Tell me about your minivan

[bodywhomper]

Getting very close to buying a lightly used awd hybrid sienna. Just went to carmax and drove one. Fml, they’re fuckin expensive.

Who’s got updated details on them? Are there known gremlins?

Our base need, in addition to hybrid and awd is roof rails. The tester we drove (xse) had the upgraded speaker system, which seemed nice. It did not have the stupid twenty inch wheels. None of us could get the foot thing to work to open the sliding doors or the back gate.


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[stapes]

Saw an article indicating that Toyota is coming out with a bev and plug in hybrid van. Japan first. Current version of the previa.


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Bring back the Previa!!!

[riser4]

No, the Previa was Butt Ugly. I like the square cornered van that came before it.

[Name Redacted]

I learned to drive in a previa, that thing was sweet. My mom drove it to like 450k miles. I know a guy with a AWD one still kicking.

[NBABUCKS1]

saw this on marketplace seems like a pretty rad minivan

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...45283751%22%7D

[mcski]

That thing better have a flux capacitor

[MyNameIsAugustWest]

<p>

Getting very close to buying a lightly used awd hybrid sienna. Just went to carmax and drove one. Fml, they&rsquo;re fuckin expensive. Who&rsquo;s got updated details on them? Are there known gremlins? Our base need, in addition to hybrid and awd is roof rails. The tester we drove (xse) had the upgraded speaker system, which seemed nice. It did not have the stupid twenty inch wheels. None of us could get the foot thing to work to open the sliding doors or the back gate. Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

</p>
<p>
You can&#39;t take out the second row of seats if you want to haul a lot of shit.</p>
<p>
The MPG isn&#39;t nearly what they advertise.&nbsp; My son gets 31-32 mpg driving 70 on the highway in his.&nbsp; If you drive a lot of in-town, it&#39;s decent.</p>
<p>
The 4-cylinder is a dog and the electrons don&#39;t offer much help.</p>

[MontuckyFried]

Thoughts on the Kia Carnival hybrid? Looked at one at the dealer and it seemed pretty darned nice actually. Dealer was ghetto AF so not interested in getting one there, but wondering how these things are shaking out reliability-wise now that they've been out for a little bit.

Also been seeing more and more of the VW ID Buzz's around town, and I gotta say. I kinda want one! Yeah they're overpriced and the range is garbage for the money, BUT could be a great city family hauler! Personally, I like the looks. Wife wants one! Post-inevitable mass depreciation, that is. Haha.

[bodywhomper]

<p>
</p>
<p>
You can't take out the second row of seats if you want to haul a lot of shit.</p>
<p>
The MPG isn't nearly what they advertise. My son gets 31-32 mpg driving 70 on the highway in his. If you drive a lot of in-town, it's decent.</p>
<p>
The 4-cylinder is a dog and the electrons don't offer much help.</p>

Thanks for the response!

The mpg is really nice compared to our oh-six. We get about one-eight mpg.

Ive heard the complaint about the lack of power, especially compared to the older v-six sienna’s. I think it’d still be our fastest vehicle (sad face). It was difficult to tell how bad it would be during the brief test drive.

I don’t like the second row, thing. I’ve seen a vid of the workaround, which is not simple or quick.

Car payments give me cold feet. The fact that our oh-six runs very well but has lots of breaking things, like doors, makes me want to move on before a door falls off, won’t open, or won’t close all the way.

[riser4]

The v-six is nice.

[gravitylover]

<p>
Thinking it&#39;s time for me to casually start looking for a really affordable older AWD Sienna. I think my pos Caravan is reaching the end of being able to justify solving its foibles</p>

[Brownski]

The Odyssey is really good too, GL. Not sure how they stack up price wise on the used market

[MarcusBrody]

<p>

Getting very close to buying a lightly used awd hybrid sienna. Just went to carmax and drove one. Fml, they&rsquo;re fuckin expensive. Who&rsquo;s got updated details on them? Are there known gremlins? Our base need, in addition to hybrid and awd is roof rails. The tester we drove (xse) had the upgraded speaker system, which seemed nice. It did not have the stupid twenty inch wheels. None of us could get the foot thing to work to open the sliding doors or the back gate. Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

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<p>
&nbsp;</p>
<p>
I&#39;ve been considering these lately as well. I haven&#39;t been in one yet, so I&#39;ll be eager to hear your thoughts. The neighbor has a Carnival he likes, but it&#39;s from pre-hybrid. The one thing that annoys me is that it doesn&#39;t appear that you can get roof rails on the base model and you can&#39;t get 17 in wheels on any of the other models.</p>

[gravitylover]

Brownski - If I'm going to replace it it's gonna be AWD unless it just comes down to dollars then another Caravan would probably happen. The utility of the thing is just unbeatable, it gets mid-size car mpg and it's not horrible to drive (when it runs as well as it can). That and I have a pile of parts. Lol

[MarcusBrody]

I stopped and looked at the Carnival last night. it looked nice. I'd be curious how easy the middle seats are to remove, though I know they're intentionally removable unlike the Siennas. Seemed like a ton of space with the rear seats folded down and was finished pretty nicely. I didn't drive it. it did feel notably larger than our Transit Connect, so I wonder how my wife would feel driving it. We're replacing our small car, but I'd be tempted to get a road trip/gear hauler van and then just replace the current van with something fun or off road worthy, as if we had a very efficient van, the second vehicle could be purely a second car.

[bodywhomper]

I’m partial to Toyota because our go-to local indie mechanic, which I like a lot, only works on Toyota’s. Our secondary mechanic is agnostic.

We have three vehicles with two drivers, which we went with after having one vehicle totally down, a second vehicle that was limping, and we live in the sticks. Current: older fwd sienna, older Land Cruiser, and older awd matrix. The matrix came from a friend who helped us a lot on the cost. Hybrid minivan would by far be the best mpg of our fleet.

Eventually, we will replace the matrix with a compact awd hybrid or e-car. Hopefully, it’ll be a practical but fun to drive vehicle.

We will also replace the LC at some point with something having similar capabilities for off-roading, ability to drag a loaded utility trailer, and reliability. Wouldn’t mind better mpg. Also, wouldn’t mind a four x four that we could live out of for long periods of time.

Our three kids will likely all be driving in the next two years, so that should be interesting.

[gravitylover]

<p>
We have probably gone over this before but my brain is broken... If a guy wanted to look at an AWD Sienna up to about 2015 what years are better than the rest?&nbsp;</p>

[plugboots]

Explains the platforms

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Sienna

[Shredhead]

I'd love a Sienna, that you can take out the back seats and tow a respectable 5k lbs. I'll probably never see it in the US.

[gravitylover]

<p>
So in that 3rd gen when you take out the middle seats the floor isn&#39;t flat? How much height is lost with that track still on the floor? Will a mt bike without the front wheel still stand up? I don&#39;t need to tow but I will have a rack that ends up around 200 pounds loaded.&nbsp;</p>

[gravitylover]

What a pain in the ass trying to find an AWD Sienna that's not hammered or crazy overpriced. I mean, the Toyota tax is understood but geez, $10k vans are 20. Fuk.

[bagtagley]

It would help if you didn’t consider paying for durability and reliability a “tax”.

[riser4]

I think his point is that the extra cost for durability and reliability reflected in the used prices are overinflated.

[gravitylover]

If you use the fwd models so they are a direct comparison to the competitors the tax is understood and not really a problem. When the price is double, or more for AWD, it becomes onerous and when it is that high for a POS just because it is a Toyota (or Honda) it is annoying on other levels especially when you travel a fair distance to see it. I am working on mentally committing to spending $5k, or more, above what (I feel) one is actually worth because I need what it has to offer. I could probably make it work if I shoot for lower level models so for those that have now or have had a Sienna would you miss some of the nice things the upper trims have? I spend 40+ hours a week in my car during my high season and after a few years in a stripper model Dodge I want things that make the environment a nicer place to be.

[toast2266]

What a pain in the ass trying to find an AWD Sienna that's not hammered or crazy overpriced. I mean, the Toyota tax is understood but geez, $10k vans are 20. Fuk.

This is how we ended up buying a new sienna. The used market is so inflated for those things, a ~7 year old sienna with 70k miles was going for $4k less than I could buy a brand new one for.

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