2005 Chevrolet Uplander

I ve had the Chevy Uplander for almost three years, and I m counting the days until my lease is up. It is not the worst vehicle I ve ever had, I once had a Beretta that racked up a monthly repair bill that rivaled my rent at the time, but I have had more problems with this van than I believe a vehicle made in this age of technology should. If you are considering buying an Uplander, I think this review is worth your time.

Sporty Look

Before the Uplander I had a Venture that I was quite happy with. When the lease was up on the Venture I got the Uplander. At the time the Uplander was a new model that replaced the Venture. I have two young children and a golden retriever so I m a mini-van mom. I have the extended wheel base model with automatic sliding doors and DVD player. The Uplander was touted as having a more sporty look and more convenience items for the driver than past GM mini-vans. I suppose it looks more sporty, for this model year the front end looks just like a Trailblazer, but I didn t think the Venture looked bad. And no matter how you dress it up, it is still a box on wheels. So I m not giving the van any extra points for being sporty looking. However, it is a nice shade of navy blue.

Driver Convenience or How well does this van serve Mom?
This translated means- cupholders and compartments. There are many but I m not sure they are all convenient. There are six cupholders within easy reach of the driver, four in the 2nd row of seats and two in the 3rd row. At first I couldn t understand how anyone would need so many cupholders, but I confess I have been using most of them. Not really for drinks, mostly for change, lipgloss and small toys, because there is no where else to put this stuff. I only use the cupholders in the between-the-front-seats tray for drinks. What do I mean a tray? It is a plastic tray that is connected to the side of the drivers seat. It folds up and down. There is no point in having it down, you can t fit anything between the seats with it down, so I always have it up. I set my purse on it. There is nowhere else to put my purse except on the floor (ick) or on the passenger seat, where it goes flying onto the floor at the mere mention of braking. There is no console, or bin for the multitudes of mom-stuff you need to have in the van, up front and within reach. There is a small cubbie beneath the cup holder pull-out (I call it a change drawer), but nothing worth putting in there will fit in there. Consequently, I keep a plastic shoe box under the tray thingy to hold my CD s, wipes, snacks etc. I d like to point out that the tray can hold the weight of a 3 year old as he climbs from the back to the front.

There is a giant box that fits between the 2nd row captains chairs, with another tray and 4 cupholders on the top. The box can be taken out of the van if you don t use it. My kids use the cupholders. I don t keep anything in the box except a few emergency clothing items because you can t reach it from the front seat or open it and get anything out of it while driving (not that you should ever do that, it would be unsafe). There are also fold out compartments on the back of the front row seats, presumably to put books or maps in. These compartments are not big enough to fit any of the books my children own, so they are useless to us. The kids can t reach these compartments from their car seats anyway. But I m sure there are kids somewhere who could put them to good use.
There is a convenience center behind the 3rd row of seats. When you open the back hatch it is located right there in the floor. It is two compartments with lids. I like to stow the dog s things in here and extra paper towels. Grocery bags fit in it nicely too. Paper grocery bags work best. I have had groceries fall out after opening the hatch when using the plastic bags. You can remove this center if you don t need it in there. But when you fold down the 3rd row seats, the floor will have a drop-off where the center should be.

The 3rd row seats sit on top of the floor when folded down, they do not fold down flat into the floor. My seats are a 50-50 split, so you can fold down one side or the other, or both. A medium or large size stroller, even folded up, will not fit between the 3rd row seats and the hatch when the seats are up. You will need to put the seats down. An umbrella stroller would fit. One of those big plastic wagons just barely fits inside the van with the 3rd row seats down. It is the vertical clearance for the handle that is the problem here, because the seats don t fold down into the floor.

If I do fold down the 3rd row seats, they usually stay that way until I have a reason to put them back up. This is because they are difficult to put up. You have to crawl inside the back of the van and simultaneously pull a lever on the back of the seat and pull the seat up, while on your hands and knees. Not easy to do. The second row captain s chairs can be folded forward or removed, but not easily either. I can t remove them by myself, my husband has to do it. You have to pull up on a strap in the back of the seat near the floor with all the strength you can muster and swear a lot until the seat unhooks from the floor. I ve only been able to do it once. So really, seats can be folded down or removed to get more room in the back of the van but ladies, don t plan on doing it yourself.

The best features

The best part about this van is an integrated child seat. My previous Venture had one and it was one of the two major selling points for me when I chose to get the Uplander. One of the 2nd row captains chairs has a built in child seat. It is so convenient! It is a 5-point harness car seat that folds out of the seat back and is adjustable. My daughter has been using this seat since she was 2. It saved us the trouble of buying one more car seat. If I need to accommodate one more adult passenger, say if I m going somewhere without the kids (yeah right!), I just fold up the seat, as opposed to the monumental task of removing and then replacing a car seat.

The second best feature was the DVD player. Up until a month ago when it broke. When it worked, this feature was invaluable to me. My kids were occupied and not fighting (unless it s over a movie), especially for long trips. I can reach the controls on the DVD player from the driver s seat which makes it easy for me to switch movies (or turn it off for a time-out). The DVD comes with a remote if you have older kids who know how to use it. The remote doesn t work from the front seat; it has to be pointed at the player.
But one day the player just crapped out in the middle of a movie and didn t spit out the DVD for another 12 hours. It has been making strange noises ever since.

I do have to give the van praise for a very roomy interior. My in-laws live 4 hrs away and we make that trip a few times a year. All four of us and the dog. With the 3rd row seats down, the van can hold everyone s stuff and the dog (who is 85 lbs, not a teeny dog). When we only had one baby, it was not uncommon for us to pile every single thing we thought the baby might possibly need into the van. The bouncy seat, the play mat with the attached toy bar, stroller, diapers, toys, etc. And everything would always fit. But then again, it had better. I didn t get an extended length mini-van because it s sexy.

The problems

The problems began within four months of having the van. The whole van would shudder and shake when braking. It was noticeable at all speeds but physically jarring at speeds over 50 mph. Enough to make the kids yell Mommy! What are you doing! . The first time I took it in for service, (I go to the dealership because these things should be under warranty when the car is new, right?) the van had 6000 miles on it and I had to get new front and rear rotors. Ridiculous. About ten months later, the same shuddering happened again. I got new front brake pads and the rotors turned. Within three months of getting these new brake pads I had to get new rotors again. I think you can see the pattern here. In total I have had two sets of brake pads, three sets of rotors and also the wheel hubs in the front replaced. All of this by 45,000 miles. This kind of repair frequency for brakes and rotors is unacceptable to me and no, it wasn t all covered by warranty.

The next item on the problem list is the automatic sliding side doors. Specifically, the locks on the doors will not unlock with the key fob or with the buttons in the car, so I have to manually unlock the doors, then press the button to have the door automatically open. I should note here that it is really difficult to manually open the sliding doors. You have to have herculean strength to pull the door open. And if you have a child in your arms or you are carrying the baby in the car-seat basket, forget it. So it is quite inconvenient and frustrating when the doors will not open automatically as they should. I also paid extra for this feature. I have taken the car in twice for this problem and it never has been fixed so I gave up on it. I was able to manually operate car door locks back in 1979, I guess I can do it for the rest of this lease.

My latest problem is starting the engine. It takes five times to get the van started. I turn the key and the engine tries to turn over, but won t. Not even if I give it gas while turning the key (I know, I know carburators are gone but old habits die hard). So, five tries and the engine will finally turn over. It doesn t seem to matter what the weather is either. It could be February or August, it takes more than twice to get the van started. I don t know the origin of this problem. I asked about it on one of my many trips to service at the dealership, but they wanted too much money just to check things, so I passed.

Lastly, the radio buttons don t work. Now how annoying is that? The button to turn it on has to be pressed several times before it works and the button that controls the bass, fade, etc. sometimes works, sometimes doesn t. How long have we been making car radios now?

Technical stuff, sort of

I will do my best at describing this stuff, bear with me. The inside of this van is LOUD. It is the wind noise and it is very noticeable. You can also hear the wheel hubs and axles creek and bong over every crack in the road. There is also the loud drone of the tires on the pavement. If you can get the radio to turn on, turn it up to drown out the noise.
The van is seriously underpowered. I cringe every time I have to slow down in traffic, because it took me so long to get up to speed. I only pass very slow moving cars. And pretty much everyone else passes me.
The handling isn t good either. It is very stiff feeling. It basically drives like a box on wheels. When I have my dog in the back I make sure to drive very carefully around corners, for fear of toppling over.
Another thing worth noting is that the van has a 22 gallon gas tank. So far my personal best at the gas pump is $75 for a tank. I get about 18 mpg around town and a smidgen better on the highway. I use the cheapest gas and I ve never noticed any problems with it.

So, in the end, I cannot recommend this van. The two best features are the integrated child seat and DVD player. A car seat you can always buy separate, or you may already own several, and the DVD player broke before my lease was up. You can also buy a separate DVD player these days fairly cheap. I won t be wasting money on a package upgrade in my next vehicle just to get a DVD player. These two pros don t even come close to outweighing the cons of this van.