The Search For A New MPV: Step 6 - Meet Our New Friend

It's a done deal! We have a winner...

Well, that was easy.

Spoiler alert!

Pull the curtain back and reveal our new friend - a pristine, one-owner 2007 Hyundai Entourage SE. She's a real beauty. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Here's the rundown.

The plan was multi-stage. First up was a Hyundai dealership that had two Entourages for sale. One was too expensive and the other was right in our budget range, both with relatively low miles. The lesson had been learned from previous interactions; you better email a car lot to see if they actually have the vehicle or vehicles that you're interested in or you might be wasting a trip. So, an email was fired off into the ether on a Sunday, with no expectation of a reply until Monday. Sure enough, that's how it worked out and an email came back on Monday; they no longer had the cheaper one but they had the more expensive minivan. Oh well, we could establish whether or not we were at all interested in the Entourage and corporate twin Kia Sedona. Afterwards, we'd head down the freeway to check out a VW Routan, which as you know is really just a nicer Dodge Grand Caravan/Chrysler Town & Country with a better dash, sportier suspension and no highly desirable Stow 'n Go. After that, there was a Toyota dealer beyond that had some interesting Siennas.

Photos: REVolution

We never made it past the Hyundai dealership. Pulling in, we spotted the car right away and wifey proclaimed, "Now, that's pretty. I like that a lot." Agreed! The attractiveness of the exterior paint color is very difficult to truly capture in pictures but in person it's a knockout, basically a darker gray with green and blue shades that changed depending on the ambient light. Funny, that's what the Shadowagon and NA have but this is a much lighter, less menacing and far classier color-changing shade.

A salesman was all over us like white on rice and the wifey was immediately put off. I think he may have been educated at the "How to piss off customers" University for Car Salesman. Too aggressive but we didn't care, really, to tell you the truth; we were here to figure the car out and if we didn't like it, we'd walk. He ran and grabbed the keys, wifey strapped into the driver's seat and off we all went. We didn't get out of the lot before we looked at each other with a knowing look; this was it. And this was the car if they'd come down on the $10K asking price.

The car was perfect in every way. It had clearly been taken very well care of and everything was spotless. The only sign of wear was around the front cupholders on the console between the seats. BTW, who needs eight cupholders for the front driver and passenger? I'm not kidding; they're there...ridiculous.

It drove like the Mazda MPV; tight, euro-feeling, no slop in the wheel or suspension, and it felt smaller on the road than it was. The significant expansion of width and length wasn't an issue and was adapted to instantaneously. There were far too many gadgets, including power doors and lunacy like three glove boxes but most of it could be turned off. BTW, at the time, the Entourage (and Sedona, of course) were voted the safest minivans on the market. That's right, they beat out Toyota and Honda.

A little history, just for interest sake. The Kia Sedona appeared on the United States market in 2002 and other than 2013, which is right before the third generation model was introduced, it's never left the market. So it made sense that Hyundai/Kia would take that model, blink it up with some admittedly much need chrome and start selling it as the Entourage in 2006. Though sales started off promisingly with 12,206 in that year and then followed by another 17,155 in 2007, they quickly tanked after that. Why, you may ask? Who knows. Our guess is that the marketing wasn't there and the minivan sales plunge was having a real impact on the industry. For whatever reason, sales sucked after that, with 8,470 in 2008 and just 3,433 in 2009. Relax, you crazy collectors; these will never be "collectible". In comparison, the Sedona sold 27,394 units. Maybe there was more money in the marketing kitty. Canadian sales were a pittance of those numbers.

The test drive over, we headed back into the office and the theater began. It was ridiculous, like a bad sitcom. How predictable but we were fully prepared to walk. I'd come armed with my usual boatload of knowledge and even had a comparable vehicle for sale at another (Ford) dealer all lined up on my smartphone, at the price we wanted to pay. In the end, we paid $7K for the Entourage, they gave us a decent trade-in on our Mazda MPV that we could have done nothing with other than take it to the junker.

The real owner

In the end, we got a minivan that we both absolutely love. Reflecting back, the Sienna had clearly superior build quality but the suspension was set up too softly for our tastes, the Odyssey would have taken some adjustment but would have been fine...but the Entourage, which is clearly a rip-off of the Ody and why Honda didn't sue Hyundai over it is unfathomable, was a better deal for us because of the increased loss of value, while allowing us to buy a vehicle with far fewer miles. Performance in 0-60 terms is pretty close anyway, with the Sienna and Ody around 7.5 and the Sedona around 8 flat. We couldn't feel the difference, to tell you the truth, and Korean 3.8-liter even seemed smoother than the Japanese V6s.

The other real owner

We've already taken out the middle row (they have wheels on the bottom!), flattened the third row, put up the puppy barrier that I built, thrown down their beds, figured out all of the logically laid-out, intuitive buttons and cranked up the dual-zone A/C and seat heaters in the 40 degree weather we've had the past couple of days. I think we're getting used to those power doors.

There's only one thing that this minivan doesn't have that I wish it did; there's no AUX input for the stereo, but there are options around that.

Welcome to the family, Entourage. Here's to the next ten years and another 100K miles!