Oh my goodness! Where to begin? Well, we had bought this car from a used car lot, after we dumped our old Plymouth there because it flat out blew up.
Let me just say that for a 1996, it is working very well, putting up with how me and my wife drive, and my wife owns a cleaning business, so this van is used almost 24/7.
Well the CV joints are the worst ones right now. We hit the gas, and when you reach about 20, the passenger side starts shaking like an earthquake. It's bad enough to make the drinks in the cup holder fall out.
The passenger window does not work, and when I am driving, and my wife is sitting next to me, she smokes so all the smoke either goes in my face, or back to our 8 year old son.
Some kind of gauge in the steering wheel has broken, so we have no horn, cruise control or airbags.
My brakes and the transmission scare me greatly. My wife was recently in a car accident. The day after the 4th of July, and she went to go make a hard stop, and rear ended a little Toyota something. So our grille is cracked.
Now the transmission had it's first major slip up earlier this week. We were leaving our close friend's house. Turned the van on, made sure everyone was buckled in, put in in reverse, let my foot of the brake, and we went forward almost in a ditch! My wife blames it on the gears weren't locked.
She doesn't want to face the fact that this is a dangerous vehicle and I do not want a police officer knocking on my door telling me that my wife and my 8 year old son were killed in a car accident! I cannot get her to drive my GMC Jimmy while I go get this checked. But she complains that it's too hard to drive and there are bad blind spots. Now she would rather drive this big 20 foot long white death trap, with a broken driver side mirror and a shaky rear view one.
I STRONGLY suggest that you all get your vans checked even if they are fine. You never know. I am now to the point where my son will only go out if we all go, not with her, because I do not trust that car, and I do not want him to be killed by a defective brake pedal and lack of working airbags.
The only actual problems you mention that are attributable to the car are the CV joint, a burned out fuse, and the power window motor. As this car is 10 years old, that doesn't seem too unreasonable and in fact sounds like an example of a good car. Why don't you get the CV joint replaced, and have the window motor fixed? The rest of the problems seem to be due to the fact that you are very hard on vehicles, don't appear to take care of them, and like to run into things (such as vehicles stopped in the road). The greatest source of danger to your son would seem to be second-hand smoke, rather than riding in this car.
Why not try getting it fixed?
I agree, fix it or trade it, and ask your wife if she ever heard of second-hand smoke while you are at it.
What about the Toyota driver whom your wife mowed down in this big 20 foot long white death trap (your parlance).
I highly doubt a 1996 Chrysler Town and Country van is 20 feet long. More like 16 or 17 feet at the most. 1970's GM station wagons were 20 feet long, not 90's Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth vans.
Smoking with your kid in the car is way more dangerous than the car itself. I'ts been mentioned before, but what do you expect from a over 10 year old mini-van that obviously isn't as well taken care of as the preperation of the list of things wrong that you won't fix?
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