I was scoping around for a cool work (construction) van.
1. What are the ups and downs for 91-94 awd
2. 95-97 awd s/c?
-> AWD gets 1-2 mpg less; overall, the only way to go if you expect snow or difficult terrain, at least acording to some. in my experience, the AWD of any year are very rare- out of the 50 or so previas i've looked at in ads in the last month or so, only a few were AWD
-> From '96 on you get engine code diasgnostics that are standardized for the first time, a great reason to feel confident in your engine light (indicating a warning flag is going off in the auto-diagnostic system)
-> Bench second row is cool cause you can take the seat out easily; with captain chairs in the second row it's about 5 minutes per seat (with power tools), and they're heavy. But the advantage there is you could leave in one of the captains chairs and still free up a ton of useful cargo space
=> moon roofs may mean you can't have roof racks; i love my moon roofs, it really changes the boxed in feeling; but it doesn't look promising for roof racks
-> according to the EPA and what i've heard, the s/c doesn't make the mpg go down (in fact my 96 s/c gets a better epa rating for city driving than the the '92 non s/c). i suppose it would also depend on how heavy your foot is.
-> Anti-lock brakes were part of a $900 upgrade package (which included privacy glass); ABS brakes are much safer, and the privacy glass is important for anyone carrying tools!
-> I wouldn't say it handles like a car, but i have wider tires than the standard equipment. It feels like a big friggin' bus, sittin' high in the air. The S/C is nice, doesn't feel underpowered at all. When I realized there wasn't a mpg hit with the s/c I was like, heck yeah, that's a must have, but i also know that running out of oil is a common cause for s/c failure.
Hope that helps!
Randelpy
