red69
Well-Known Member
CR consistently rated GM's M-van below the Ford & Chrysler entries into the minivan field. Dammit...cup holders matter!:wank:
They were 20mpg tanks that were short enough to fit into garage spaces marked "compact car only". It was easy to fit a bike & 2 weeks worth of camping gear and with 1700lb payload capacity, the suspension never even got a real workout. The Achilles Heel, idler arms; 60,000 miles between replacements was doing well. Kinda surprising, imo, the front end mechanicals were otherwise lifted from the fullsize Chevy/GMC van. I had 5 of them, all of which were still running well past the 300,000-mile mark, 2 were still going past 400,000. I lost track of the last one early. `93 was the last year of the short body, that's why I kept it until the very expensive "radiator venison" incident. By then, the Astro was an orphan, dropped after '05 and the general's part support sucks.
When I ordered mine I went with the 27 gallon tank as opposed to the standard 17 gallon version. It gave the van some long legs on trips. By the time I was ready to replace it, they ended production. I never had any suspension problems.