The Dogs & Cat Got A MiniVan!

Dog owners, this is your van! It’s Time To Join The Dodge Minivan Fan Club! The Dodge Caravan won the Best In Show Award. With a larger cargo area than most and squared-off back, it is the BEST dog mobile. If you’re traveling with paws especially cats and dogs then keep on reading this is for you!

This post is dedicated to our RARE Vintage 1993 Dodge Caravan we purchased for our 5 dogs and 1 cat ( @BirdiesDoghouse + @CattitudeChaos ). We spent so much time not only buying it, driving to get it but also remodeling and making upgrades to it. That, we wanted to share the learning experience, plus the ups, downs, etc. that we’ve had with it. Not to mention this van is Vintage and nostalgic! There is a VERY interesting history to it!

RARE Find… This little Gem 💎

First and foremost, this Dog Minivan is not just any minivan! It’s a RARE Vintage 1993 Dodge Caravan that was purchased for our 5 dogs and 1 cat of @BirdiesDoghouse + @CattitudeChaos to get around town in!

Another thing you should know about this little 1993 Dodge Caravan gem is that it’s a manual transmission and only had 118,000 miles on it at 31 years old (that’s approximately only 3,806 miles driven a year up until now)!

Plus we love the BIG manual windows so that the dogs can accidentally roll them down or get out! But, the goal was to find something the dogs could see out, run around in and also it wouldn’t matter if they got it dirty a little bit! Even though it is in VERY GOOD condition! So that being said…

This Dog MiniVan is a GAME CHANGER for our furry family! 🐾

Also, since this post is a little deviation from what I normally blog about, I thought I’d explain how this new MiniVan is a game-changer for our family. If you didn’t know I have a 2-seater EXTREMELY SMALL Mercedes Smart Car we originally bought for the RV. But, now we have 6 furbabies since we have been growing our fur family. One rescue at a time! So not only is this minivan going to be helpful in getting everyone around when we’re NOT in our RV Van, but it’s also a little marketing machine if you know me. 😉

P.S. A BIG Thanks to NVington for finding, snagging, and dogifying our dog minivan!

We Took An RV Van Trip From Alabama To Ohio (over 1,000 miles round trip to snag this Vintage Van) 🚐

I have NO idea how NVington got notifications on Facebook for a Minivan in Ohio technically in Canada (we could have crossed the border and were only separated by a small body of water)!

So for a $5,000 Facebook Find we decided to take a drive with all the Furbabies along for the ride and We Took An RV Van Trip From Alabama To Ohio (over 1,000 miles round trip to snag this Vintage Van).

Driving The Minivan Back Home (the first ride nervous + excited) 😆

The First Ride in our new Minivan was both nervous and exciting! Half the crew road with me and the other in the RV van with Daddy! The dogs eventually laid down but were unsure what to make of all the smells and sounds!

I should mention that the previous owner smoked in this van. So and it was in need of a DEEP cleaning! Even the steering wheel was disgusting! thankfully we found a dollar tree on the way! We picked up a steering wheel cover and NVington found a Car Airfreshner that was as BIG as my hand (probably even my head)!

Shortly after leaving the lot where we purchased our 1993 Dodge Minivan, we immediately started to hear what presumably was a pulley or a belt squeaking, but I just watched the temperature gauge, praying for us to make it back home safely! We only needed to go about 400-600 miles.

ICYMI, you can go BTS of the Dogs @BirdiesDoghouse following all our RV adventures @RVersity and keep up with Johnny, our cat @CattitudeChaos, as well!

Deep Cleaning The Minivan

WetVac The Seats + Carpet

As soon as we got home the first thing I did was DEEP clean our new 1993 Dodge Caravan starting with the carpet and the seats! I took our spot cleaner we use in the house for the dogs and ran it over the entire minivan a few times trying to wipe away the YEARS of smoking and grease. I started to think the previous owner might have also been a mechanic of some sort since the car seem to have oil spots throughout it.

Wiping down EVERYTHING

I also spent time with a wet rag cleaning rag at first just wiping down all the surfaces. I got off a lot of dirt and grime with plain water. But also used some automotive wipes and cleaners too! Yet when I got to the back few panels I noticed the paint started to come off even with just water and a rag.

I do know that the minivan was repainted several years ago but it’s almost if they didn’t seal it with a clear coat or something. I’m not sure, just know NOT to wipe down the back area too much or touch it if you don’t want blue paint on everything!

Minivan Mechanical Issues

Thankfully we have a lot of experience buying cars and one reason we liked this model was that it was basic and there wasn’t much technology to it. Which made it easy to work on as long as you can find the parts! Some of common others are not!

So far, we did have to change a few belts that seem to have been on the car for 31 years! Also, we replaced one of the pumps that was about to go out!

Outside Cleaning

We also spent some time washing and cleaning up the outside of our vintage van. We vacuumed and scrubbed every nook and cranny from the inside out. NVington even bought some special car-washing scrubs

Updates

There are several little things we did to bring our 1993 Dodge Caravan up to speed or to upgrade it in small ways.

  • Painting the windshield wipers glossy black and replacing the windshield wiper blades with new ones
  • Removing the old aftermarket hubcaps, painting the rims with a glossy black paint and replacing the hubcaps with “new” old ones. We found a few people selling some original hubcaps on eBay and ordered a few sets of them (since we’ve already lost one a few times already)
  • We also changed out the front grill so it would be more of an original shiny chrome look like it came back in the day!
  • Wiped down the dull parts of the car trim with “Wipe New” a trim restore kit. So it made them shiny and brought them back to life again!

Dog MiniVan Upgrades

Here’s a list of the products we’ve added to “Dogify” the MiniVan so far:

Safety & Convenience

Comfort

Fun & Aesthetic

Other Essentials:

>> Get all these items and more SHOP the Birdies Doghouse store!

Don’t Miss A Thing…

💯 Meet Us: Since Adopting Birdie we’ve acquired 4 more Rescues in our crew! Currently, we have 5 Dogs and One Cat! You can meet all the animals here!

🐾 Follow Us: Also, don’t forget to follow @BirdiesDoghouse on Social Media via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter (X), LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube! Plus, subscribe to the Newsletter for email updates!

🛟 Help Us: Help Birdie on her mission to save more fur babies’ lives just like we did hers by ADOPTING! Remember sharing is caring so please spread the word! You can also SHOP our store, and DONATE for the paws!

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ft. @BirdiesDoghouse @Dodge @NVington @VeraBradley @FunnyFuzzy @BloggingBrandi

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BOOKMARK THIS PAGE: Please keep referring back to this post as we’ll try to keep updating it with any other cool dogifying items we decide to add to our Dog minivan remodel!