Originally Posted by blupupher
So, I went and test drove the hybrid at a local dealer. Problem is the battery was dead (not a good thing, right??). So it was basically like driving a vehicle with a start/stop engine. It was very smooth on acceleration though, weird with no shifting. Not sure what I think about it though. It is a bit different at low speed handling. And when pulling into my garage, it did not want to creep forward like I want it to, it kept stopping. Not sure if it was because of the dead battery or what.
And the garage is where the problem arose. Previous owners of the house converted the front part of the garage (where the "laundry area" is) into an enclosed room. Actually one of the things we liked about the house not having to go into the hot garage to do laundry. This did take quite a bit of space from the length of the garage though.
As I said above, I have 214 inches from the wall to the garage door. Specs say van is 204 inches long. Well, not sure what the spec sheet was measuring, but I was about 2 inches inch from the front wall and the garage door handle cleared the bumper by maybe 1/2 inch.
Part of it is I measured the floor, the wall is out about 1 inch from the floor lip, and there is a little handle on the garage door that also sticks out an inch.
So basically while the van does "fit" in the garage, I do not trust my wife or my soon to be 16 year old (or really even myself) 100% to not hit the wall while parking it.
Plus it leaes no way to get to the other side of the garage without opening the garage door. with our '05 Grand Caravan, there was enough room in the front of the van to get by, but not with the Pacifica.
I was so upset when I saw this. I have spent about a month of general research and about a week of negotiating a deal, then this.
No idea what I am going to get now, but a mini van is out, and my wife really wants a 7 seater for some reason.
I personally really liked the Kia Sorento SXL, may need to look into that again.
Heck, I may just go buy a $1000 beater for my kid and be done with it.
I have a 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe XL I bought new a year ago and it now has 20,000 miles on it and has been great. It has a third row-good for smaller children. I had a similar issue -I had to be careful with width dimensions-since it sits next to my 2018 Silverado in a narrow garage. As a matter of fact-I had to pass on the purchase of a 2019 RAM because the mirrors stuck out too much-and there was no answer from the dealership on changing out the towing mirrors to the standard ones. Here are the specs on the Santa Fe-it would fit your requirements-(the length is 193 inches).
https://www.thecarconnection.com/specifications/hyundai_santa-fe_2018_se-3-3l-auto