This year I will be test driving several different vehicles that could potentially be our next family car. I have been driving a Honda Odyssey for the past eleven years and I love it, but I feel like I might be ready to move on from a mini-van. Follow my journey to see which vehicles are working and why or why not.
I started my experiment with the 2015 Toyota Sienna recently. As I just mentioned, I think I might be ready to move on from a mini-van, but I thought I would still love to drive the Sienna (and I did!).
I like the look of the Toyota Sienna, it’s a modern sleek version of my older Honda Odyssey.
Car seat installation was a cinch, one of our booster seats uses LATCH and it was very easy to install. The interior was very roomy (my girls were absolutely sure it’s larger than the interior of our van) and it meets my criteria of being a seven-seater.
There is plenty of storage in the back and the seats fold up/down very easily. I loved the push-button lift gate.
I liked the functionality of the dashboard with a large screen. I absolutely loved having a back-up camera, so much so that it’s now on my must-have list.
Overall, the Toyota Sienna met all of my must-haves:
- 7 passenger seating
- leather apholstery
- back-up camera
- push-button lift-gate
- USB connection
- heated seats
- power moon/sun roof
- Fits in my garage easily
And also offered a few ‘nice to haves’:
- push-button engine start
- navigation system
- BluRay entertainment system
- Good feeling of control
- Great sight lines
- Excellent ‘get-up-and-go’
- Good fuel economy
The price of the model I drove was $44,672.15 plus tax, which works out to approximately $650 per month (with 0 down payment) when calculated using the Toyota Canada website.
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* I was not compensated to write this post. All opinions are my own.
