Ford Windstar review: a cheap seven-seat family van with an expiry date in Bahrain
2.6/5MotorsSouq Editorial Team
The Windstar makes sense only as a short-term, low-cost family hauler: it seats seven, the 3.8-litre V6 is simple and torquey, and asking prices on the handful of Bahrain examples are low enough to make the risk tolerable. It does not make sense as a car to keep — parts and specialist knowledge for a twenty-plus-year-old minivan that was never officially sold here are thin on the ground, and rust and interior wear tend to be well advanced on any surviving example. Treat the purchase price as the whole budget and plan to move on within a year or two.
Pros
- Seats up to seven for a fraction of a modern minivan's price
- 3.8L V6 is simple, torquey and easy for a generalist mechanic to diagnose
- Huge, flat load floor once the rear seats are folded
- Very low purchase price on Bahrain's handful of surviving examples
Cons
- Never officially sold in the Gulf, so no local parts or service network
- Surviving examples are 20-plus years old with correspondingly high wear and rust risk
- Ageing air-conditioning systems struggle with Bahrain's summer heat
- Resale value is close to zero; this is a use-and-move-on purchase
Ford never officially marketed a minivan in the Gulf, so every Windstar on Bahrain's roads today is a private import that arrived long after its 1999-2003 production run ended in North America. The pitch was straightforward at the time: front-wheel drive, a 3.8-litre Essex V6 with easy low-end torque, and three rows seating up to seven, aimed squarely at the Dodge Grand Caravan and Honda Odyssey it competed with in its home market.
The V6 and four-speed automatic are the definition of unremarkable, which in a twenty-year-old used car is closer to a feature than a flaw: it is a mechanically simple, well-understood powertrain that a competent generalist workshop can diagnose without needing Ford-specific tools or software.
Living with it in Bahrain
The cabin is genuinely spacious — a flat load floor once the third row is folded, and enough room for a large family and their shopping that few sedans of any era can match. But this is a car designed for a temperate North American climate, and its factory air-conditioning system, now over two decades old on any surviving example, tends to struggle to keep up with a Bahraini summer without a rebuild.
Because it was never sold here, every Windstar in Bahrain came in through a private import channel, which means service records are the exception rather than the rule — buy one assuming you know nothing about its history unless you can prove otherwise.
Running costs and finding parts
Parts availability is the honest limiting factor. Nothing in Ford's Bahrain dealer network stocks Windstar-specific components, and consumables beyond generic filters and belts typically mean sourcing from North America, with the wait that implies. On the upside, purchase prices on the handful of surviving Bahrain examples are correspondingly low, which is really the entire reason to consider one.
Buy it only as a short-term, cash-purchase family hauler when you need to move a lot of people cheaply for a year or two. Do not buy it as a car you plan to keep, and do not buy one without checking the frame and floors for rust before you hand over any money.