Dodge overhauled its Grand Caravan minivan for 2011, giving it a vastly nicer interior, improvements to its Stow ‘n Go seating and a new V-6 engine. With room for seven in three rows of seats, the Grand Caravan competes against the Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna, and it’s related to the Chrysler Town & Country.
Exterior You have to hand it to Dodge for making a minivan look aggressive. The 2011 Grand Caravan gains a new crosshair grille, new headlights and a new front bumper that give the minivan quite a bit more road presence than its predecessor. Subtle trim and taillight revisions highlight the changes at the back of the van. Other exterior features include:
Standard 16-inch steel wheels with covers; 16- or 17-inch aluminum rims optional
Standard dual manual-sliding side doors; power-sliding doors optional
Standard heated side mirrors
Optional fog lights
Optional power liftgate
Optional rain-sensing windshield wipers
Interior The Grand Caravan’s new dashboard wouldn’t be out of place in a luxury car. It features premium, low-gloss materials and mostly good fit-and-finish. Apart from a few things, like the airplane-style map lights that Dodge insists on using, the Grand Caravan has a top-rate minivan interior.
The standard Stow ‘n Go second-row bucket seats gain a one-touch folding feature. Lift a lever, and the seat articulates forward and into a bin in the floor. You do have to move the front seats forward quite a bit to give the middle seats the clearance to tumble into the floor, but when you do, the one-touch lever makes the operation very simple. Other interior features include:
Standard cloth upholstery; leather optional
Standard tri-zone manual air conditioning; automatic air conditioning optional
Standard cruise control
Standard CD stereo with auxiliary input jack
Standard tilt/telescoping steering wheel with audio controls
Standard 60/40-split folding third row with tailgate-seating mode
Optional heated front seats and steering wheel
Optional heated second-row seats
Optional remote start
Optional second- and third-row retractable sunshades
Optional touch-screen navigation system
Optional backseat entertainment system with 9-inch screen
Under the Hood Whereas the prior Grand Caravan was offered with a choice of three V-6 engines, all trim levels of the 2011 minivan are powered by a new 283-horsepower, 3.6-liter V-6, making 32 hp more than the most powerful V-6 available last year. The engine teams with a six-speed automatic transmission.
