Good morning! On today’s Shitbox Showdown, we’re getting back to basics and looking at a pair of good old fashioned “Transportation Thrifties,” both from dead marques whose parent companies are still around. What does less than two grand get you these days? You might be pleasantly surprised. But first, let’s see which old truck you preferred:
Hmm. Long bed = long line. Short bed = slightly shorter line. Coincidence? Yeah, probably. Honestly, I don’t think there is a bad choice here, and if the two trucks were side-by-side, it would be hard for me to choose. It would probably come down to a test drive. But I will say that all pickup trucks of a certain age really should be two-tone, unless they are fortunate enough to be painted Forest Service Green.
Now then: I spent most of the mid-late 1990s and early 2000s living in and around the twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. I was flat-broke for a lot of that time, with crappy credit and not much money to spend on vehicles. I got by with whatever $500 clunker I could find, and I went through more than a dozen of them in ten years. It was, now that I think about it, perfect training for this gig, actually.
Those days are long gone for me, but every once in a while, I like to check out the listings in the Twin Cities to see what bargain-basement junkers I might be shopping for if I were still in that situation. $2,000 is the new $500, it seems, but the spirit of the “beater with a heater” is still alive and well. These two jumped out at me as being particularly good deals, and coincidentally, they’re both from American brands that have been since killed off. Let’s check them out and see what you think.
2003 Pontiac Bonneville – $1,700
Engine/drivetrain: 3.8 liter overhead valve V6, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Brooklyn Park, MN
Odometer reading: 200,000 miles
Runs/drives? Yep
First up, we have a car with a Minneapolis connection, through music: Legendary Twin Cities alternative rock band Trip Shakespeare immortalized the Bonneville in song back in 1991. That fact alone makes it cool, in my book. Also, it was named after a big flat area where people can drive really fast. But I have been a fan of Pontiac’s big plasticky sedan ever since it went front-wheel-drive in 1987. I backed a maroon Bonneville LE into a concrete bollard in driver’s ed learning how to parallel park. My friend Jeff’s dad bought one, only he went all-out and got the SSE, in monochrome white. I still remember being awestruck by the sheer number of buttons on the dash and steering wheel. Me and the front-drive Bonnie go way back, even though I’ve never owned one.
This 2003 model represents the Bonneville’s swan song; it is from the tenth and final generation of the big Pontiac. It’s powered by one of GM’s greatest engines ever, the 3800 Series II V6, putting a healthy 205 horsepower to the front wheels through a 4T65-E automatic. Keep the fluids clean, preventively replace a couple of gaskets, and this powertrain might run until the end of time – if the subframe and engine cradle don’t rust away from under it before then. A nose-heavy FWD car is great in the snow, but road salt trapped in the subframe, a known problem for these H-bodies, can crash the party in a hurry. Best take a peek underneath and make sure it’s structurally sound.
Overall, though, this big Pontiac seems to be in decent condition for having 200,000 miles on the clock. There is a bit of rust showing, and probably more under the plastic cladding, but the paint is shiny and the clearcoat is intact, which suggests to me that this car was garage-kept, so there’s hope. The interior is a little grubby, but GM interiors from this era always look a little grubby unless they’re perfect. But for this price, who cares?
This strikes me as a damn near ideal beater: cheap, economical to run and fix, comfy, and able to stand up to some neglect and abuse. Its sister model, the Buick LeSabre, often appears on lists of recommended cheap used cars, but everyone tends to forget the Bonneville. And it’s the same car, only cooler.
1997 Plymouth Voyager – $1,800
Engine/drivetrain: 3.0 liter overhead cam V6, three-speed automatic, FWD
Location: St. Louis Park, MN
Odometer reading: 157,000 miles
Runs/drives? You betcha
When someone says the word “minivan,” this is the vehicle that comes to my mind, even all these years after it went out of production: the Plymouth Voyager. Chrysler made approximately seven bajillion of these things over three generations, and during my time in the Twin Cities working at a service station, I must have changed the oil on approximately half of them. Like the Bonneville, it’s a vehicle I’ve always admired, but never owned; it’s not cool, but it’s relentlessly, unabashedly practical, and that is an admirable quality.
This third-generation Voyager is just about the specification I would choose, too: a short wheelbase SE model, with the optional Mitsubishi-built V6. A 2.4 liter four was available, but almost nobody bought it. An automatic transmission was compulsory in this generation; previous Voyagers could be had with a manual, but despite what David says, a stickshift does not, on its own, make a vehicle fun or cool. This is a practical utilitarian vehicle, not a sports car, and there’s no reason to avoid it solely because it’s an automatic. The automatic in question is Chrysler’s three-speed A670 Torqueflite, not the sexiest gearbox around, but sturdy and durable.
Chrysler minivans never seemed to be as affected by rust as some other vehicles. Sure, they rust – everything does – but they don’t dissolve like wet tissue paper like some cars do. This one has had some rust repair done on the door bottoms, the seller says, and it looks like there might be some rot in the rocker panels, but for a cheap twenty-six-year-old car in Minnesota, it doesn’t look bad at all. Plus, it’s green, arguably one of the best colors for any vehicle.
Inside, it’s even cleaner. The seller says it has a fault in the HVAC fan controls; the fan is either on full-blast or off, nothing in between. This is usually controlled by a resistor wired to the switch: When the resistor burns out, you lose the in-between speeds. I’ve had to replace a couple of them over the years on various cars. (It was a common failure point for mechanical speed controls in Tamiya RC cars back in the day, too, come to think of it.) They also note a slight coolant leak from the radiator, which they keep topped off, but I think I’d just throw a new radiator in.
Both of these cars, honestly, look like absolute dreams come true compared to some of the clunkers I had in the Twin Cities, like the Chevy Cavalier that spun a rod bearing on the day after Christmas, or the Dodge Colt with the rusted-out fuel pickup tube inside the gas tank that made it sputter and stall when it got below half full. But cars in general have been getting steadily better, so it stands to reason that they would hold up better later in life. They’re more expensive these days, too, but everything is. These both seem like good deals to me. Which one do you favor?
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
Wow. I would normally be down with a Bonneville in that condition for the price, but that Voyager is in tremendous shape for it’s age. And living up north at that. Curious what it looks like underneath, but I’m taking the Voyager assuming it’s not hiding a ton of rot. Would love a short wheelbase van, and I wish that was still an option today. Also, green!
The Pontiac is so much more interesting to me, but the minivan is much cleaner, looks better maintained, has a shifter on the steering stalk, and is green.
Because green is the best color.
the Pontiac also has a column shifter…
It’s not green.
fair enough
I have owned three generations of the Chrysler minivans- gen 2 – 4. The Voyager we owned was also green, long wheelbase version, basically this same year, same van. We got rid of it when the electrical gremlins started showing up, but the Gen 4 replacement was even worse, as it started rusting out before it was even 10 years old. The best one? The gen 2, which is probably still running somewhere in northern Wisconsin.
If I’m in a situation where I need a beater with a heater, I want the most utility I can get for my dollar. Minivan wins today because of that, and it seems to be in nicer condition.
Counterpoint, if I need a winter beater with a heater, I want the smallest cabin with less to heat.
My beaters never had any problem cranking out the heat. It was only a problem at highway speeds when the wind would overcome the multiple layers of floormats I had covering the rust holes in the floorboards. Time to wear your winter boots.
While the LeSabre and Bonneville are the exact same platform, there is one difference that stands out. The Pontiac’s interior is supposed to be “driver-focused”, so the instrument panel and center stack are puffed out toward the driver. Even the door cards are really thick and puffy. All of the controls and gauges are right up in your face.
The LeSabre, on the other hand, has a completely different interior. The horizontal dash seems like it’s a mile away. There is no center stack or console to get in the way. The door cards are much trimmer and thinner.
It all adds up to a completely different experience. In the Bonnie, you don’t feel like you’re in a particularly large car because the interior pieces take up a lot of space. The LeSabre has so much empty space you might get lost in there.
Don’t let this distract you from the fact that the coolest/prettiest/best (?) variant of that platform was the Aurora V8 – sadly, also the least reliable.
The Aurora is a G-body, the LeSabre and Bonneville are the related H-body. The doors and roof are very different on the Aurora, and the Aurora has a longer wheelbase and overall length.
The LeSabre and Bonnie are identical bodies.
Wasn’t the Olds 88 also on the same platform? The rear quarter window looks the same as on the Bonneville
It was, but a generation earlier. The 88 was gone by the time the new H debuted in 2000.
Got it, I thought the second-gen Aurora became a platform share but I was mistaken – cheers
I’m a huge fan of these Chrysler minivans from inception to the 3rd gen. I still have a 1st gen with the 2.6. I would have picked the Voyager all day if it had the 3.3 or 3.8. All day. The A604 transmission mated to those had their kinks worked out by then. Dealing with the horrors of the timing belt and water pump on the 3.0’s, I’m over those 3.0 engines. That’s before I open the hood to check on those strut towers.
That’s why I’d go with the Bonneville. I hear good things about the 3800 and there’s fun mods you can do to get the thing to fly.
My family had a ’98 Grand Caravan (3.3 v6) and it was flawless for the 130k miles we had it. Seriously nothing ever went wrong. Then my mom replaced it with an ’07 Town and Country (I think the 3.8 v6) and it was a rolling pile of shit. It was constantly in the shop. It was wild to see how the quality had declined between those cars when the ’07 was basically a mid-cycle refresh of the same car.
The 2007 wasn’t a refresh of the 98’s. While they look similar, they were totally different cars. That said, 2007 was the last year of the 4th gen whereas the 98 was the 2nd year of the 3rd gens so I’m surprised to hear that the car didn’t have its kinks worked out. Especially when the 3.8 had been in the minis since 1995. I guess Daimler was really in the throws of ruining Chrysler at the time so it makes sense.
My 2010 3.8l Town & Country has been fairly reliable, running gear wise. I’ve put 36k on it since getting it with 130k miles. A handful of things have needed replacement; coil pack, transmission cooler lines, and plugs and wires but that’s about it. However the van does have a handful of electrical gremlins; cruise control refuses to activate, the radio recently bricked itself, and sometimes the power doors have a mind of their own.
I’m surprised people are saying the Mitsubishi is reliable….
They’re getting the 3.3 and later 3.8 confused with the 3.0
That voyager must be burning coolant, or it is seeping into the Crankcase, neither option is good. The 3800 is much loved, and honestly the only thing that really make the Poncho interesting. you would have to look long and hard underneath it to really consider driving it though. as noted, the plastic cladding hide a lot of issue with this era of Pontiac clad Chevy.
That generation of the Chrysler minivans, the engine/transmission combo they carry are peak reliability. After that everything started to go downhill.
They have the perfect size for a minivan since now they are huge. At this age I want comfort and space.
Bonneville, please.
It looks decent and has a good engine, though it does have more miles, and it would do basic car things pretty well (which is really all I think we can ask of vehicles in the Showdown).
I’m not sure what’s going on around the gas cap, but it looks like whatever it is flowed down and got on the tire as well. If the filler is fubar, that would need some work.
The Voyager has fewer miles and looks better, until you see that the “rust repair” looks suspiciously like tape.
https://images.craigslist.org/00w0w_2endGT3lnPn_1320MM_1200x900.jpg
Not suspiciously, exactly. I wish I could retract my vote for the Voyager. Do they do safety inspections for ownership transfers in Minnesota? I know in Ontario that would not pass, making it worthless as a winter beater without some body work.
How is the Bonneville not running away with this?!?
And wasn’t the SSEi the top trim Bonny?
Yes, until the GXP
Not in 1988.
Back in the day, I might have gone for the Bonneville, but not now. Now, Voyager.
Having been both a previous owner of a 2001 Bonneville as well as a former Minnesota, I’m going with the Bonneville, though I could hardly fault anyone for picking the Voyager. Both look better than one would expect for that age in Minnesota, though I bet both look a lot more rough from underneath.
The Voyager might have more utility, but it’s got the wrong engine for my taste. The 3.3 would’ve been preferred, and even the 2.4 would’ve been a unique experience I’d rather have over the 3L Mitsu.
So, I went with the 3800 Pontiac.
100% correct. 3.3 or 3.8. A604 had its issues ironed out by then.
3800 seems pretty reliable.
I have a bit of a soft spot for better-equipped SWB Chrysler vans. My parents were looking at the short vans of this gen too, but ended up with a Grand Voyager based on equipment (couldn’t get rear A/C on the shorties).
Interesting that it has the 2nd row buckets, bit uplevel for a SWB SE, but the lower V6. Reliability wise the 3.3 would be better, but I still voted van for practicality reasons.
Brochures for this gen of the vans showed you could get the 2.4 in lower-end Grands, I can only imagine how sluggish that was.
One of my aunts had a 4 cylinder. My (former) uncle as a very cheap man and bought the absolute cheapest van possible. I don’t know if I was ever in the van but I do remember them having a fair number of problems with it. But they tended to have a lot of problems with all their vehicles and so I think it was more a case of user error than the vehicle itself. Still voted for it because I could use it as a cargo van for a bit and when something expensive broke just scrap it.
My dad had a 4cyl/3A SWB Caravan. He took that thing all over the west from surmounting 11’000 mountain passes in the Rockys to -200′ Badwater Death Valley all loaded with weeks worth of camping gear. It was fine save for a brake fail which may have been the result of his driving style more than anything (pretty sure he was riding the brakes).
My experiences driving it: It drove like a large car. The A/C was strong enough to handle the heat of the Utah desert in summertime and personally I never felt the “need” for more power. “Want” was another matter but 150 HP was enough to get us where we were going regardless of where we were, what we were carrying or what we were doing.
That thing was fine regardless of altitude, temperature, speed limits or road conditions. LA freeways? No problem! Up/down Priest grade by Yosemite? Do it! Unpaved backroads in Death Valley? Bring it! Forest service and logging roads in the Cascades? Why not? The mean streets of San Francisco. Pish! It got 26 mpg on the highway with regular gas too.
If the 150HP I4/3A can do all that while stuffed with cargo and/or passengers what more do you “need”?
I’m absolutely not a “9 second 0-60 is underpowered!” kinda guy like some people are, but it’s also OK to want more in a vehicle even in a utility vehicle. The 2.4 was fine in a base van, but when you add in extra weight for the extended wheelbase, and then extra equipment to go with (earlier base Caravans didn’t even have rear headrests standard – not that those are heavy but just for how much equipment they didn’t have), if the option is there it also doesn’t hurt.
Most V6s in these vans were low-stress OHV units, not like a complex turbo upgrade. The 3.3 made more torque at lower revs than the 2.4 and the rated mileage was a nominal hit at 2mpg, and probably got about the same real-world. That’s the thing, the mileage benefit wasn’t really there when you get to the larger vehicle classes, not like in some segments. For comparison I’ve driven 2.7L I4 Highlanders and Siennas (prior gens), but the mileage was about a wash and the V6 was certainly nicer to drive.
I dunno. WW2 was fought on the backs of 60-90 HP, 2 1/2 ton trucks doing truck things on “roads” under conditions that would shatter most modern vehicles regardless of engine output. Even today most of the world does just fine getting by with far less engine power than we are used to in America.
Clearly HP isn’t everything. I think even that extended wheelbase Grand Caravan would have been just fine with the 150 HP I4 as long as you were a little more patient about getting to 60 MPH.
Sure, but WW2 vehicles were built for that kind of durability and hauling, which if we really want to continue that comparison, was what the V6s were better suited for in the Chryslers. I agree that hp isn’t everything, I’m not that type of person, but we’re not talking about the 290 hp vans of today, the horsepower spread on intro in the 1996 Chrysler vans was all of 16 hp. Not even like 166hp from the 3.8 was “good” at the time, but it was durable and torquey. Even in European markets where they sold the Grands, they offered the 3.3 and not just the 4s.
I do think Chrysler did expect more I4 sales in the 3rd gens, at least maybe to dump the Mitsu V6, the 2.4 had 50 hp over the old 2.5 so the same as the 3.0. But at that point the minivan market basically demanded a V6. That was partly Chrysler’s own doing, most every review of the original Chrysler vans said they needed more power even in a time when ~11-12 second 0-60 times were considered good. By the 90s I4 competitors performed about the same, but Chrysler would sell you a bigger van with a V6 for less.
Regardless, it looks like Chrysler got enough 4 cyl sales from the 3rd gen to warrant a 4th gen with the same engine.
An ex co-worker owned an 06 or 07 base Caravan with the 4cyl and 4spd. Rental blue/green color, crank windows, manual locks, one missing hubcap and all. We would go for lunch a couple times in it and it just felt adequate with 4 people in it. Not so much if all 7 seven seats were taken.
An uncle owned a 3rd gen SWB base Voyager with the 3.3 and other than the obvious acceleration advantage it was also quieter inside. The 2.4 was a a buzzier engine as noted on my co-worker’s Caravan and my 1st car (a 1st gen Stratus)
Oh for sure, having so many choices was what kept Chrysler at the top so long. I imagine if they weren’t also putting the 2.4 in PTs and cloud cars into the 2000s they might have just gone standard V6, but no doubt it was a fleet advantage too – where something like that 2 mpg rating advantage would stand out in the spreadsheets. Plus the price, back when a base Chrysler van was like base Camry money, now nowhere even close.
My vote tied it lol 38 to 38.
Tough one, I too have an irrational like for anything pontiac, so I voted that way but there is more utility in that voyager, can use it like a truck etc.
The Voyager looks super clean, but I owned a beige Bonneville (the generation before this one) and drove it across the country multiple times so I have to stick with it. These really are wonderful cruisers that eat up the miles, and return decent fuel mileage as well.
The Bonnevile would be more reliable. I just couldn’t trust a Chrysler product that old
Voyager…all day long. If I was up there I’d buy it.
It’s rare I’d like a “both” option on this column, but this is one of those cases. Either would make a perfectly cromulent beater. I ultimately went with the Voyager because of its increased utility and shockingly clean interior
Both is a good option here. $3500 for two decent transportation appliances is a good deal in 2023. It is nice to have a backup car available, particularly given the expected reliability of cars in this price range.
That Voyager takes me back! We had a Grand Caravan of the same generation in the same great green color when I was a kid. I learned to drive in it and could parallel park it like a boss. This one is in great shape, too! I do like that Bonnie, tho. The 3800 is hard to resist. Decisions decisions!
Minnesotans are nothing if not practical, and the buyer of that Bonneville must have been thinking along the same lines as my Minnesotan father since they both bought the beige to hide the road grime.
He also got 200,000+ out of his.
Don’t forget the bright orange gauges Pontiac loved from about ’95-05.
They were bright orange starting in the late 80s! My Sunbird and Grand Am’s were orange!
Interesting, I don’t remember my 94 GP being orange, maybe it was and I’m just getting old, or maybe they introduced it on the smaller cars first?
Pretty sure they all were, I remember driving my uncles (RIP) 1992 GP they were orange, as well as my step dads 89 Bonny. Anyway great getting a reply from the great V10!
While I have always been partial to the 3100/3400 GM engines, and willing to overlook the constantly leaking upper intake gaskets, the 3800 is also a great option as long as you don’t have a timing chain snap like mine did. But I bought that car at 17 and beat the crap out of it so I don’t blame the car. Any large GM car will last a long time, and I like them better than most Chrysler products
After 2000 they switched to an aluminum intake so this one shouldn’t have those issues
Mine was a 2001…
I always liked the Bonneville, but you can’t beat the practicality of a throwaway van. This one might be too clean to even say “throwaway”. For $1,700 you’ll get a shiny van with a ton of cargo space. Take out or fold the seats (IDK which this gen had) and unless you’re hauling a yard of dirt or a fridge, you can put pretty much anything you want back there. Just buy the damn minivan.
Proof that we are in The Bad Place: 10′ tall pickup trucks are the norm and the minivan is practically extinct.
I Stan the van.
See also all the fro yo places. The bad place masquerading as real life. Would that make it the matrix?
Also, DT does not understand this reference.
That show was way better than it had any right to be. Worth a rewatch.