Hi. Welcome to the Windstar Guy's Big Decision Page.
This page reviews our decision-making process and explains
how we came to choose a Ford Windstar. This page may prove useful if you
are going through your own minivan buying angst. It should also be a
bit interesting for the folks working at Ford marketing who want to know
how to convince ever more people to buy Windstars!
Time to decide
When we decided that it was time for a different vehicle, we faced a number
of common questions;
- Should we buy new or used?
- Should we lease?
- Should we keep throwing money into repairing our old vehicle
indefinitely?
Leasing
We had no trade in and no cash to use as a downpayment. Most leases require
a few thousand bucks down, so that was a problem. The attraction of course,
is that we can have a new vehicle for modest monthly payments. When the
lease expires in 18 to 48 months, you either finance the remaining balance
and buy the vehicle, or return it and start all over again (with no
trade and probably no down payment, again). It was worth
thinking about.
Used
So what about buying used? Well, we were going to have to borrow the whole
purchase amount. Used minivans were running around $10,000 - $12,000 for
'92 - '94 vintage models. No warranty. And I'm no mechanic. So we had the
prospect of monthly payments AND any repair bills, which potentially could
be substantial over a few years, would be extra. But compared to the total
purchase price of a brand new vehicle, used vehicles certainly looked like
an option.
So I ran all over town looking at used minivans. Found some good ones,
too. Couldn't resist looking at new ones, though. I read consumer reports. I
surfed the 'net. I talked to people. I read some more. And the Ford
Windstar kept coming up.
Ford?
Well let me say right off that Ford wasn't the first place I looked. What
can you say about a company that built the explode-on-impact Pinto and
Maverick (my first car was a 1970 Maverick, purchased in 1974. Fortunately,
I never got rear ended, but I did have to pay for a valve grind at just
26,000 miles), that switched owners manuals in pickup
trucks and sold them as the latest models when in fact they were last
years stock, and recently got fined for emissions violations on some of
their full-sized vans? Plus, I have yet to meet a happy Taurus owner.
Oh dear.
But for all that, the reports on the Windstar were good; safety, power,
quality, Ford's warranty interpretation, all seemed sound. So we took a
closer look.
New
We liked what we saw. I especially like the Windstar's interior. We
wanted one. That still left the very difficult question of "how do we
pay for this?" Enter the absolutely critical last factor -
Ford financing. Other companies besides Ford were offering 48 month 0%
financing. That's great,
but with no down payment or trade, the monthly payments were impossibly
prohibitive. But there was another option, and it made all the difference;
Ford was offering (unadvertised, as far as I know)
60 month financing at 1.9%, which lets face it, is almost
as good as 0%, and that extra year means monthly payments that, while
a little stiff for us, were at least within our means. At last, the
promise of no unexpected repair bills for 3 years, and of course, that
new car smell!
