Previa Owners (Past & Present)...Please share...

[topspy]

I was thinking our Previa section was a little bare and lonely.

Those of you who have owned or still own one, please share some of your experiences (good or bad), stories/memories, and maybe even some pics too.

I still see a lot of them regularly here in SoCal and a friend used to have one a loooong time ago. I liked that it had 2 moonroofs and the egg-shape was interesting. It's too bad the current Japanese/Asian/European market Previas/Estimas are not available here in North America....

[robo5]

Ahhh The good 'ol previa

Mine was a 1995 LE. It was a pig on gas but got us around. I loved this thing.....

PROS:
Cheap to run (besides gas) It never broke down on the road.
Durable
Styling (in the eyes of the owner)
Mid captain chairs swing around 180 degrees and had seperate seat belts so you can drive down the road like that (I think it is legal?)
Durable
Fun to drive
RWD (so donuts in the snow are fun)
Smooth ride
comfortable
1 sliding door never froze
No oil leaks at all

CONS:
A/C (always breaking down) The nail in the coffin.... Compressor
gas mileage
1 sliding door (but it never froze )
hard to check the fluids
smaller than gen 2 sienna
cruise control "hunted" more than "TED NUGENT"
rear diff bearings noisy

maybe more to add

[irlandes]

Just curious because I never paid much attention until we bought our fantastic 2002 Sienna. But, did they drive out well on long distant trips? Our Sienna feels like a road limo. I don't like to drive over around 750 miles a day, but we cover a lot of ground when we do go back to the States. I drove it 5400 miles in the month of October, and am curious if the Previa was good on trips like that.

[datsa noydb]

We actually had TWO Previas.

Got a '93 LE with most of the "toys" on it as a dealer demo in November, 1993. It had about 5600 miles on it. Pearl White, alloy wheels, ABS, dual moon roofs, swiveling captain's chairs in the middle, privacy glass, AM/FM/Cassette, I added the factory CD. Also installed 2" receiver hitch and wiring package, along with brake controller.

In 1995 we did a family vacation, towing the largest pop-up (fold-down?) trailer that Starcraft made in '86. Our GVW (measured at a certified truck scale) was 7980 pounds, full of fuel, people and "stuff". The trip was about 5000 miles over 25 days and put us into 16 states. Average MPG for the trip was 15.1. :o

My '86 Camry had died, so we needed another vehicle, I got a '92 DLX All-Trac. It only had the AM/FM/Cassette radio, and a bench middle seat. The experience with that van is what convinced me to stay with AWD when I got my Sienna.

Both of those Previas went over 300,000 miles. The '93 was loaned out to a friend of our son, he ended up rear-ending somebody with it. My '92 had a water pump fail while towing a trailer with a motorcycle on it, greatly overheating the engine rather quickly. I decided to put money into a "new" vehicle, rather than repair/replace the engine.

The only problems we had with either Previa were rear wheel bearings on the '93. Evidently the seal had been leaking and the rear end ran dry. $1200 for new bearings and all was well once again.

.