Happy Friday! It’s the last day of the month, and the last day of The Autopian’s first year. (Can you believe it has been a year already?) Today, we’re looking for cars in an unlikely spot along our Route 66 tour, but it’s in the song, so we have to stop. But first, which convertible are you driving out of St Louis?
Narrow-but-decisive Mustang victory, it looks like. I think that would be my choice, too, four-cylinder and automatic be damned.
Today’s search takes us to Joplin, Missouri, on the far western edge of the state, right where Interstate 44 (which used to be Route 66) barely misses the southeastern corner of Kansas and drops into Oklahoma. It’s not the first place you think of when you think car culture, but if there is one thing I’ve found in my meager travels it’s that everywhere has a car culture, if you look hard enough. A beat-up Volkswagen and a Chevy minivan with a zillion miles on them may not be enthusiast dream machines, but they’re in our price range, so let’s take a look.
2003 Volkswagen Jetta TDI – $2,700
Engine/drivetrain: 1.9 liter turbodiesel overhead cam inline 4, five-speed manual, FWD
Location: Milo, MO
Odometer reading: 275,000 miles
Runs/drives? You bet!
I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for VW’s diesels. My mother owned a Dasher diesel hatchback that she drove everywhere, and I have very fond memories of it. I came close to buying a VW diesel of my own a few times (including that same Dasher, years later), but never pulled the trigger.
Part of the reason is that the affordable ones all seem to have a metric shit-ton of miles on them, like this Jetta. That’s a good thing, in one way: it speaks to their durability, but once you get north of a quarter million miles, any vehicle starts feeling less “nice.” It may still run fine, everything may still work, but it just starts to feel, and look, tired.
Worse, this Jetta had an altercation with something, and it was apparently a bad enough hit to require replacement of the rear twist-beam axle. The seller made the mechanical repairs, but left the cosmetic damage alone, possibly to ward off further collisions. It’s not too bad, but it might eventually start to rust.
Inside, it’s grubby and worn, and I imagine the characteristic VW crayon smell has long since been replaced by stale sweat, old food, and diesel exhaust. But even with the wear and the damage, this car probably has a lot more miles in it.
2008 Chevrolet Uplander LS – $3,250
Engine/drivetrain: 3.9 liter overhead valve V6, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Joplin, MO
Odometer reading: 295,000 miles
Runs/drives? Sure does!
Everyone expects a Volkswagen diesel to be able to rack up the miles, but what about a Chevy minivan? This Uplander, the replacement for the Venture van, which in turn replaced the old “Dustbuster”-shaped Lumina APV, is closing in on 300,000 miles, and apparently still goes down the road just fine. Yeah, there’s the old line about “GM cars run like crap longer than most cars run at all,” but how do you explain this nearly-new-looking minivan with that many miles? It makes me wonder if there’s a picture of it somewhere, covered in rust and dents.
This Uplander is powered by a 3.9 liter version of GM’s 60-degree V6, an engine that traces its roots to the Middle Ages. Here, as in most applications, it powers the front wheels through a 4T65-E four-speed automatic. Chances are, with this many miles, this is not the original transmission, either.
The seller says this was a “school van,” but doesn’t elaborate. Whatever it was used for, the kiddos should count themselves lucky; these vans don’t have a stellar safety rating when it comes to crash-testing. But it does all the things a good van should: haul people and stuff around in some degree of comfort without causing much fuss while doing it.
The third row of seats appears to be missing; they may be in the garage, or they may be lost to time. As it stands, this is set up perfectly for a band van: four captain’s chairs, tons of space in the back for amps and a drum kit, and white paint that’s just a big blank canvas for a badass logo. (Every band has to have a badass logo.)
That’s it for the week! Have a great weekend, everyone, and if you’re in the LA area, stop by Porsche Santa Clarita tomorrow for the big anniversary shindig! I wish I could make it; there’s sure to be no shortage of cool cars and great conversation. On Monday, we’ll be continuing our virtual trip down Route 66 with a stop in Oklahoma. See you then!
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
Vws are expensive, hard to fix modern German junk. That van may be boring and bland, but if gm can do anything well, it’s make a pushrod motor last forever. Add in cheap and easy to fix and you have a reliable daily kid schlepper until you die of boredom falling asleep at the wheel.
3.9 VVTi was a bit of a nightmare to keep running though.
I’d keep going with yesterday’s Mustang.
I have kids, so the Uplander would actually be useful. That’s all I got on either.
I mean it could, but with only 4 seats it’s honestly not that much more practical. Sure it’ll haul more, but I can fit my kids and their crap in my Cruze 90% of the time
Where’s the “I’d rather ride a bike” option?
The Mk4 Jetta is one of the worst cars ever made, so the Uplander wins by default.
Too bad they never made an Uplander SS with the LS4
If I have to make a choice, put me down for not the totaled Jetta that was maybe repaired correctly. It might be an even bigger death trap than the infamous Upsilon platform van that practically telescopes itself in a frontal collision. Honestly though neither of these vehicles are worth taking seriously at those prices.
I didn’t vote for the Jetta, I voted against the Uplander. Even a Jetta that has apparently been attacked by the Hulk is better than the rolling pile of trash that is the Uplander.
It drove badly when new, it rusts bad enough to give David Tracy pause*, it’s slow, it’s ugly, it’s weirdly loud, it crumples like tissue paper if you have the misfortune of hitting anything. I knew more than a few people with one and all of them talked about how much they regret owning one.
*A local politician had an Oldsmobile Silhouette for a number of years – same platform, pre misguided facelift. I don’t know how he kept driving it, it had rusted through completely on multiple places – including some that I’m pretty sure were structural. I was waiting for the day when he showed up for a media event and it split in half.
The Uplander was an obvious stopgap that GM felt it needed to do in the mid-aughts. Buyers were moving away from minvans into family SUVs & large crossovers, and the Lambda bodies weren’t quite ready yet. It just felt that they gave the Venture a truck-ish nose job and hoped nobody would notice. The whole thing felt dishonest – especially since the Venture was an arguably decent looking minivan as it was.
For those reasons alone, I want to go VW, but I can’t. Besides the friggin’ gash in the side, there’s also the questionable work that may be involved underneath. Lots of nopes here.
So yeah, gimme the Uplander – the kids are gone now, but by god I’d use the hell out of it. Vans of a certain age make lowkey great pickup trucks when you optimise their utility.
Supposedly a Lambda-based minivan was in the works too, but canceled because of costs of the whole project – and probably GM knew deep down they wouldn’t make a dent in the segment.
The 2nd-row seats were perhaps the most obvious sign of how phoned in it was. The standard seats as seen here were just the same type of modular buckets they offered for years, without the center seat, probably because they would have had to engineer a 3-point seatbelt to be competitive (not sure if it’s was also just law by then for all seatbelts to be 3-point). The seat comfort was probably most comparable to the Chrysler Stow-n-Go seats. The optional captains chairs were better, but because they didn’t offer curtain airbags in these vans like everyone else did, they packaged the same side airbags from the front seats, in the 2nd row.
Even Ford put more effort behind the Freestar with fold-in-floor 3rd row, power tailgate, and curtain airbags, but that too was still a heavy update of the old van and not as serious an effort as the class leaders by then.
Color me SHOCKED that the minivan made it that far. Those things were crap when new. That said…. My MIL owned the same model and year of Jetta TDI. Those WILL clog their intakes with carbon. That’s the worst era of VW, which says a lot. Hers simply fell apart. The interior fell apart. The wiper motor broke. The clutch broke. The coolant system leaked. The brake calipers seized. The intake and EGR clogged up twice. And so on. It was also a huge pain in the ass to work on with many areas nearly inaccessible. So if you had to twist my arm I guess I’d take a chance on the shitty van…
Ooof! Can I vote for the Mustang I didn’t vote for yesterday?
Going with the van, well cared for beats about anything else, and given what we can see, it looks like the van has been cared for. Both are a complete crap shoot.
Even with the damage, I’m picking the Jetta. I just can’t see myself willingly choosing an Uplander for anything
Taking that van and turning it into a stealth camper.
The best band van is a retired church van that retains the lettering and logos. Super stealth, and criminals are superstitious about angering the Lord so they won’t steal your gear.
Jetta, only because if I crash it I might survive. Death is all but certain in the Uplander.
Diesel fumes give me massive headaches and nausea. Fun thing to find out on a long boat trip (Thank god it was a sailboat so we didn’t need it all the time).
I’d go with the van for that alone.
I’m quite happy to read the Dorian Gray reference, though that certainly seems like fodder for an Automotive Would You Rather, which we haven’t had in a bit.
I actually stole it from a Jasper Fforde novel in which the main character buys an Austin Allegro from Dorian Gray with this arrangement. (Jasper Fforde is a weird guy.)
I’m going van here. Anyone I know who had that era of VW has sworn off ever buying another VW. It never seemed to be big problems but lots of little annoyances that turned them away. I’d get more utility out of a van at this point in my life too, so that is a plus.
My Blazer was actually hauled out of the mud of someone’s backyard near Joplin.
The adventure to go get it was not so great though.
Anyways, a VW Mk IV diesel is the single worst vehicle I’ve ever had the displeasure of owning, you literally couldn’t pay me enough to drive one again, and its a wonder the company is still in business after foisting that turd upon the world. The Uplander is homely, but it could have been a flooded Yugo and would still get my vote today.
VW foists turds upon the world constantly and they remain hugely successful. For whatever reason the brand just resonates with people. Statistically speaking they make some of the least reliable vehicles on the road. They’ve turned their interiors into a tech hell world of screens and haptic feedback nonsense. Their products are usually considered middle of the pack or worse when it comes to how they’re reviewed outside of the GTI and Golf R, which receive a level of veneration I will never fully comprehend…and I owned a GTI and have driven a Golf R.
I’ll never get it. My ownership experience was horrendous. My sister’s was even worse. Every single analysis on reliability says VWs are among the worst. But for some reason people want them. Hell, I’m helping my non enthusiast aunt find a new car right now because her VW kicked the bucket. When I asked what she was looking for the first thing she said was “I want something simple and reliable. My preference is for a Volkswagen”
I guess people just hate facts and love pain, or something. I’m never touching a VW again and I’m nearly as fearful of Audis…especially after watching my mom’s 2015 Allroad absolutely shit the bed at all of 60,000 miles because of the electronics going haywire.
The “European = premium” thing is deeply embedded in a lot of people, alongside the “domestic = junk”, even though neither are really true in a broad sense.
Maybe (probably) I’m just an old man now, but when I see the writers and commenters buying all these old German cars, I just have to wonder how they manage to have the time and patience to care for them.
I had neither the time nor patience to care for a brand new German car and dumped it after two years. I’m not saying that doesn’t mean I won’t potentially be tempted by something like an M2 or S5 sportback in a few years…but for right now? I don’t have time to be schlepping the damn thing to the service bay every 3 months when some new and exotic warning light goes on.
“Oh that’s a code for the SGH-42x3B sensor. They have a single unique tiny electric motor that controls each individual damper. Looks like your front left one went bad at 11,000 miles. We can’t get the part in for another 6 months and it’ll require a full engine removal to replace it. Just drive it until then”
I’ve owned a few old German cars that seemed like great deals on paper (a 996, a CLK430, and the unfortunate VW previously mentioned), and none of them have turned out to have been worth the hassle. And I’m lucky enough to be able to turn a wrench a bit, and to have a barn with a lift in it to work on cars. I just don’t enjoy spending every weekend chasing something down or getting frequent flier status at Rock Auto.
Maybe when my kids are older and can help out. But even then, I’d probably rather them learn with me on something simple like a 60s domestic.
Apparently modern Porsches are actually very reliable…but my family has always insisted on owning German cars and none of them have been anything but trouble. My experience was enough to keep me away for a while. A Porsche remains a goal of mine (an actual one, not a damn Macan) and every now and then I’ll see a certified 911 or Panamera pop up in the 60-75 or so range that makes me go “hmmm”….but alas, it’s just not where I should be putting my money at this phase of my life. Maybe in a few years.
The mistake people make is trusting a German car designed after the fall of the Berlin wall. Same with people trusting jdm cars made after the bubble.
-your resident VW enthusiast/apologist
I guess I got the only reliable Mk IV diesel. I had a 2004 Golf and loved that car. Gave me 100k trouble free miles at 40 mpg. I only sold it because I was I had young kids and needed money. I got nearly what I paid for it new after using it for 100k. Seems most peoples experiences are different. I will say I was anal about maintenance and did most of it myself except for the timing belt. VW and Audi both require vigilant maintenance.
I’d bet the van was a Bible school van. Those miles were genuine highway miles as they dragged teens across the state and midwest. It was also likely well maintained. If I have to choose one of these, this is it.
I was a school administrator in Missouri for a long time (too long, some would say). A lot of schools had vans that were driven by the superintendent or used by faculty to attend workshops out of town. This would be typical.
Yeahhhhh this is going to have to be one of the rounds I vote “neither” in. I understand that we’re here to look at shitboxes but I can usually find something redeeming about one or both of them. Today I’m at a loss. I’d take that money and add another guitar to my collection instead…and weirdly enough based on how weird the market has gotten it might actually prove to be a wiser investment.
This is the only time I’ve ever thought ‘there has to be a k-car better than these available.’
The 3900 in that van is an interesting motor, it’s the most advanced pushrod V6 ever built. 240 hp and torque for days. Displacement on demand. Variable valve timing.
Too bad they didn’t do all that stuff to the 3800 instead.
A pushrod V6 making more than 200hp N/A is amazing.
On top of DoD and VVT?!
Hot damn that’s impressive.
The Chrysler 3.8 pushrod V6 in my old T&C made 215hp, and it felt like if they developed it further, it could’ve made a lot more. But by the time they got to 215hp, they were already deep into developing the Pentastar, so no additional effort was made to get power out of it. In fact, the final years were detuned a little for lower emissions instead.
True although the vans didn’t get DoD – I think only the Impala offered that out of all the models that featured the 3.9.
Oops, looks like there were three versions. At least this version has the highest output.
Eh. I’ll take the Uplander if I have to – cleaner and more practical, and I can find more use for a van than the VW in question here.
And the Crossover Sport Vans at least improved their safety ratings over their predecessors.
I cannot in good conscience suggest either. the prices are entirely too high for salvage junk with massive miles. neither are particularly well know for longevity, but I guess that is not really the case all the time, I have to, I am looking right at them.
The VW apparently comes with 270k honey coffee drinks, so factor that into the equation.