Truth be told, the family situation is real, and once you are past two kids any four-door gets real tight, real quick. You could go with a Passat TDi wagon but those are rare and out of production as of late '05. But almost anything else above a mid-size four-door and it's "out the window" with your mileage. Even a good minivan barely gets 25mpg on the highway. I suppose there is the Sprinter but that's a HUGE step from a Jetta.

Is it me, or should someone, somewhere by now have a nice little 4 or 6 cylinder diesel in a minivan? What's wrong with a smaller or mid-size van that gets around 32-35 mpg? Would anyone else like to see such a rig as this? I can save the off-road and heavy use for a truck...

 

What chaps my final is why should they be FOREIGN cars with the cool TD engines? The remnants of our former Big-3 makers should have already been promoting their own versions for 2007 by now instead of letting the imports bring over the good stuff.
I have heard of a good TD engine for DC's minivans already being used all over the place in Europe (and possibly South of the border)but Oh No... we couldn't possibly allow them in the US...
I could be persuaded to get ~35mpg in a diesel minivan instead of 21 on gas.

K.