by mkaresh
Pros: Seat comfort, upscale interior, roominess, ride, powertrain smoothness
Cons: Soggy handling, odd front end styling, pricey
The Bottom Line: Very comfy, roomy, and refined, but undermined by soggy handling and high price. Use this one for long hauls on the highway.
For 15 years Chrysler dominated the minivan market. This began to change—and fast—once Honda and Toyota introduced equally large front-wheel-drive minivans. Honda was first, in the 1999 model year. For five years the much larger second generation Odyssey was the “hot” van. Then in 2004 Toyota introduced an equally large second generation Sienna. It almost instantly supplanted the Odyssey as “the one to get.” I drove one as soon as I could get my hands on one—no easy thing the first few months. Unfortunately it was the very base CE model. (For more extensive background material see that review.)
This year Honda is seeking to regain its leading position in the hearts and minds of actively breeding suburbia with a redesigned Odyssey. I drove and reviewed one recently. For a fresher comparison, and because I drove the CE last time, I visited a Toyota/Dodge dealer and drove the Toyota Sienna XLE and Dodge Grand Caravan SXT. Like the Honda Touring I sampled, both were fitted with leather and listed for over $30,000. So, which is the best van? Well, it depends on your priorities. This review will focus on the Toyota.
Styling
I didn’t like the styling of the Toyota last year, and I still don’t. The Renault-like (or is it Peugeot-like? I just know it looks French) front end looked weird enough on the first Prius, much less on this large van. The round nose and way the headlamps pull back into the fenders suggest the effect of wearing a stocking over one’s face (as in “Boy, you got a panty on your [minivan’s] head”).
The sides and rear of the van are more successful, so Toyota most needs to fix the front. Honda pulls off similarly shaped headlamps on the new Odyssey more successfully. The Honda has a bulkier, more upright look, but looks at least as upscale and thankfully looks better in the metal than in photos. The Dodge (well, the Chrysler actually) remains the best looking to my eye.
Inside the Sienna’s design is more successful. The look is upscale, easily the nicest interior in the segment last year. In comparison the interior of the Odyssey felt like that of a cargo van. The Odyssey’s 2005 largely bridges this gap, but not entirely. In comparison to either the Dodge interior feels dated and almost cheap. I liked its Chrysler sibling when I drove it last spring, but driving the uplevel Toyota and new Honda revised my expectations in a minivan. It also became evident that the Dodge’s controls are much less ergonomic than the others (with the Honda the leader in this area).
Accommodations
Both the Sienna and Odyssey are very roomy minivans, with adult-worthy legroom and headroom in all three rows. The Dodge is a bit tighter, especially in the third row. Certainly no SUV save the largest can compare.
I had issues with the driver’s seat in the new Odyssey. I’ve always liked those in the Chrysler vans, wondering why the company doesn’t bolster the seats in its cars as well. (More lateral support would be helpful in the Magnum and 300, for example.) But the Toyota’s seats easily take the prize. Those in front are wonderfully comfortable, at least in the XLE. Compared to the others they are much more luxuriously padded. You sink into them just the right amount, and their shape perfectly fit at least this backside. Very nice. Good for trips.
The second- and third-row seats are similarly most comfortable in the Toyota, though the margin with the Honda is not as large. The Dodge’s second row seats continue to feel undersized and hard to me, I imagine because they must stuff beneath the floor.
Both the Honda and Toyota vans are loaded with innovative storage areas, consoles, and such. The Sienna XLE does lose a bin beneath the front passenger seat this year, though, to make way for power seat motors (a new feature). The XLE’s folding front passenger seat also disappears for the same reason. If you want these two features, you’ll have to save some money and buy the LE.
To enable the Stow n’ Go seats the Dodge lost the ability to move the console to the second row—an idea Toyota borrowed for the Sienna. On the other hand, the Dodge has a large amount of underfloor storage. The Honda provides some, but not as much, and the Toyota provides none at all. It’ll be easiest to keep the floor clear in the Dodge.
All three have a good amount of room behind the third row, but the Toyota appears to have the most, followed by the Honda. Folding and stowing the seats in pretty simple in all three minivans, much easier than in the Nissan Quest where the process left me with my first and still only test drive injury (to a few fingers). Here Dodge has its main advantage: as everyone knows by now, its second-row seats also stow beneath the floor. Pretty slick. In the others the seats can only be folded forward or removed. And removing and replacing them is never easy, in any van.
On the Road
The Sienna’s 3.3-liter V6 / five-speed automatic powertrain is shared with the Camry, Highlander, and a pair of Lexus models. In all of them it’s a very smooth, quiet powerplant. In the over two-ton Sienna its more burdened than in the Camry SE, but it easily gets the job done, never sounding strained. Let’s face it, even an enthusiast like myself only needs so much grunt out of a minivan. That said, if you do need more than most because you live in the mountains, plan to fully load the minivan, or both, then the Honda is the leader here. Its engine is a bit less refined than the Toyota’s, but is and feels a bit more powerful. The Dodge trails the others here, with a considerably less refined engine that feels punchy enough around town but falls behind at highway speeds.
So far, all seems wonderful with the Toyota. But it falls apart—for me at least—in the handling department. It is much more softly sprung than the others. In turns it leans readily and understeers with a passion. I’m aware that minivans tend to be driven very casually, but I found the sponginess of the Toyota’s suspension unsettling. Very light steering also doesn’t help. I don’t mean to suggest that the Sienna is unsafe—I don’t think it would easily roll. But I simply did not feel confident driving it.
The Dodge was fitted with a “touring suspension.” It was the firmest of the trio, with much heavier steering than the others. Usually this would appeal to me, and as before I did find the Dodge easy to drive. But the steering was too heavy, and the heaviness was not simply the price for great feedback, as their was no more than in the others.
The firmness of the Honda’s suspension and the weight of its steering falls between the other two. It is the easiest and most confidence-inspiring to drive.
Generally a tradeoff exists between handling and ride quality. So the Toyota might be expected to ride the best. Well, it does ride much more smoothly than the relatively abrupt (though still far from uncomfortable) Dodge. (Low-profile 17-inch tires are no longer available on the Dodge; I can only imagine what it rode like with them.) But its margin over the Honda isn’t significant. If anything, the lesser amount of float over uneven pavement in the Honda translated to a better overall ride in my book, even if the Toyota ironed out harshness over the small stuff a bit better.
Toyotas tend to be quieter than their competitors. The second-generation Odyssey in particular was often criticized (but not by me—I’m used to much noisier vehicles) for being noisy. The Odyssey is quieter, such that the Toyota’s lead though possibly still present (I did drive the two a couple weeks apart) is not substantial. I heard more road noise than I expected in the Toyota, for one thing. Compared to the Japanese vans, the Dodge is less quiet and, of greater importance, lacks their smooth, solid, thoroughly refined “feel.”
Toyota Sienna Price Comparisons and Pricing
For quick, up-to-date pricing, and especially user-specified price comparisons, check out the website I created: www.truedelta.com. Why yet another vehicle pricing website? Well, I personally lacked the patience to keep using the others. They were too slow and required too much effort, especially when trying to compare prices. So I taught myself some programming and created a site where there is no need to dig through option packages, prerequisites, and the like one by one -- the TrueDelta algorithm figures these out for you in one swift pass.
I’ll use TrueDelta to compare the three minivans equipped as much as possible to the Odyssey EX-L (leather). In this case it is especially helpful, as Toyota has grouped all of the Sienna’s options into an array of bewildering packages. The results, after TrueDelta adjusts for differences in equipment is a $34,565 price on the Toyota (XLE with #6), a $30,810 price on the Honda, and a $29,920 price on the Dodge (with a $1,500 rebate included in the last). However, equipment differs considerably even after making them as similar as possible. TrueDelta adjusts for these differences, yielding a $340 advantage of the Dodge over the Honda, which in turn has a $1,640 advantage over the Toyota. To yield these numbers I set the engine to that in the Odyssey EX-L then asked for a "minimum" comparison. Different feature levels will yield different results--you can specify those you want when using my site.
Last Words
Undoubtedly the dealer discount on the Dodge will be larger than on the others, widening the gap. But unless you plan to make extensive use of the Stow n’ Go second row, you should come up with the extra cash, especially since the others’ slower rate of depreciation will make them less expensive overall. But what about between the Honda and Toyota?
Generally I’d give the nod to the Honda. It handles far better while riding nearly as smoothly and quietly. It’s just as roomy, and now has an almost equally upscale interior. And it costs less. But the driver’s seat is not comfortable. Hopefully Honda will recognize that there is a problem and make a quick fix. Even then, the Toyota’s seats are better padded and flat out more comfy. So do you want your minivan to handle well, or make long hauls on the superslab as pain free as possible? Is this van for short jaunts around town, or long hauls on the road? For the long hauls, the Toyota’s the one. Otherwise, and especially if the seat doesn’t bother you, it’s the Honda.
Now for something out of left field: none of the three is quite there for me. I drove the new Ford Freestyle crossover the same day as the Odyssey. It can also seat adults in all three rows, though the third is more cramped than in the vans, and I much prefer its much tidier, nimbler feel. If only the Ford had their powertrains and interior materials.
A Note on Toyota Sienna Reliability
I cannot practically cover reliability within the context of this review. However, many people are interested in such information, so I've started collecting my own data. Results, once they are available, will be posted to my site, www.truedelta.com, with updates every three months.
Unlike other sources, TrueDelta will clearly identify what difference it will make if you buy a Sienna rather than another vehicle by providing "times in the shop" and "days in the shop" stats (among others). You will be able to specify the number of years, annual miles, and types of repairs to include in Toyota Sienna reliability comparisons.
Before I can report results, I need data on all cars--not just the Sienna--from people like you. To encourage participation, those who help provide the data will receive free access to the site's reliability information. Non-participants will have to pay an access fee.
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