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Vans & Minivans Toyota Sienna Honda Odyssey vs. Toyota Sienna
5230 messages, Last post on Dec 06, 2009 at 7:16 AM
You are in the Toyota Sienna Forum. Your Host is Karens
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Replying to: jsseinfeld (Nov 05, 2009 9:36 am) You do give up captains chairs to get it, but if your van is mostly used to haul children you have to ask yourselves if they will even notice. I've ridden the middle bench when taking a break from driving long trips and found it fine and comfortable.
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Put a grand in each kid's college fund. That's $3000. Get a 12" DVD screen like mine. Kids will love it. Mine came with 2 wireless headsets but just plug-in the 3rd when the baby is old enough. That was $900 installed. Spend the $1100 on a 46" TV for your bedroom, wall mount, LCD. That way you'll have something to do and won't end up like the Duggars:   I think they had #18! 
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Replying to: ateixeira (Nov 05, 2009 10:18 am) Depends on who you ask. I think I've mentioned here before, but will again for the sake of a new poster, my girlfriend has three little cousins, 3 years, 5 years, and 8 years. The 8 year old boy loves having the back row to himself for coloring, hot wheel driving, and no need for extra elbow room for playing on his little Nintendo DS. The girls (3&5) don't touch each other in their captains chairs/booster seats, so fights/quabbles don't happen readily. They have an older Navigator, but seating is the same setup as the Odyssey, but without the extra "PlusOne" seat the Honda offers for those moments when you need 8 passengers. Depends on the kids ages and temperaments I guess.  Just wanted to add a differing idea here, something you might not have thought about. Atieixeira won't lead you astray, and frankly, neither van is a anything less than a good bet.
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Replying to: thegraduate (Nov 05, 2009 11:23 am)
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Replying to: yatesjo (Nov 05, 2009 10:44 am) I remember when we were looking I honestly didn't remember the Toyota and Honda being that different in dimensions. Perhaps the Toyota is a touch wider, but I recall the leg room and head room being better in back of the Honda. If your goals is 3 car seats in the middle row(which is only going to last a short time anyway) go for the Toyota. I having to think for most families that's a nonissue. It was for ours...
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Replying to: bobber1 (Nov 05, 2009 5:34 pm) I'll compare the 8 passenger Sienna to the 7 passenger Sienna - the whole stamping of the floor is different. The seat anchors are in different locations. None of the seats are interchangeable at all between the two models. That's why you can't get the captain's chairs with armrests on the 8 pass model no matter what. The good news is you can fold the middle seat down and it makes a great table/partition if you only have 2 kids. So the total width of the 3 seats combined is much greater, and you have room for 3 kids/boosters without squeezing. A long time ago I actually took a tape measure, but I don't recall the total width. I do seem to recall the seats were 22", 20", and 22" wide, but I'm not sure you can just add those 3 up and say total width is 64" because there are gaps. My office chair is less than 20" wide, and I spend 8-9 hours a day in it, so that's why I consider even the middle seat a full-sized adult seat, comfortable even for long distances. The Ody's 8th seat works in a pinch, but I would not want to sit there for hours at a time, and it's not nearly 20" wide, not even half that wide. The 7 passenger Sienna has an optional console that goes there instead. Again, the anchors in the floor are different, they actually match the ones for the center console in the front row. It's pretty cool - you can get two matching consoles for storage front and back. But no 8th seat at all, so we passed. |
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Replying to: doggrandma (Oct 27, 2009 6:24 pm) If you want soft and floaty (as some people do) you may perfer a toyota product to a Honda. If you want a car that handles like a dream you would definatly perfer a Honda! And a Subaru Outback is in a totally diffferent class of cars.
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Replying to: isellhondas (Nov 05, 2009 7:29 pm) when i was shopping and reading the honda ody sites i found people ranking the sienna saying the brakes were horrible and too soft, the ride was too boaty and other things but when i drove the sienna i totally disagreed with these opinions. but this is just me. i have a smaller sporty car that i drive when i really, really want to "feel the road" but in my day to day driving and moving of my family i love the way the sienna drives and feels while driving along many different roads. and let's be honest....we are not buying a sports car - we are buying a family mover. there has to be a little expectation that a van will not corner like a porsche on rails. that is not to say we cannot have a little sporting fun while driving and being realistic about the vans abilities. in the sienna i find the acceleration is fantastic, the road / wind noise is just not there, it snakes through traffic in quite a nimble fashion and when i throw out the anchors to bring it down from 65 to 20 the brakes feel very solid and competent. again, these are my feelings...make sure you test drive many times in different conditions and if money is at all a factor, i think you will find toyota has the edge on comparably equipped vans.... i did to the tune of over $2,000.00 in my favor w/ much better financing. last week i shared some time with a recently ex-car sales manager and asked why honda would not come down more to get my business. he told me that part of their model is "to just wait...sooner or later someone will come along and pay the price the DEALER wants rather that make a less margin deal." |
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Replying to: ateixeira (Nov 05, 2009 10:18 am) So it seems like most people agree that if the Sienna is $5K less (including interest savings on financing), that is the way I should go, even if we end up liking the Odyssey a bit better. I think it's practical. From everything I read, it just seems like they are very comparable, and when we test drove the Sienna, it did seem nice. We'll see when we test drive the Odyssey tomorrow. 8 seats vs 7 seats - I'll definitely look into the 8th seat option and look at the configurations. I really don't see us putting all 3 in the 2nd row though. Then again, I never really thought of it until someone mentioned it. I just figured my oldest (almost 4) would go in the back once our 3rd baby comes along, and then my soon to be 2 year old would go in the middle with the baby. Until then, I'll put both in the 2nd row. I don't think our oldest would mind being in the 3rd row though. Just have to look into AWD now (live just outside of Buffalo), but I might pass on that since it seems some people weren't crazy about it. We drive an Impala now and it drives fine in the snow - figure the FWD Sienna would be better. One other question - what are the odds Toyota extends the 1.9% financing or has another deal in December? Part of me wants to wait until end of year to see if there are any deals from Honda, but we are going on a 12 hour trip around Thanksgiving, so I might just pull the trigger within the next week. I think the financing deal is a good one and not sure how much better it will get. Thanks again...
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Replying to: jsseinfeld (Nov 06, 2009 6:21 am) Try the Sienna out for a longer time - rent one for a weekend. It's in the day-to-day that you find out whether you like it, not a quick test drive. Once your kid hits 5 or so, they can generally buckle themselves. They will enjoy the back row. I'm with thegraduate & bobber on this one - peace is easier kept with separation. Juice's kids are just much better behaved than mine  Course then again, I think he has his nanny in the middle (or is it the side?), most of the time, right? [i.e. when using 3 across in the middle row] On the 7 vs 8, one other consideration is: if you go out with another family / group, can you take them all in one vehicle? Sometimes, that 8th seat comes in real handy. On AWD, it depends. It is real helpful for me (I have a Pilot) in urban Minnesota - I'm always having to cross streets from a stop where extra traction is important. Many people though get along fine with a set of winter tires & rims. Most of the complaints on the AWD Sienna relate to the run-flats (with the exception of wwest's omnipresent complaints about the Sienna awd system). I had a Subaru before this, and really appreciate the AWD, but for others, FWD works fine. On incentives, the redesigned Sienna is coming very soon - it will be on display at the LA Auto Show around December 4. I would expect significant incentives on this generation as the release gets closer (some have said available in January, others say production starts January). However, Sienna's numbers for October were good - kept about the same as last year. Current wisdom on the availability of the redesign of the Odyssey is fall 2010. Ody has $1250 on 09s, but it did poorly this last month. |
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