and the “manual-mode” was kind of a joke, but slightly useful if you needed to haul-ass. Of course the handling wasn’t great, and I was a bit worried about pushing it too hard near anything remotely curvy.
After 10–15 minutes the seething rage I felt for the vehicle disappeared and driving became more natural. I could see how a parent who has to haul kids around all the time could forget about how well the vehicle drives and embraces it’s purpose. To take one or more children to soccer practice
I have a very tiny special place in my heart for the Town and Country. I did a few pre-license behind-the-wheel’s with a Dodge Caravan. But overall I didn’t like this vehicle.
- I’d avoid renting this again. If I see anything else in a lot I’ll chose that.
- I’d certainly never consider buying this for my family.
- I would suggest people look at the Odyssey if they need a minivan to purchase.
- If you are renting and your agency has a large SUV (Tahoe, Suburban or Ford Explorer), you may want to opt for that. Although rollovers:
