Recommend me a new minivan!

[Intel]

Have 2 years and 40k miles on our 2018 Odyssey touring elite. Only issue was a replaced alternator and just maintenance was a transmission flush and front brakes. At the rate we are going the thing will be at 200k miles in like 6 years.

 

[torquelover]

Our ‘16 had a bunch of false warnings of imminent crashing going on.

Our ‘21 Odyssey is better but still freaks out occasionally and does a full on panic stop at really bad times. Like when on the highway and there is K-rail directing you across lines into a new lane. Or when a garbage bag or debris floats across the road.

 

[S8ER01Z]

Wow, what was so bad? Our Pacifica has all the safety BS and it’s great. Every van now comes with the full line of safety features as standard. Never once have I driven ours and been mad at the safety features. They actually put my mind at ease as the safety shit will save you from yourself in most situations.

It’s petty stuff to some I’m sure but the auto braking was flaky (panic breaking with nothing in the road) and required disabling it every time we started it. The cruise control behavior was awkward.. it would roll up on cars regardless of differential and then brake way harder than I would expect (my dodge just lets off and lets the speed sync up slowly, the Honda was too aggressive about it). We did a few 1,000+ mile road trips and adaptive cruise just drove me crazy so I had to rely on regular cruise control instead.

Shifting from reverse to forward was clumsy for some reason and it would often delay going into drive so you didn’t dare back out or a driveway on a busy road. It would also freak out going into reverse if it wasn’t at a stop long enough or completely. When you would hit reverse it would go to Park and set the electronic emergency brake so you would have to disable the emergency brake before going into reverse ( fun on a busy road trying to back into the driveway )

The handling was really bad (it’s a minivan so this is just expected though), our drives through the mountains were torture and dragons whip / parkway trips included me pulling off all the time to let traffic past us. Some of that had to do with the kids puking every damn time we went through the mountains, but to date they are perfectly fine in the Durango on the same roads with zero incidents.

The UI can truly crap to me and even physical buttons seemed to be in the most illogical places. The one that drove me nuts was the wiper switch, never got used to it.

My wife wanted the Odyssey and didn’t completely hate it like I did so I’m sure some of it is just me and my bias/preferences.

 

[Jeffs FRC]

Drove the used ‘21 Sienna today and the wife gave it the thumbs up. We put a deposit down and now the wait begins. Our spec is an XSE fwd in white with the entertainment package with all options. We told them we’d be pretty flexible when it comes to color and options though so hopefully that cuts the wait.

 

[Jeffs FRC]

Still waiting on a Sienna, but now we’re thinking we may just stick with our pile. The last glitches with the van have been worked out at the last trip to the dealer when they replace the internal charge module. The Sienna we get will not have a lot of the options that this van has like heated steering wheels, vented seats, 360 cam, pano roof, and twin tv screens.

We decided to drive it down to our summer family vacation to the Gulf Shores, AL. Van was loaded to the gills and had cruise set at 80mph pretty much the entire trip. It’s hard not to love this pile when it’s not giving us issues…lol. Here’s a summary of the road trip.

 

[PowerwheelsTesla]

I’m actually surprised how many of these plug in hybrid vans the rental car companies have. I travel often for work, and when I use the executive isle for National there are normally 3-4 of these things available.