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Walk Around

A minivan is not a stone that lends itself to sculpture. A description of the overall shape of this newest generation of the Dodge Grand Caravan wouldn't sound too much different from a description of the 1982 model. People don't buy minivans so others will look and say, "That's the new minivan. Some styling!"

The Dodge Grand Caravan is boxy, but it's attractive in an SUV kind of way. The hood is less fairly flat, and it bears character lines. The grille is very upright, making the Dodge crosshair grille look like that of a Dodge truck, especially in chrome. Just the thing to encourage that pokey driver in front of you to get out of the way.

Sixteen-inch wheels are standard. They're boring looking, but the optional five-spoke 17s look better.

Dodge now offers only the long-wheelbase Grand Caravan. The short wheelbase Caravan was dropped with the 2008 redesign. All of them are now Grand.

The Grand Caravan is the second largest minivan on the market, smaller than only the Nissan Quest. These comparisons are relatively unimportant, however, because the other minivans are within an inch or two of the Grand Caravan in both wheelbase and overall length. The Grand Caravan is a big vehicle, with a 202.5-inch overall length and a 121.2-inch wheelbase.

Interior

2009 Dodge Grand Caravan

The Dodge Grand Caravan leads the minivan field when it comes to interior convenience, capability and versatility. Chrysler has been working to give its minivans a competitive advantage in these areas for a long time, and they haven't been afraid to be creative.

The interior materials are lackluster, however. Hollow hard plastic dominates the dash and door panels. Everything fits together well, but it doesn't make for a luxurious look and feel. Yet options quickly add to the price.

Our Grand Caravan SE came with stain-resistant fabric for the seats, designed for the soccer-mom lifestyle. We quite liked the look and feel. The black vinyl trim and satin aluminum-look plastic didn't look rich, but nor was it ugly. These fabrics can be easy to clean, however, dog hair still has a way of sticking into them, so those who haul canines are probably better off with leather.

The Grand Caravan is designed well for hauling youngsters with some thoughtful features. Among them is the convex "conversation mirror," which might also be called the "looking at your kids while you're yelling at them without having to turn around mirror. We like this feature.

We had six 10-year-old soccer players test the Grand Caravan's video player during a 90-minute drive to the game, and they liked it. The DVD was a snap to play, which is important because some of them, even those in much more expensive vehicles, are not easy to use. Plug in the DVD, press Play, and you have a miracle: It works. The screen drops down from the ceiling and the viewing begins. It comes with wireless headphones. It has jacks to plug in video game systems. It's available with Sirius Backseat TV, which comes with three kid-friendly channels: Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon. When the DVD screen is deployed, the driver loses some visibility in the rearview mirror so more attention needs to be paid to the side mirrors.

The dual-DVD entertainment system is even more impressive. With the two-screen system, third-row passengers can watch one thing and second-row passengers can watch (or play) another. Plus, video can be shown on the front touchscreen (which comes with both UConnect Tunes and UConnect GPS) when the vehicle is in Park, for viewing by the driver and front-seat passenger.

We liked the UConnect systems, as well. Both come with a hard-drive radio with 30 gigabytes of storage space to hold music and picture files. UConnect GPS adds a navigation system with voice activation and real-time traffic provided by Sirius. Songs can be ripped from CDs, and music and pictures can also be downloaded from thumb drives via a standard USB port. The hard drive is a great way to have ready access to your music collection without toting around a bunch of CDs.

The Grand Caravan's second-row bucket seats slide rearward to ease access to the third row, so there's less fighting and yelling about stepped-on feet. Or they flop forward with one lever. Don't get your foot caught on the seatbelt or you might end up face-down on the rear bench. You will want the available LED pinpoint lighting for back there, for your children to read by so they don't fight or bug you while you're driving.

Stow 'n Go works superbly well. For a fairly simple invention, it's a masterpiece. In just a minute or so, and without having to refer to the manual, we dropped the second- and third-row seats flat into the floor. We put them away manually, though a power option is available for the third-row bench. We unloaded the kids, then stopped at the furniture store to pick up a long leather couch. We converted the Grand Caravan from soccer bus to cargo van in 60 seconds, and easily carted the couch home.

The Swivel 'n Go seating option is another great development from Chrysler. It comes with second-row seats that rotate 180 degrees and a stowable table that fits between the second and third rows. The seats are easy to turn (once you figure them out), and the table stows away easy enough. Best of all, if you have kids that can get along (at least for a while), they can play games on road trips.

The overall interior volume in the Grand Caravan isn't class-leading, the competition offers more legroom, but all of these minivans are big inside and the Grand Caravan is comfortable for kids. Both rear rows are big enough for adults.

Up front, the instrumentation is good, black on light gray lettering, with big divisions so you can read each 5 mph. Our option package included a digital information display (it showed an average of 19.1 miles per gallon for one week of city and highway driving), but the button to change the information is in a terrible position, most easily (but treacherously) reached by your left hand through the three-spoke leather steering wheel. Otherwise you have to lean forward, reach around the wiper stalk, and fumble for it, which isn't a whole lot safer. Other information includes distance to empty (about 400 miles on a tank of gas), compass, outside temperature, and estimated time to destination.

A leather-wrapped shift lever sticks out just to the left of the center stack, an efficient location. The automatic transmission offers a manual-shift feature allowing the driver more control. There isn't much need for manual shifting with this relaxed cruiser of a vehicle, but the sturdy, well-placed lever may encourage this in certain situations.

The sloped A-pillars allow good visibility, but the longer hood in the redesigned Grand Caravan means the driver sits back a bit farther from the front bumper, so it's harder to gauge when parking.

The center console is removable, which is good; but when it's fully attached it feels loose. We lost count of all the storage cubbies and cupholders. Dodge has outdone itself in this area. The driver and front-seat passenger can each drink four drinks at once (or store empties). Front-seat occupants will never be lacking for a place to put stuff of all sizes and shapes. We're talking bins under the second-row seats, compartments in the floor, and an umbrella holder.

Fifteen hundred dollars is a lot to spend for the convenience of not having to physically slide your minivan's side doors (there are two of them, by the way), or lift the liftgate, but it might be worth it, maybe especially the liftgate. Minivan owners tend to have full, busy lives, and small conveniences like having the power tailgate raise as you walk up with your arms full can be worth a million bucks. The buttons are located on the headliner between the front seats, and using them imparts a wonderful sense of power. It makes you look cool to your kids, too. Everything is controlled by you. Your assault vehicle awaits your command.

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