The Search For A New MPV: Step 4 - Let's Drive!

Test drives to establish which minivan would be in the running was next up on our hit list. We were still at the Honda dealership with the super nice salesman, so we had him pull out a couple of Honda Odysseys and a Toyota Sienna.

2010 Honda Odyssey - we drove it!

It was a chilly day, so Kevin (our Honda dealership salesman) was nice enough to pull the minivans into the enclosed, heated service department. That allowed us to really crawl all over the cars to really get a sense of what they were all about, what design elements and features worked for us and what didn't. First up was a 2011 Toyota Sienna XLE.

Right off the bat, the wife's comment was, "This is too much car for me. There are too many buttons on the dash and I can't really tell where the corners are." I had to agree with her...the interior was a bit much. Lovely and luxurious, it was indeed a shock after the perfectly functional simplicity of the MPV. Later, we both agreed that this vehicle was built to a higher standard and quality than any other vehicle we looked at, period. It truly is the Lexus of minivans. But we were so overwhelmed and the price was so far out of our budget that we knew we needed to move on. We'd come back the the Sienna, but it would be an older model...

Next up was a 2012 Odyssey EX-L. It too was so laden with gadgets that it was utterly overwhelming. But it felt closer to what we wanted so we asked that Kevin dig out a 2010 for us (pictured above). This was much more our speed and the price was coming down towards where we wanted it. It had too many miles on it but we took it out for a test drive.

My physical knowledge of driving minivans is from about ten years back and my recollection was that the Ody was one of the sportier-driving of the lot. This one did not change my mind; the steering is rather heavy but the body motions and suspension were closer to the MPV than pretty much anything else. In comparison, the vehicle felt significantly larger and heavier (because it is) and not as tall inside, with a much more car-like experience, with the roof lower and not so airy in comparison. The MPV always felt like you could wear a ten-gallon hat inside it but not this vehicle.

So the upshot of all this was that we'd be interested in an older Sienna with the last gen dash design and the Ody was a definite contender, if we found the right one at the right price.

We had just begun the fight; on to the next step!