(first posted 9/2/2011) This is the second installment of an occasional series called How Hard Can It Be To Make A Minivan?
What do you do when you are the most conservative of the three major car companies and both of your domestic competitors are working on small vans? Chrysler is the farthest along with a program, and is basing it on a front drive K-car platform. GM is about a year behind them, but is working on a shrunken version of its big van. Following GM is normally the better bet, but a lot of good former Ford people are running the Chrysler program, and they may have something there. You are Ford, so you try to split the difference, of course. This, in essence, was the Aerostar. Did it work? Well, yes. And no.
By the early 1980s, Ford knew a thing or two about building vans. Ford had overtaken Chrysler as the leader in this market with its E series. The Club Wagon (the passenger version of the Econoline) was the most car-like of the big vans at the time, both in driving dynamics and in passenger accommodations. If the market was going to move to smaller vans, Ford was well positioned to become a leader.
In a way, Ford had a little bit of a jump on the competition. In the early 1970s, Ford explored the idea of a smaller, garagable van, that resulted in a 1972 prototype called the Carousel. (Paul Niedermeyer did a piece on the Carousel which can be read here.) Not a minivan, really, but you must admit that some of the styling cues were picked up when designers got to work on what would become the Aerostar.
Like the Chevrolet Astro (CC here), the Aerostar would be rear wheel drive. Officially, this was because the product planners were convinced that trailer towing would be an important feature for this market. Unofficially, the configuration was necessitated by Ford’s almost complete lack of any experience in front wheel drive, thus a total lack of platforms suitable for conversion into a van. Although the Aerostar technically shared its platform with no other vehicle (it was a unit body with a built-in frame for added strength), it drew heavily from the Ranger/Bronco and from the Fox platforms in general layout if not in actual parts. The rear suspension, for example, was a coil sprung live axle, much like in the Mustang, a much more car-like setup than the Astro’s leaf spring suspension.
Dimensionally, the Aerostar was tall like the Astro, and narrow like the Caravan. At 119 inches, it had the longest wheelbase of them all (the same as a ’65 Country Squire), but was right in with the rest of the pack in overall length. So again, the Aerostar was Mr. Average. The Aerostar did, however, stand out in one metric: its wedge profile gave it the lowest drag coefficient (.37) of any of the first generation minivans.
The other thing that you will do, just because you are Ford, is to offer the vehicles with a wide but compromise-ridden range of engines. There would be the troublesome and underpowered 2.8 liter Cologne V6, the torquey but head-gasket-munching 4.0 Cologne V6, and the overmatched but very durable 3.0 liter Vulcan V6. There would be a 4 cylinder mill offered initially, but it would be gone by 1987. Interestingly, the Aerostar was offered with manual transmissions for most of its run.
Among the Detroit 3, the Aerostar was the last minivan to the party, making its debut in July of 1985 as a 1986 model. This was nearly a year after the Astro was introduced and about two years behind the Caravan and Voyager. The Aerostar promptly grabbed the number 3 minivan sales slot (behind the Astro and WAY behind the Chrysler minis), where it remained through the rest of the 1980s. Then, a funny thing happened. Shortly after the 1989 extended version (same long wheelbase but with another 14 inches out back) was introduced, the Aerostar started gaining on the Astro and passed it in sales after 1990. I have found no firsthand figures, but at least one secondhand source reports that the Aerostar continued to sell 100 thousand units a year right up to the end of its life.
As a machine, the Aerostar was not nearly so compelling a vehicle as the Astro. But from a comfort, convenience and perceived quality standpoint, the Aerostar took on a lot of those thoughtful, luxurious features of the Chrysler minivans, and put them into something that would tow a trailer almost as well as the Astro. Let me tell you from experience, the second row captains chairs and the rear stereo controls with headphone jacks were mighty impressive back in the day.
We should not overlook the Eddie Bauer effect. In 1988, Ford slapped the Eddie Bauer name on the Aerostar and made it a luxury van. This was 2 years before Chrysler put leather in a Caravan and called it a Town & Country, and 2 years before the Explorer hit the scene. Older readers will also recall that Ford was on a quality roll (or at least a perceived quality roll) in the second half of the 1980s and early 90s, and the Aerostar seemed to fit under that halo. Like most other Ford vehicles, the Aerostar felt solid and substantial. It looked, felt and sounded like a quality-built vehicle, much more so than did the Astro or the Caravan/Voyager.
By the mid 90s, the Aerostar had gotten so much of a second wind that when Ford announced plans to kill it after the 1994 model (to be replaced by the 1995 Windstar), dealers and the public raised such a ruckus that the car’s execution was stayed until the end of the 1997 model year, which was the longest it could be legally sold without an interior re-design for a passenger side air bag.
But beauty fades, and it faded in the Aerostar’s case faster than most. Where are they now? While old Astros and Safaris are still found in daily service everywhere, Aerostars have become mighty scarce. The Cologne engine’s appetite for head gaskets certainly did not help. If you must pick a vehicle that is hard on head gaskets, never, ever pick a minivan with a longitudinal engine. Even more so, this little van turned into one of the biggest rustbuckets since the ’71 LTD. Maybe Ford used more early ’70s Carousel body engineering than was apparent on the surface. Whatever the cause, Aerostars have gone virtually extinct in salt country.
But not completely extinct. I had to search for a while to find one, but I found the blue extended length version first. Although a bit rusty, this 1992-95(?) model is not bad as midwestern Aerostars go. But the real find was the green shortie, which I saw parked in a Sam’s Club parking lot. I dropped my wife at the door of the store, then drove out to the parked Aerostar just as the owner was getting in. The owner chose to remain anonymous, and it is a good thing, because he is the Aerostar Whisperer. If his identity were made public, his street would become like a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, with Aerostar owners converging from everywhere, begging him to touch and heal their rusting, leaking vans. He bought his green 1995 model new at Larry Bird Ford (yes, that Larry Bird) in Martinsville, Indiana, and it currently has 198 thousand miles on the Vulcan V6, which he attributes to regular 3 thousand mile oil changes. He bought this one to replace an ’86 Aerostar that had reached 392 thousand miles. The current car was rustproofed by Ziebart, and was he was religious about subsequent inspections and refresher treatments. If there is a nicer Aerostar anywhere outside of Texas or California, it belongs in a Ripley’s Museum.
So what is this vehicle’s legacy? As with the Astro, the Aerostar gets a pass for failing to follow the Chrysler front drive car-based platform that proved to be the runaway winner. That the public would flock to car-like minis was not so apparent in the mid 1980s, and Ford’s choice of platform was a reasonable choice at the time. Unfortunately, Ford did what Ford has done so many other times: Make a really appealing vehicle that looks good on paper, looks even better in the showroom, but looks like a complete loser as a 10 year old used car. I will confess that I came very close to trading my ’94 Club Wagon on a slightly newer Aerostar with the 4.0. But I decided to keep my existing ride, and thus kept my garage free of ticking time bombs.
With the Aerostar, Ford tried to split the difference between the Astro and the Chrysler minivan. It almost succeeded, and even became (for a while) the preferred rear drive minivan on the strength of its luxury and its apparent quality. But some of us age better than others. For every Jennifer Aniston, there is a Lindsay Lohan. Cars are no different, and the Aerostar aged badly. If you choose very carefully (a dry western car with the Vulcan V6), this is still not a bad minivan. Unfortunately, the odds are stacked against the Aerostar buyer today. It is a sad thing when a vehicle makes the transition from transportation to punch line. The Aerostar, unfortunately, has largely completed the leap.
1992. I had three small kids and we were driving a Plymouth Acclaim as our everyday car. We wanted to make the jump to a mini. My next door neighbor had a 90 Aero that he had bought new. I made the trip across the yard one day to ask him about his rig. Three hours later , he was only beginning to run out of vulgar invective for his troublesome ride. (he had a large vocabulary) .
He warned me off of these things. Told me to run the other way even if I saw one really cheap . Especially if I saw one really cheap because they went through head gaskets like William Shatner went through toupees. I took his advice,made due with the Plymouth and later got a 300 TD for dad’s taxi.
I always thought that the Aerostar was the best looking of the minivans on offer from Detroit. Too bad they were built by apes.
Good piece !
I’d be curious as to what powertrain he had. I bought an 88 XLT new and we drove it until my ex-wife rolled it with something like 145000 miles on it. It was the short wb with the 3.0 Vulcan. My problem recollection was radiator water pump and a mass airflow sensor. My claim to fame is that I actually changed all six sparkplugs by myself. Overall a versatile ride and served us well. That back seat sure was heavy!
The 3.0L Vulcan was the best engine offered in the Aerostar. It didn’t perform as well as the 4 liter V6, but was far more durable. The situation was quite similar to that of the 3.0L Vulcan vs. the 3.8L V6 in the Ford Taurus. Want to go faster? You’ll be replacing head gaskets.
We had a ’94 Aerostar with the 4L engine. Honestly I never knew that this engine was devouring head gaskets.I had the van from 23 000 miles to 165 000 miles. I never worried about the head gasket. i suppose ignorance was working its charm.
BTW: that is a well written piece, Mr. JCP
It’s interesting about the 4.0 V6. I have that same engine in my 93 Ranger and it has been a dependable champ. No issues at all. The only thing it guzzles is gas!
I remember reading that when it first came out this van had some strange chassis issues, and instead of fixing it Ford put big heavy weights up in the nose somewhere or something. Anyone know if this is true or what the deal was? I want to say it was vibration problems.
You are jogging something deep in my memory banks. I worked with a guy who traded an ’84 Club Wagon on one of the first ’86 Aerostars. His was the loaded version. I recall that he had a warranty repair of the electronic instrument cluster (ungodly expensive) and that he had a warranty adjustment of the mechanical lifters in the 2.9 V6, which I recall as being nearly impossible to access (the reason the first adjustment was covered by warranty).
I dimly remember something about weights being installed in the front of the car for some reason, but cannot recall why (and am not, in fact, 100% sure that I remember this). I thought that BigOldChryslers might hit on this (below) but he did not. Maybe we will hear more on this one later today.
Weight was/is? added to the chassis on various cars to reduce vibration, among other things — although this is usually done during development of the car, not after. When Ford was redesigning the Mustang for 1994, during road tests of pre-production convertibles they discovered an unacceptable amount of cowl and windshield shake under certain conditions. The engineer’s solution was to add a 25 pound “plate” to a certain area of the front chassis, and it quelled the shake considerably. Probably not the best solution to a problem ( adding weight ), but effective. Maybe the Aerostar was treated the same……
The “Kennedy” Lincoln Continental convertible was the same. A big unit body transmits noise and vibration more than a similar BOF car, so these had big “tuning bell” weights installed. I think there was a 25 pound weight put in both front and back on these.
Ford added tuning weights to the driveline of many cars. Both my 68 Thunderbird and 77 Marquis had weights at the back of the transmission and my 79 Mustang had one on the axle pinion housing. These are small weights, about 15 to 20 lbs.
I don’t know whether the added weight was the cause, but an Aerostar legend was that if someone rolled one upside down, it would come to rest not on its roof, but on its sloping windshield and hood. I must admit, I have never seen this, only heard about it.
I wonder how much of Detroit minivan’s failure come from its design, or its quality (or lack thereof)? It seems to me that the Aerostar and the Astro was actually pretty useful minivan, its their woeful reliability that caused people to avoid them like someone with a leper. As far as its usability, can’t be much worse than its import competition in its day, the Toyota and Nissan cab-forward van. I’ve rented the Astro quite a few times back in the day, and I think it fulfill its duty as a people carrier quite admirably. Haven’t driven an Aerostar, had a family friend who has an Aerostar for catering delivery, and one day its tranny failed. Has driven a Windstar and it was pretty nice.
I liked the concept of these, if not the execution. A friend owned one and the slide-open side glass scored lots of points with me – don’t you know who I am? – he owned it for years and seemed happy with it. I don’t think he had a lot of problems with it, either.
Other than that, we never owned any minivan, but wish we did early on. We also stuffed our family into K-Cars and Acclaims, but we survived after all.
The Plymouth Acclaim needs to have a CC all its own! I don’t have the “chops” to do it.
The Plymouth Acclaim (but not the Dodge Spirit) did get its own CC:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1994-plymouth-acclaim-if-it-was-good-enough-for-zackman-and-tina-turner/
I too loved the slide-open second row windows on the Aerostar which let it much more air and gave a more “open” feel than the typical flip-open windows on the Chrysler, GM, and other vans. Some others like the early Toyota vans also used sliders, but only the Ford had the trapizoidal shape that reminded me of the excellent GM New Look buses which had similarly-shaped windows that always made the van/bus look like it was moving forward. The Aerostar looked great inside and out from the B-pillar rearward, very all-of-a-piece. The front anteater section seemed not to match.
My parents bought one of these in 1986 primarily for my mom to drive. It had to be RWD and had to have good towing capacity, so the Caravan wasn’t an option. They had originally wanted an Astro/Safari, but the GM dealer was rude to my dad and wouldn’t budge off of list price, so he took a visit to the Ford dealer. The only one they had available for a test drive was a white cargo van with a stick. My mom can’t drive stick, so my dad drove and I rolled around in the back. I think that was their only test drive before deciding to buy one. Our Aerostar was factory-ordered with the towing package and rear heater.
The Aerostar would forever cement his (and my own) disdain of Fords. Too many evenings were spent in the garage correcting its many maladies. Years later, a Ford fan asked me why I don’t like Fords. I started, “We had an 86 Aerostar….” and before I could go on, he replied “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
When new, the side window (the one next to the seat with the nifty rear radio controls and headphone jacks) leaked. It went back to the dealer 3 times before it was fixed. The engine (I forget which it had, but would have been one of the V6’s) had mechanical lifters, not hydraulic. Stupid! Even my 45 year old Chryslers have hydraulic lifters. Lots of plumbing had to come off the top of the engine to adjust the valvetrain, which wouldn’t have been so bad, except that there was no room to work on the engine. Unless there were two people working on it, you had to alternate between working under the short hood and working through the small doghouse cover inside.
The first valvetrain adjustment was scheduled to be done by the dealership under warranty. My dad inspected their work afterwards and found that most of the requisite bolts had not even had a wrench on them. Lazy dealer mechanics didn’t do the job. My dad said fine, if the engine eats the valvetrain it will still be under warranty and I have paperwork that said the adjustment was done. The second scheduled adjustment was just after the warranty expired (of course), which my dad did himself. That’s when we found out exactly how bad this job was, as I described above.
I think it was only the second or third winter that we had the van that the coolant lines to the rear heater rusted-out and started leaking. My dad and I ripped them out and replaced them, front to back, with copper plumbing. I don’t know why he didn’t make them in a two or three smaller sections and couple them together with unions or short pieces of heater hose, but he fabricated both lines full-length from copper, with soldered elbows at every bend. We installed them, refilled the coolant, marked where the leaks were, removed them again, resoldered the leaks, and reinstalled them.
Then the oil pan rusted out and started leaking. What kind of cheap, thin steel was this thing made of?! The engine would have to be unbolted from its mounts and raised to clear the crossmember in order to change the oil pan. At that point he gave-up and took it to a shop (not the Ford dealership!) to have the pan replaced.
The Aerostar had a vacuum line to close a plenum door on the air cleaner, so that the engine would draw warm air from near the exhaust manifold; a fairly common practice. The vacuum system got contaminated somehow and the vacuum solenoid that worked the plenum door stopped working so it didn’t close. The computer, seeing weird readings from the intake air sensor, got confused and revved the engine. My mom wrestled with UNINTENDED ACCELERATION, riding the brakes all the way from her work to the end of our road. As she tried to navigate the turn onto our road, the van spun 180* and almost put her into a 15′ deep ditch. She walked the rest of the way home and threw the keys at my dad. He successfully diagnosed the problem and fixed it. Later they received a letter in the mail about a recall related to the vacuum system.
When my grandma decided to replace her 86 Monte Carlo, which would have probably been in 1990, my parents took her car and used the Aerostar as a trade-in instead. The Monte Carlo wasn’t a great family vehicle with it’s two large doors and smallish back seat, but at about the same time my dad bought a 1984 GMC fullsizse van with the 6.2L diesel which then served as the family vehicle and for towing. Both the Monte Carlo and the GM van were relatively trouble free for their many years of service, and were only fit for scrap by the time we were done with them.
We were fortunate to unload that POS Aerostar before it blew a head gasket or started rusting out along the lower body line. That was an exposed seam between two body panels, and the visible rust always started there on every Aerostar I’ve seen. (Same reason that Jeep Grand Wagoneers didn’t hold-up well in the rustbelt.)
It appears that we here at CC have jogged some unpleasant memories. Your comment reminded me about the mechanical lifter on the 2.9, which I had forgotten, but which must have been the reason for this engine’s short life in this vehicle.
My friend with the ’86 (see my reply to Mr. Tactful’s comment) was a lease-a-new-one-every-2-years kind of guy, and the Aerostar was traded on an absolutely loaded ’88 Taurus. I never got to see that car age, but I cannot tell you the last time I saw one of the really old Aerostars.
The heck of it was, it was a pretty nice driving vehicle. If Ford had given it a decent engine and body, I would probably be driving one now.
These are pretty common tales of woe of American cars of era, the kind that made my family very comfortable in our Firestone shop. Heck, it is not even that long ago! These vehicles cemented the Japanese makers in our market. Few people who have had this experience with a vehicle will ever buy the same brand again. This, however, led to our demise in the repair business. When my dad died in 1997, I decided to sell the Firestone store because I saw the writing on the wall: we would not have a steady supply of American made crapola to pay for our sojourns to Hawaii for much longer. I was right, too, since the new owners only lasted two years after I unloaded the shop. You could say that my present financial stability has much to do with head and intake manifold gaskets on America’s finest engineering efforts.
There is a reason that GM, Chrysler and to a lesser extent Ford (at least these days) are in the predicament they find themselves. They built crap when their competition was building good stuff. Pure and simple. Nobody was spiking our drinking water. These cars were junk. I would never take the risk on buying anything from the “Big Three” until I had ten years’ verified experience to prove to me their products are as good as their competition.
I am more than happy for somebody else to to do that testing for me.
Would you refuse to buy a Hyundai these days using the same reasoning? Their ’80s stuff made GM look like Rolls-Royce. Would you really turn down a Genesis V8 because the Excel was junk?
Yup, I will stay away from Korean cars. For Genesis money I would be looking for a lightly used LS430. A clean used RL would be an even better buy. However, if the Genesis proves to be a good car ten years from now, and if I am still able to drive, I would consider looking for a low km model to purchase if the price were right.
But that is me. I would encourage anybody to buy anything they want,
Well good on you for being consistent. I’ve asked this question before of people who said this about Detroit cars and usually they’ll make up some lame reason for this not applying to Korean cars.
My research tells me that Korean cars have middling to okay reliability but do not have the driving dynamics that I like in a car. Specifically, their suspension tuning needs some more development. I also find the latest ones over styled.
You’re right about the suspensions in Korean cars, they manage to have both mushy, uncommunicative handling AND a ride that’s not particularly smooth (at best). FWIW I’ve heard Kia at least has finally fixed this in the latest Optima though I haven’t experienced it first hand.
Canuck and L67: absolutely correct about Korean cars. I drove a Hyundai XG300 for six years until it was totalled in a rear-end collision. Comfortable car but so-so dynamics. Replaced with 2007 Kia Amanti. Nice ride at first, but the suspension just got worse and worse. Wallowly but not cushy, the car took every bump with an unpleasant kick and the rear wheels would bounce around weirdly. I got the dealer to replace all the shocks/struts, but no real improvement. I’ve noticed that reviews of recent Korean cars tend to fault the refinement of the suspension. If Kia has figured out how to give their cars a better driving dynamic with better ride, good for them.
My thoughts exactly!
You are reminding me of some very heated car discussions between my parents, grandparents, and aunts/uncles.
My Dad’s Dad’s Dad developed a formula for choosing new cars, and his son and grandsons kept to it pretty close. I strayed from the formula, as did aunts and uncles and cousins and were scolded for it. The formula went something like this:
only buy the biggest laziest smoothest engine with the most cylinders
only buy really soft floaty suspensions and really heavy cars
always upgrade the tires to at least one size larger than the car came with
its ok to buy the plain-jane model, but never buy less than the biggest laziest engine
If you can’t afford the biggest laziest engine, buy a used one.
you judge a car’s quality by how smooth and quiet it is and how minimally the engine strains to pass trucks and farm equipment on highways.
A big lazy engine is one that is not “souped up” and is tuned for low RPM torque. It never works hard and the car accelerates easily without revving high in the RPM ranges. The formula seemed to work for them. They never once had a lemon and they seemed to hear a never ending number of horror stories to prove their formula was best. I deviated from the formula in that I preferred firmer suspensions and medium sized cars with stickshifts That period from the mid seventies through the mid 80s was rife with horror stories and they all seemed to involve cars that deviated from great-grandpa’s proven formula.
A contrary formula was my mom’s dad’s formula. My mom’s dad was an independent auto mechanic and his formula was smaller cars with straight six motors, preferably Rambler or Plymouth but a Ford Falcon would do in a pinch. As I got older, I began to learn the value of a good straight six.
lower RPM and torque leaves longer life for transmission too, maybe some joints. the same transmission has significantly shorter life on cars with higher horsepower or more aggressive tuning. or, compare the number of rebuilt transmission on Park Avenue among base and ultra
The minivan story, as a whole, is an interesting example of how the auto industry evolved and altered its approach to a successful new vehicle. When the 1964 Mustang set the automotive world on fire, the competition simply built what was basically the same vehicle, just with different styling and some minor chassis variations.
But that’s not what happened when Iacocca’s minivan took the world by storm some twenty years later. For years (decades?), no one followed Chrysler’s simple, FWD formula for success. Consequently, even when they were finally able to get around to it, it was an ironic example of too little, too late (that strategy had been Chysler’s forté in the past). Chrysler has owned virtually the entire minivan market from its inception and sales only began their nosedive when buyer preference began the big shift from minivans to SUVs, along with Toyota and Honda both eventually coming up with minivans up to Chrysler levels of design and much superior execution.
OTOH, the different paths taken (by the domestics, anyway) shouldn’t exactly be considered failures, either. Although they didn’t put up the stellar numbers of the Caravan, both the Astro and Aerostar sold pretty well, certainly well enough to keep them around for much longer than anyone thought they would. Considering how awful they were in areas like performance, quality (Aerostar), and ergonomics (Astro), that’s not really anything to sneeze at. The Astro, in particular, scarfed up a good bit of commercial sales.
Now that domestic minivan history has been addressed, will the series continue with articles on how hard was it for the foreign market to build a minivan?
Trust me, this will be longer than a 2 installment series 🙂
I hope you won’t forget the Cadillac of Minivans.
@rudger:
The backstory is, indeed, fascinating. In the case of Chrysler, it was pure serendipity. Lido Iacocca had many, many flaws…vanity, imperiousness, even organizational skills, to some extent (look at how the AMC boys showed him up in their backstage takeover of Chrysler)…
…but for all of that, he understood how to read the market. Whether the mini/max was a Sperlich product or that of the Chrysler team, it was Iacocca who saw it as a winner. And he recognized he had the perfect platform for it, the K-car. Perhaps Chrysler’s success there was why he was later loathe to move beyond the K when it became essential.
As JPC notes, nobody knew what the winning formula would be. We do now; and yet today, there’s not a minivan in current production I’d care to own. Not for the styling; not for the image; but the sheer simplicity…form following function, maximum space utilization in a simple, bulletproof package…has been corrupted.
It was a gamble 35 years ago – albeit one supported by marketing research. Today it’s a known winner. Yet today it’s dressed up to be something it is not and never can be.
Who will win? A stable company that can return to the basic formula of utility and reliability to a price. Perhaps Chrysler will keep the lead; but Chrysler’s viability long-term remains a question.
I was thinking the same thing about Iacocca. While today the minivan concept seems like a no-brainer, imagine Chrysler Corp. in the early eighties, just starting to be profitable again from K-car sales, betting the whole farm on the minivan project. Who but Iacocca would have the moxy to push something like that through?
Even in his final days at Chrysler (before the GM bean-counter Robert Eaton would lead the company down a very different path), Iacocca still had it when he decreed that the brand-new, soon to be introduced ‘good’ American small car, the 1995 Neon, would have round headlights. It was pure Iacocca marketing savvy, and it’s highly unlikely the Neon would have sold nearly as well with conventionally styled (for the time) headlights of any other shape. Those round headlights gave the Neon character.
As to the design of the original Chrysler minivan, if I were ever to have a collection of vehicles, alongside the ‘glamour queens’, I’d love to have a pristine 1984 Caravan. The dimensions were nothing short of perfect. Although better built and performing, today’s closest equivalents (like the Ford Flex and Mazda5) simply pale.
Speaking of which, will there be a CC on what was one of the the last (and maybe the best) imitator of the original minivan, the last Mazda MPV?
I liked Iacocca and believed in Chrysler products to the extent that I drove them exclusively for 20 years.
Lido’s hair was white – so how bad could that be? (Educator Dan, insert comment here!
Geez Zackman, some parts of our lives parallel each other. It’s kind of creepy. My Mopar moment was my beloved Dodge Lancer ES Turbo, served me well for 11 years, 160K miles. I followed that with a Dodge Dakota extended cab, which was an anvil. My lifetime with Mopars was 15 years, though.
But, no joke one of my favorite drives was my in-laws 1985 Dodge Caravan. We could borrow it liberally when our kids were little (it was his fifth car), and I christened the original 2.2 Trenton motor in that van as the “liitle engine tha could”. I’d have another one in a minute if I could.
@Rudiger: Me too. In my dream garage, there will be an original short wheelbase T-115 van, in black cherry red with a Trenton 2.2. Not the fastest thing in the stable, but probably the most favored.
Coming across an original, eighties’ T-115 minivan is like viewing any timeless classic in the flesh. Ironically, it’s similiar to marveling at another of Iacocca’s masterpieces, an original, unmolested 1964 Mustang, particularly one of the lesser (but higher volume) versions with a six.
Yeah, there were issues with the T-115: performance from the 2.2 engine was marginal, and typical Chrysler quality concerns with body integrity. Later problems with the A604/41TE automatic literally drove many owners away from Chrysler for life, And back then, there was only one sliding door and the rear seat doesn’t fold flat into the floor (it had to be removed), things taken for granted on today’s minivans.
But in 1984, it was nothing short of revolutionary, and production simply couldn’t keep up with demand for years.
After 30 years, my 1985 Plymouth Voyager is going strong at 256,493 miles and being used regularly as my daily driver. In the other photo it is on display at the 2010 American Patriot Award Ceremony honoring Lee A. Iacocca, onboard the Aircraft Carrier ‘Midway’ docked in San Diego Harbor.
Ah, with the awesome (and fairly rare) 2nd row seat that folded down into a bed.
Every van should have a bed in it somewhere….
If anything will show a car’s weaknesses, it’s taxi service.
And, in 1987, I was working for a new cab company, heavily capitalized, which was using Ford Aerostars. They had been open about six months when I signed on with them.
And that’s how old their fleet was. And let me TELL you…the Aerostar was not, repeat NOT, holding up. Squeaks, body flexes, shocks shot, engine troubles…any vague thought I might have had about recommending this van or owning one used, evaporated. It felt flimsy, and in body build, it was.
I was not surprised to find them rust-buckets. All that chassis squeaking…that’s metal-on-metal; rust points. Only a matter of time for corrosion to do its thing.
Ford was not the place to look for quality in the 1980s. Later years, yes, much better…but not of that era.
The 1980s were very hit-and-miss regarding quality from Ford and GM. Each of them built some good vehicles during the decade, but each of them also built a fair share of stinkers, too.
For whatever reason, quality apparently wasn’t Job One when Ford developed the Aerostar, which is a shame, as it is an otherwise attractive vehicle. The first-generation Oldsmobile Aurora had the same problem. Both the Aerostar and Aurora were attractive vehicles that, after the designs were approved, should have been turned over to Toyota for “debugging” and production.
Did GM actually make a good vehicle in the 1980s? Hard to think of off the top of my head. The A bodies were OK by the end of the decade I suppose.
You said below yourself that B bodies were “as tough as nails”, so you can add them in there, too. And all the trucks were good as usual.
I left out the B Bodies because:
1) They were engineered in the 1970s.
2) The last reasonably good one was the 1990 Caprice and then only in police trim, 9C1. The Whale models were not nearly as good as the boxes as the chassis was overloaded.
3) The last truly good B Body was the 1985 Olds 88 series.
The trucks were okay until the LS1 motors since they stuck with components proven for eons and they really didn’t have much competition then.
Well my mistake if by “make” you meant “engineer” instead of “assemble and sell”.
BTW did the early W bodies have any problems as long as they didn’t have a certain engine (I forget which one, but it’s the one that gave the Cutlass Supreme problems as mentioned in that CC?)
I have a turn of the century Regal with the 3800 supercharged (hence my handle) and it hasn’t given me any problems but since the W body had been out so long by then they may have just worked out all the kinks.
The W body’s only obvious problem was the catalytic converter which was too small and plugged up easily. There was a secret warranty on them for years. The later Regals were OK cars but I would prefer to drive a Camry or Accord of that era, or even a nice Acura TL. But to each his/her own.
And yes, GM cars are always best towards the end of their run.
I bought the Regal GS because (1) Buicks are a great value on the used car market, usually previously owned by older drivers that kept them well cared for and have some “luxury” features, while still suffering massive depreciation, (2) I wanted something fairly powerful that doesn’t look it, (3) if something ever does break GM made what seems like millions of W Bodies so parts should be pretty cheap. I actually see a lot of people my age driving late ’90s/early ’00s Buicks now especially for the first reason,since the economy is such that we’re not going to be buying new Camrys in large numbers any time soon. Regals and LeSabres are especially popular.
Good reasons to buy the Regal. I bought a very low km 2000 Acura TL this year for much the same reason. It is a real sleeper.
If I were in the market for a cheap and reliable used car, a 2000 or so Century or LeSabre would be very high on my list. However, you will find W body parts not any cheaper than anything else.
I’ve got to say, Acura is by far my favorite Japanese brand, and always has been.
It’s not too hard to tell which GM is good or bad.
Those by Bill Mitchell and some by Chuck Jordan are good ( if luckily spared by bad engines )
Irvin Rybicki? Oh.
The early model years of the W bodies had a design problem with the rear brakes–around 1990 we started getting warranty returns on W body front brake pads–they wore out quickly. The problem was 2 fold–they way the rear brakes were designed–the rears were adjusted by the use of the parking brake and the slider pins rusted in the caliper–the caliper wouldn’t move when the brakes were applied thus the front pads wore out quickly doing all the work. We used to sell plastic sliders that wouldn’t rust and rebuilders sleeved the slider holes but we havn’t sold those parts in years. The parking brake problem was solved when they went to those drum brake style shoes in the rotors. I asked our brake rep what GM was thinking and he though GM adapted a euro design for the rear calipers not realizing we use salt on the roads in the winter
I believe all GM full sized trucks use a rear disk brake for the emergency brake and all Ford and Dodge full sized trucks use a miniature drum brake inside the rear disk brake for the emergency brake. I did not know there was a problem with the Disk brake as the emergency brake. I have not owned a GM product for a very long time.
I always think the Buick has quite lower visual speed. Certain cars have higher visual speed, noticeably Nissan sports cars. There must be a problem when cops always stop a 85mph Nissan 240SX but leaving those Impala SS roaring around 100, Tbird and Aurora around 125+ in Ypsilanti.
I think H-Body LeSabre has big shortcoming in body flex, I hear it every day. W-Body is much better at it.
I know this first hand. The B Body GM stuff was tough as nails as were the later Panthers. If you want to see the best vehicle from a dollar per mile standpoint, taxi fleets are the place to look. Here in Vancouver it is now 80% Prius and 19% Corolla.
Too bad we can’t get the Toyota Comfort in N. America, for it’s a compact RWD taxi model, roomier in back & trunk than the Corolla & Prius (hence its somewhat unbalanced styling). It’s also used for driver training.
From Mr. Toyoda himself: “The car itself is unspectacular but it is very important to Toyota … the car can be driven over the years by everybody from beginners to experts. And this is the proof that the car is the symbol of Toyota’s quality, durability and reliability.”
Interesting car. I’ve never heard of it before now. If they made a 2door version with an inline six motor I would want one.
Here in the snowbelt, it is virtually impossible to find an Aerostar without it’s rocker panels devoured with rust. Probably one of the worst offenders of this type of rusting in the last 30 years…..
The rustiest cars I’ve seen are 1985-91 Tauruses, 1986-90 Celebrities, and the Aerostars. Almost all the first generation Tauruses were rustbuckets by 1994, here at least. As for the Chevy Celebrity (sorry Dan), for some reason they seemed to rust more rapidly than the Cieras and Centurys.
I had an ’87. It was a complete peice of shit. By far the worst vehicle I’ve ever owned, and I’m a Rambler/VW Bug guy.
An different sort of unpleasant memory – I remember lots of advertising showing the Aerostar alongside the Space Shuttle, like the ad here, from its introduction in the fall of ’85. Then in January ’86 came the Challenger disaster.
Ford DID build quality products in the 80s, in relation to their competition, but you had to choose carefully!
Ford built some good vehicles during the 1980s…but this wasn’t one of them. The cars based on the Fox and Panther platforms, as well as the Escort (once the bugs were worked out around 1985 or so) were good, solid cars. And the trucks were great.
Technically, you can say that about any company. It’s all in knowing what to choose.
Name one bad Toyota from 1987?
Nova/Corolla – the one that looked like it was designed by Tatra or ZAZ. CC just did an article on it.They were biodegradable. Unusually more so than usual. Mechanically, they hold up pretty well.
Funny, I grew up during the minivan craze (born in ’85) and none of my friend’s parents drove one of these. There was one with an Astro, but all the rest, if they had minivans, drove some flavor of Chrysler’s vans right up into the late ’90s. My parents stuck with the old Chevy Celebrity wagon until it finally died and we got a ’96 Windstar which was a great van.
Speaking of the Windstar, I know you said Ford was inexperienced with FWD at this time but why didn’t Ford delay their minivan a bit and build one based on the Taurus platform?
Ultimately they did with the Windstar/Freestar, & now the Taurus X. Not that I would recommend them.
I don’t have any personal experience with these, but we did have a friend who was an early adopter, and heard plenty of tales of woe. There’s still quite a few around here. The Vulcan would be the way to go…not surprising the green one has it.
A friend of mine had a very nice Eddie Bauer, I think he bought it used around 94. I don’t remember him having any issues with it but he also had blue ovals running through his veins so he may have kept any troubles on the QT.
It never failed us on trips to to the track on the weekends even while towing a “little” more than it probably should have.
“The current car was rustproofed by Ziebart, and was he was religious about subsequent inspections and refresher treatments.”
The refresher treatments are the important part. Most people never read the info packet that Ziebart provided and then blamed the “rust proofing” for the rust out.
(Rusty Jones on the other hand, I think was just salt in some sort of semi-liquid adhesive..)
“Rusty Jones on the other hand, I think was just salt in some sort of semi-liquid adhesive..”
Hah! I’m reminded of the giant rust bubble just below the Rusty Jones window sticker on my dad’s 1988 Civic, circa 1992. They were utterly worthless.
And I can remember the Chevrolet dealer in Johnstown, PA that started Rusty Jones – he ended up losing the Chevrolet franchise, because he was cooking the books to support the Rusty Jones stores.
I’m not so sure that these don’t hold up. I would take one of these with the 3.0 engine any time, any day over a Windstar, which has to be one of the worst vehicles that Ford has ever made. My friend spent some time doing missionary work down in Mexico (not sure exactly where) a few years back and he was amazed at how many Aerostars were still alive and well down there. Those and old Toyota pickups.
I still see some driving around the Seattle area, along with the occasional Gen I Chrysler minivan (which always surprises the heck out of me).
There are lots of Aerostars in Mexico because it is hot and dry so they don’t rust to a pile of dust.
In Mexico and Seattle, sure. But here in the Midwest, they succumbed to the tinworm pretty quickly.
Even 15 years ago, I remember all but the newest examples showing pretty advanced rust-through.
I remember a lot of people talking about how tough the Toyota pickups are, especially hearing that from Topgear and terrorists. There is one big reason behind it, no road salt!
The Aerostar was the best selling minivan in the US near the end of it’s run, thanks to Chrysler splitting up their sales between the Caravan and Voyager. Once the Ford/Nissan joint venture Mercury Villager and Ford’s own Windstar came on market the 3 choices made Ford the #1 seller of minivans for a couple of years.
Wow, some strong opinions here. Not surprised, however. My experiences have been similar to others. I never owned one, but used one as a company delivery vehicle for a while back in the early-mid ’90’s. The company I worked for had several as delivery vans, all of them would eventually have catastrophic breakdowns. We resorted to borrowing employee pickup trucks to deliver some orders.
Going back to the early ’90’s, I was selling cars and I took several of these in trade. What really surprised me was how poorly the interior held up, in regards to stains and dirt. Maybe being used by families in contact with the Georgia clay had a lot to do with it, but the all looked dingy and worn, even on two and three year old vans.
I remember taking one in trade from an over the road truck driver, who hated the van, but was upside down in payments. We finally worked out a deal where we could get him into the cheapest, least optioned Toyota pick up truck (no A/C, no passenger side mirror, no bumper, legal back then). He still was happier with a penalty-mobile than the Aerostar. At least in Georgia, they didn’t rust away…
When I moved to Michigan, it was still common to see Aerostars everywhere, but they didn’t do well with our salty winters. My next door neighbor was a big Ford fan and had one of these in his ‘fleet’. By 2006 they were no longer driving it and tried to sell it. No inquiries. Of course, the huge rust holes in the side of the van and the Exxon Valdez sized oil spots didn’t help.
One day when I got home from work, I noticed the Aerostar was gone. I never asked what happened to it, I was glad it was out of my line of sight.
Ironic the Aerostar has a more futuristic styling (even as seen today) than its non-descript successor Windstar.
Really? I think the Windstar was the first minivan that got the ’90s bubbly round “aero” style right. All the other vans in 1995 were either boxes on wheels or freakishly overdone (GM Dustbusters and the Toyota Previa).
The Toyota Previa was nicely done, much better than the GM Dustbusters. The Previa is arguably more “21st Century” futuristic than even the latest Sienna.
The Aerostar has a coherent, tight appearance, with very modern short overhangs (until the extended version showed up). The “one box” shape with a “single slope” windshield and hood isn’t found on any minivan today. I guess styling is subjective. I’ve always preferred Ford to GM in styling.
I find the Previa styling to be far too JDM for my tastes, and the buying public seems to have agreed.
Funny, though, how people thought in the ’80s and ’90s the first cars styled in the 21st Century would be round, bubbly, airy, and egg-like and in real life the first styling trend of the 2000s was almost the exact opposite–high beltline, small windows, square and muscular edges.
A friend of ours had a metallic blue-gray Previa, which was replaced with an AWD Eddie Bauer Aerostar, believe it or not. Both were bought new. The Aerostar did not have any problems that I recall, but it was a 1995 or ’96, toward the end of production. I did like the looks, and the hunter green over tan two tone was sharp. He traded it in before it got rusty or had any other problems, and got a 1999 Volvo S70 AWD.
@L67: I think the main reason why the Previa didn’t do well was price. They were not inexpensive. I was selling Toyotas in the early 90’s, and the pricing turned off many prospects. The other main issue, was HP. Folks wanted more power than was available from the 4 cylinder. The supercharged version did crank up the power, but at a huge increase in price. IIRC, a 4WD supercharged Previa in 1991 was close to $30K!
All of the domestics offered V6’s by then, and the other Japanese vans were better on price. RWD vans compared, you got more in an Astro or Aerostar for the same money or less.
IIRC, Previas weren’t particularly space efficient on the inside. If you didn’t need the rear seats, you hung them on hooks in the back of the van. Unfortunately, this obscured the view out of those windows, and if they weren’t secured well (as happened to me on a demo drive) having one of those things rolling around scares the crap out of you. Not a good thing on a demo…
The Previa third-row seats that folded up against the sidewalls may seem “not space efficient” today, but it was amongst the first minivans that offered *any* way to easily convert from passenger to cargo duty. The Chrysler vans of the era had 3rd-row seats whose only folding arrangment was a seatback that folded down against the cushion, leading to a carpeted seatback that was a foot and a half above the main floor. If you really wanted to clear up space in back, you had to remove the 3rd row seat altogether – and it was a tough job since it was a single full-width bench seat. Compared to that, the 50/50 split Previa seat that folded against the wall seemed ingenius. (Modern Land Cruisers and the Lexus equivalent still use a similar arrangement).
The Aerostars did indeed have ferocious rust in the rockers, inconcievable how fast they corroded. I new guys who got their rockers replaced under warranty and again just after warranty.
A co-worker had one and we did a lot of driving on back and forth to Missouri in the winter, it was one of the all wheel drive versions. It used oil and the engine ticked like mad but never missed a beat.
I rate the Aerostar a pass, but just barely. Still waiting for the Windstar CC…
Does anyone see a Ford Flex here??
“Older readers will also recall that Ford was on a quality roll (or at least a perceived quality roll) in the second half of the 1980s and early 90s, and the Aerostar seemed to fit under that halo. Like most other Ford vehicles, the Aerostar felt solid and substantial. It looked, felt and sounded like a quality-built vehicle, much more so than did the Astro or the Caravan/Voyager.”
Yep. Ford was pretty good at making vehicles with seemingly-high initial quality and atrocious long-term durability. And as the owner of a late model Ford, I’m convinced they still haven’t learned their lesson.
GM and Chrysler weren’t any better at the long-term durability, either, during that era. The cars based on the Panther and Fox platforms were good, and my father had a 1986 Escort that took some serious abuse and kept on running…same with other Escorts built after 1985 owned by friends and relatives.
Oh, without a doubt. My only point was that Fords (post-1986, anyway) at least felt more substantial when new, whereas GMs of the era felt like cheap crap from day one. Chrysler was somewhere in the middle and benefitted greatly from the fact that their shoddily-built minivan essentially had no direct competitors until 1995.
The Fords did look and feel better on the showroom floor, no doubt about it. Which probably made clunkers like the Aerostar even harder to take.
I remember being surprised at how reliable the various Escorts owned by friends and family members were…at least, the ones built after 1985. By that point, Ford had apparently worked out all of the bugs.
I bought three new Ford products during the 1980’s, and I can say that as time progressed, they did get better out of the box. Coincidentally all of them were Fox body Mercury Capris. The ’80 Turbo started out great, but carb and engine problems killed the joy. I bought my wife a 1985 V8 Capri, it too, started out great. By the end of the second year, it was a total pile of crap.That gave me pause, as I had bought myself a 1986 V8 Capri and I thought this would happen to my car, too. As it turns out, the 86 held up much better, but the 85 was traded in on a 1987 Dodge Lancer ES Turbo that we drove for 11 years.
My family members all had Ford products of one kind or during the 80’s and 90’s. And all of us had some sort of catastrophic problem with them. All of us have switched to anything else, none of us own a Ford product now. Or want to.
My carpool driver owned an Aerostar, a four-wheel-drive version with automatic and one of the V6 engines. I do have to say that it never did have rust problems, one of the benefits of living in the Pacific northwest, but that was the most troublesome vehicle she ever owned. The first time the automatic transmission went south, the people who fixed it made the colossal mistake of extending them a lifetime guarantee on it, and it was back to their shop at least four times in subsequent years. It’s been a lot of years since I last rode in it so I can’t remember all the issues she had with it, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget the summer when the air conditioning and power window switches (or motors) were both out of commission so I sat behind that big windshield and roasted on the afternoon drives home from work. It ended up as a lawn ornament for a season or two, then she donated it to some charity.
Otoh, an instrument repairman I dealt with had one with a standard transmission, and after 150,000 miles (and about two years) he still swore by it.
Otoh, the local used car dealer we most often dealt with refused to have one on his lot, or take one on trade.
My dad was looking for a family vehicle around 1990 to replace our 76 Impala. We test drove a used 86 or 87 Aerostar, and I remember being very impressed with it. I also remember the salesman bragging that it had the same powerful V6 as the Taurus. Compared to a 14 year old Impala, it as a spaceship. The stereo with cassette and rear controls was light years ahead of the AM radios in our cars. The seating was also new to us six kids used to being packed in the two seats of the Impala. I’m guessing the price was more than my dad was willing to pay at the time, and he evidently was not as impressed as I was. He also looked at Dodge Colt Vistas and GM and Ford full-size wagons. Ultimately he ended up buying a 1981 Caprice Classic Diesel Wagon, which had the original engine fail, got a new GM rebuilt engine, had a head gasket fail under warranty, then finally was parked when a head gasket failed out of warranty.
The rear seat radio controls and headphone jacks were mad cool by 1986 standards, though even then I wondered why they tried to get by without a display so you could see what radio station you were tuned to or which tape/CD track you were listening to. And now rear seat riders get what? A high-res video screen, wireless headphones, Bluetooth, built-in games, Apple Carplay/Airplay, 4G internet….
Toyota had the whole market to themselves out here I see a rare Chrysler Voyager here ijn NZ but never in OZ.
Ford were busy with warranty repairs to a paticularly awful Falcon in the late 80s and also designing a mobile swimming pool on a Mazda chassis their Crapi that was a runaway disaster.
GM never bothered with people mover vans in OZ but NZ has the whole Japanese range including the Toyota Emina, Estima, Mazda Bongo Frendee, Nissan roadblock oops Serena MPV if they made it someone imported it they do not however rust that seems a NA speciality.
Don’t have any experience with these vehicles but I can say that the 4.0L pushrod Cologne V6 is a decent motor, I have one in my 1992 Ford Ranger that currently has 234,960+ miles on it and still runs fine so far.
If Wikipedia is reasonably correct, Ford built the 4.0L V6 to address the issues of the old problematic 2.9 V6 and largely succeed. The 4.0L has hydraulic valves and fixed a bunch of other head issues though not perfect, the problems came after the motors have aged, meaning developing high mileage so at least the issues didn’t come early on like in the 2.9.
I think my truck’s motor has had some major work done at 126K, which would be back in 2001 as CarFax indicated that the title was modified or reissued but doesn’t specify what exactly was done. I only know what I heard my friends who bought it in 2005, 5 months before I would buy it from them and was something like the head was worked on or replaced. At least in the truck, access to the motor was very easy due to the front end’s design. Unfortunately, I’ve heard that when Ford updated the motor and converted it to OHC, they botched it by using jack shafts and plastic timing belts and tensioners and putting one of the chain units in the back of the motor, necessitating a partial removal to gain access when they needed replacing.
So far, my old truck seems to be running just fine though oil usage isn’t exactly low, about a Qt to a Qt and a half added every 3 months but no obvious evidence of where it’s going, not does the motor appear to be developing blow by of any significance that I see and passed its emissions with flying colors Oct 2010.
But since rust here in Seattle isn’t an issue, these old Aerostars are still seen around these parts still and I still see older Dodge Caravans and Plymouth Voyagers too for that matter and my oldest sister and her current hubby had a 1988 Caravan with the Mitsubishi V6, woody package, Infinity sound that they bought second hand in 1998-99 time frame and drove it 2 years, putting a lot of miles on it (it was already very high mileage to begin with, but in excellent shape) and I remember driving it and being told to check and add oil as it was burning it badly through bad blow by. It was replaced with a 2000 Grand Caravan Sport that with over 150K miles on it, in like new condition, was totaled this past spring when my sis accidentally rear ended someone, crunching up the front butt good so the insurance totaled it. They now drive a used hand me down 2001 I think a base Caravan shortie that still runs fine though is a little rough around the edges while they get back on their feet due to this recession.
Several years ago, I bought a ’93 Aerostar extended model with the 4.0 liter and 130,000 miles on it. It came with the trailer package (I bought it from the original owner) and pulls trailers very well. It also has the limited slip rearend which I like.It has over 210,000 now and uses around a quart of oil per 1,000 miles. Another thing I like about it is that although it seems as small on the outside as most minivans now, it will haul full sheets (4×8) of plywood or other sheet goods inside no problem. I wish the engine compartment was not so crowded and think Ford should have and could have designed the front end to be more attractive than the anteater look it has. The ’97’s at least standardized the turn signals so a converter box isn’t required to hook up trailer lights. When the gasoline was of better quality, it would run well on low grade and got decent mileage.
As far as newer Fords, well, I still like my ’52 ½ ton daily driver better. (See CC’s Dumpside Classic)
I’m as much a true-Blue Oval guy as there has ever been… and I absolutely despise Aerostars. Drove one once, way back when during aperiod when I didn’t have a job. A friend who sold cars for the local Ford dealer asked me if I would do an out-of-state dealer trade for him, and needing the $$$ I said “OK”. Took an ’88 Aerostar to Johnstown PA… that f**king turd actually scared the crap out of me at highway speeds. The only word that accurately descibes its handling is “spooky”. It felt like it had a mind of its own, wanting to dart around, following every little crack and line in the road. And the ride, er, “quality”, well, it felt “squishy” for lack of a better term. It didn’t wallow per se, it just rode weird. Felt so relieved when I finally got to the dealer and saw what I was bringing back, a beautiful dark blue Country Squire. That car is probably what caused my Panther love…
My parents had two of these in a row while we were growing up in Buffalo, NY in the 90s. They had an 89 XL two-tone silver and dark blue, and a 94 XLT Electric Red with the EAWD and 4.0. I remember them having no MAJOR issues with either, except for the 94 eating a CV joint in late 2000 or so. Let me tell you, in 1990s suburbia, these things were the equivalent of the Country Squire from the 60s/70s. They were the right thing to haul 4 kids in. The EAWD in the 94 was nice for Buffalo winters and the hills of CT once we moved there in 2000.
My mom traded in the 94 sometime in late 2001 for a 1st year Buick Rendezvous 🙁 After the POS 3400 engine grenaded 2 weeks after delivery, she immediately wished she had the 94 Aerostar again.
I remember that a lot of the aerostars had that badge advertising “Electronic All Wheel Drive. It always puzzled me.
In what way was the AWD “Electronic”.
It was electronic in the fact that it used a motor to engage the front axle when it sensed wheel slip. Pretty common thing today but not so common back then.
Those Aerostars are EXTREMELY rare these days. I think I have ever only seen ONE but never got to look at it up close (all other Aerostars I have seen have no E-4WD badge in sight). Rust was forming on its roof the last time I ever saw it. Where it is now is anyone’s guess.
I have the most spectacular 1995 4.0 aerostar on the road!
Congrats, Josh!
When I was looking for our Aerostar I wanted an extended van with 4L engine in either mocha, green or red. We got one in red with light grey interior. The extended length makes this van look good. The shorty is too high in proportions.
Also when glancing over the comments I noticed that most complains came upon the ’86 model. Later models were much improved, mostly by eliminating the 2.8 V6 and fixing some annoyances such as a vibrating , bumpy steering wheel. Even though the van looked better than it actually worked in everyday life. The driver’s seat was too high. The rear heating/cooling duct work passed next to the driver’s left ear and was very noisy. The floor was dropping low towards the door to make ingress/egress a bit easier. But anything that fell to the floor on the ride fell out of the vehicle as soon as you opened the door.
The rear heat and A/C were amazing. I could freeze or fry the kids as I liked. In fact after one winter ride I found molten crayons on the floor.
Mine had a bench in the second row and once the kids were 10 they complained about it. Captain chairs were a must for the second minivan.
We hauled unimaginable amounts of stuff in our Aerostar. And ours was rather reliable, not perfectly reliable yet free of horror stories. But it was close: it almost started an electrical fire in the harness under the hood by the firewall. Some insulation was already cinched. Why it did not go up in flames I will never know.
Around that time some other Ford vehicles underwent a massive recall because of ignition switches that caused fires.
I probably have the most spectacular 1996 4.0 Aerostar (or ANY Aerostar period) on the road in South Carolina! How I know it’s a ’96 besides the registration: the wheels it came with (and still has) were first available in that year, & the rear turn signals are still amber. Even with all the dents, dings, scratches, & cracks from who knows how many accidents (minor OR major) it was involved in before & during my ownership, it still looks factory new when washed & waxed.
My wife and I bought a ’96 Aerostar brand new – our first major purchase together. She had a 12 year old son, we planned on having more kids, and we both wanted to buy a boat someday as a way to have a family activity that her son would consent to doing with us through his teen years. I saw an ad in the Sunday paper: New ’96 Aerostar, base model, $16,999. We went to the dealer, tried it out, and I spent 3 hours haggling over the trade-in value of her Taurus wagon. (We needed to get at least what she owed on it!)
My recollections: The Aerostar drove well, looked nice, towed well, even with the 3.0 v6, and got decent gas mileage. I found myself wishing I had popped for power windows & door locks, though. But our dealership was miserable – there was a time I took it in for service and when I picked it up, the passenger door was out of alignment by a good 3/4″! Stuff like that.
I change my oil religiously at 4k miles, but once the warranty expires, I HATE paying someone $300 to do a “tune up”, which nowadays means changing the spark plugs. But I found I couldn’t do it myself – at least, not in half a day, which was all my new bride would give me on a Saturday. After 5 years and 102k miles, and no “tune up” since the 60k required service, the “check engine” light came on. Here in California, we have to get a smog check every other year. If the car doesn’t pass, you can’t renew your registration. And if the Check Engine light is on, the car won’t pass the inspection. My mechanic’s computer said the error code was “unspecified” so we tried a few sensors, etc. Eventually, even said tune-up didn’t fix the problem. My only choice at that point was an engine overhaul, or give the vehicle away to a charity. The Salvation Army gladly took it off my hands, I got a nice tax write off and wifey got a new GMC Safari…
I still see older Aerostars around, with 200k miles or more, and their owners love them! Sure wish mine had held up!
I never cared for window vans, other than the air cooled VW micro bus, but I love cargo vans/panel vans. I have no need or desire for a people mover, but a van without windows would make a great camper or adventure touring rig. FWD puts the Chrysler out of contention, and mechanical problems with the aerostars makes the Astro the winner for me. The fleet department I used to work for had lots of Astro vans. They were reliable, but like all vans, difficult to work on because of where they put the engine. I liked the old style full sized vans best, the ones with a dog house engine cover. You could literally turn one of those into a motor home. The new style, with a longer hood, the engine moved forward, and the interior designed to look more like a pickup don’t appeal to me nearly as much. Notice on the Aerostar how far apart the front wheels and front seat are. On the old vans, you sat almost right over the front wheels.
The Astro was like the old full-size vans in that respect – the passenger’s feet were squeezed between the front wheelwell and the doghouse with barely room for two feet.
I remember when the Ford Aerostar first came onto the market. At the time, I didn’t care for it. I preferred the Chevy Astro over the Aerostar. The Astro looked more utilitarian than the Aerostar. I still prefer the Astro, but I also like the styling of the Aerostar.
I wonder how many 3 or 4 year old Aerostars were traded in on Mopar mini-vans?
Many memories, all bad unfortunately. We had a few in the fleet, most of them ‘short’ cargo vans with the 3.0L in them. Our normal policy was to try to keep a light vehicle 8-10 years, most of the Aerostars were gone in 6 due to excessive repair costs. I remember one in particular that overheated on it’s way to Palmdale one day. It had blown a head gasket due to a coolant leak the driver had not noticed. While the Vulcan V-6 had cast iron heads, the castings were so thin that they would often warp badly if the engine ran the least bit hot. Service accessibility was very bad even for a van, and with much difficulty we did a valve job and had the heads machined flat again. Put it back together only to find the transmission wouldn’t shift properly. The normally reliable AOD was much less so in the Aerostar due to the placement of the catalytic converters, which were so close to the transmission they would ‘cook’ the internal seals. Luckily (or unluckily!), we had another Aerostar that had succumbed to the infamous Ford ignition switch shorting issue, and though the dash and interior were badly damaged from the fire we were able to salvage it’s recently rebuilt transmission. After repair the subject van made it to around 120,000 miles before we gave up on it. During the same time we had a full size Ram van that easily made it to 300,000 miles (though was completely shot when we sold it) and a number of Astro’s that went nearly as far.
Hence the nickname F.O.R.D.: Fix Or Repair Daily.
I was a service manager at a repair shop in 2001. The owner bought a 4wd Aero with the 4.0 from a towed in engine job the customer couldn’t afford. So we got a high quality rebuild, installed that and it had issues right from the start. After a couple of months, the engine supplier agreed to another engine and about half the labor to swap it. Same tech got a second shot at this wonder; he quit wrenching not long after….He used it as fill work whenever we were slow, so he got about 2 weeks of waiting for the next bout under the hood.
At work as equipment haulers we have had an Aerostar, Windstar and a Carvan.
The Aerostar was ok (blew its engine), the Windstar was always in some sort of mechanical distress (fell completely apart) and we’ve had the Caravan for about 6-7 years and it’s been an absolute pleasure. Easy to drive and good handling.
When the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager first came out, they really were “mini vans” Most of what are called mini vans today are huge by comparison. The newest Honda Odyssey is an aircraft carrier in comparison to the original Mopars. I have searched for a late model mini van that would get 30 mpg highway, and couldn’t find anything. Yet the Chevy HHR has no problem getting that mileage, and there are many out there with over 200,000 miles on them. And that is for a fairly large vehicle with a 4 cylinder engine. The PT Cruiser, very comparable to the HHR in both body size and size and type of engine, only manages a measly 24 mpg highway, same as a Mercury Grand Marquis. Yes I know the HHR and PT are not vans, but I was looking for a traveling vehicle I could sleep in.
Try a Mazda 5 or the Ford equivalent version. I’m not sure but you might be able to remove enough seats to sleep in it.
Count me as a fan of these.
My Dad wanted a minivan in ’91 and we settled on an Aerostar for just that middle of the pack reason JP described. The Caravan just felt a little small and cheap, and the Astro was a truck.
I inherited it a after a couple of years and drove it until 1998. By that point, it had about 200k miles, when it was hit in the side, and the insurance co totaled it. At seven years old it did not have any rust showing yet.
The insurance check got me another Aerostar. Two years newer, more options, & 75k fewer miles. Also paid the next 6 months of insurance, and a couple of tanks of gas left over.
The ’93 made it to 2007, and just over 300k miles. It did not have a rust issue until it was 8 or 9 years old, and didn’t get bad until 11 or 12 but it did rapidly get worse once it got to that point.
I actually considered a third, but by that point, even the newest ones were 10 years old, and I don’t think there were any rust-free examples left in Michigan.
Both of mine had the 3.0 engine, and that was nearly trouble free for half a million miles between the pair, so no complaints. The weakest part from my point of view was the transmission, as each van needed that rebuilt somewhere between 100-200k miles, however I’m not sure any body else’s van was a lot more reliable in that department.
tl:dr As a new car, I wouldn’t have hesitated to recommend one, but they did age quickly after 10 years.
PS, I liked the stereo enough that I pulled another at the junkyard, and it’s still under the dash in my ’65 Chrysler. 🙂
Although I prefer the utility of the Astro van, I like the look of the Aerostar. I’ve never owned one, so I don’t know just how reliable it really was. 🙂
I remember every manufacturer hauling out their newest minivan reading to take on the Caravan and missing the target every time. Poor Ford introduced the Windstar just as Chrysler came out with the dual sliding doors-the Astro had weird front seating and swing open rear doors–and if you took your Aerostar in for spark plug change the garage charged for the time to get the dog house out of the way. The Asian manufacturers brought some goofy minivans too. My neighbours had a Aerostar AWD with those factory running boards–you could watch the rocker panels rust
Was ’87 the last year for the 4-cyl? My aunt had one of these which I really think was an ’88 or ’89, and it was an I4/manual. Total stripper, about the only option was A/C. While that van was *not* well loved due to its Spartan nature and total lack of performance, it was a reliable vehicle to haul their 4 kids around until finally replaced by a Cherokee after the oldest had gone off to college.
Hi everyone and especially JP, I was wondering if I could get your opinion on this 95 3.0L Aerostar. Is this the right price? Thanks in advance for any reply! http://dallas.craigslist.org/mdf/cto/4889483742.html
I remember when the Aerostar first hit the market. I liked its modern styling. However old-school it may have been mechanically, I liked how modern it looked. I was disappointed when it was replaced by the front-wheel drive Windstar.
I have a ’98 red Aerostar that I am currently trying to sell before I leave for college. I hope my baby makes it to someone who will care for her properly- they really are good cars !
“Unfortunately, the odds are stacked against the Aerostar buyer today.”; “…a really appealing vehicle that looks good on paper, looks even better in the showroom, but looks like a complete loser as a 10 (OR 20) year old used car.”—INDEED. (amelia, there were NO ’98 Aerostars: the last one was made on August 22, 1997)
FWIW, here’s the best one I could find on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1996-Ford-Aerostar-XLT-Super-clean/284132583793?hash=item42279f2971:g:ZYgAAOSwnstfxVmi
Also, August 1997 Aerostar shutdown (Ford wants more capacity for Explorers), with most recent yearly production figures: Aerostar 73K, GM 166K:
I appreciate learning more on the backstory of the Chrysler Minivan.
I tested a loaded Aerostar XLT with the extension back around 1988. During our week with this rig we travelled to central British Columbia with three adults, two kids and a baby. About 700 km one way. This was an ideal long distance hauler and relatively good on fuel. I don’t recall which V6 was under the hood.
While the interior and all the options really made for a pleasant drive, I couldn’t get over the blah styling and how crammed everything was under the hood. We later purchased a Taurus L wagon and came away very happy with that car.
It is certainly interesting seeing comments from eleven years ago, and surprising at how many regular posters are still posting.
It may seem that GM had the last mini-can laugh. The last Aerostar I saw was about two years ago, when a battered example came up my street, with a fog of blue smoke trailing it.
I haven’t seen a generation one Caravan in years.
But the Astro van is the VanRoach. I see them all over Vancouver. Some are in surprisingly good condition, some are horribly ratty and others hippie campers.
And they run and run and run. The 4.3 V-6 is a Small Block with two cylinders left off and they will run forever, even with the worst maintenance.
Nothing will run bad longer than an old Chevy.
Curious that the Aerostar had the lowest drag coefficient of the three players in the market at the time, and got good marks for it. Then GM came out with the dustbuster vans, and were widely panned for their effort.
Look, I had hopped firmly into the Plymouth camp in 1989, and got great service from my Voyager for nine years. When my brother in law bought one of his many, many used cars that he kept for a year or two until they broke down, he went to the Aerostar. It was the last product he ever bought from the blue oval. It had a litany of problems, too many for him to admit to me, and one day it disappeared.
Another friend, loyal to Ford at the time, had one of these, succeeded by a Windstar, and then I think a Freestar also, before he switched to imports. So he loved his Aerostar.
They were pretty commonplace on the roads in their day, but as you pointed out, salt got the better of them.
A commmenter above mentioned William Shatner’s toupes. You learn something new every, single, day. Tune in tomorrow to CC for the latest.
A crucial difference, that.
Perhaps I’m an outlier, but to me, the extended length ones looked awkward, I guess it’s because I remember (and still own one) the 60’s Dodge ‘A’ series vans. Unlike Ford, Dodge extended the regular A-100 to A108 w/ the extension in front of the rear axle. In the next ‘B’ series vans, they adopted the rear of axle overhang; thus contributing to what I refer to as the “draggy butt syndrome”.! 🙂
For what it’s worth, my 25 year old Aerostar (188K) still runs like a new one.Smooth ride, quiet engine, GREAT gas mileage. Transmission ran a little rough a few years ago until I ran lots of new fluid through it. Most upkeep has been chassis (ball joints, steering, shocks). Would hate to have to do anything on the 3.0 engine. For $800 5 years ago I have really got my money’s worth and hoping for 5 more.
Unicorns exist
https://vancouver.craigslist.org/rch/cto/d/richmond-southwest-1989-ford-aerostar/7643670891.html