I will be upfront with you from the beginning and tell you that I am not a Ford fan. But that has nothing to do with the opinion I am about to write. My family of 5 traveled to Hawaii for a vacation. We had reserved a mini van on the Big Island. Of course we didn't know what we'd get, we were willing to take whatever they gave us at the rental agency, Ford, GM, Toyota, whatever. Well, they gave us a Ford Windstar, which was fine. When we walked to the van, it was a nice looking van and we thought this would be a nice experience to get over some of our dislike for past Ford products we've had bad experiences with.

First problem was - we couldn't even fit all of our luggage into the 'hatchback' area, some of it had to go into the back seat with one person sitting there. Yes, I know we could pack lighter, but believe me, we were within reasonable limits! Had no trouble getting it on the planes, in fact we didn't max out our limits there! :-)

Next problem was the first time the driver opened the drivers door he wacked himself on the head because the door kind of curves down and in, making it so you have to pay attention every time you open the door. No stitches were involved but he did have a nasty looking cut for the duration of our trip.

Next problem is that the middle seat in the back doesn't go all the way to the 'edge' of the vehicle, like the Astro or Safari's do, so the adults who were riding in the middle seat had difficulty getting in and out comfortably, and when you are sightseeing, there is a lot of getting in and out.

And my last complaint has nothing to do with Ford, but we had to laugh when we left the rental agency in Kona, flew to Honolulu to rent another van for a week and got another Windstar! We asked for something different but they didn't have anything available. Since we'd already paid for it before our vacation, we didn't have the heart to walk away and try a different rental agency.

I do know that in the future I won't rent, or buy, a Ford Windstar.

There were some good points about it. Like I said at the beginning, it is a nice looking vehicle, it does drive nice and I particularly liked the rear controlled air conditioning.