2006 Toyota Sienna

This is as close to a zero maintenance vehicle as you can get. I bought this to handle van-pooling to work with 6 passengers, and to handle all our family trips around town and around the country. I now have 92,000 miles in the less than three years that I have owned it and the one item I had it into the shop for (under warranty): a broken plastic power socket cover in the dashboard. Other than that, it's oil changes and a change of tires and that's about it. The car has been a real workhorse, hauling sheets of plywood, bags of garden soil, an 18 foot runabout, a trailer full of compost, two kids and a large dog, canoes, bikes, etc. The only quibble I have had is that the acceleration is not as smooth as I would like. When you put on the gas, it kind of hesitates before it kicks into gear and accelerates. A Honda Odyssey I rented in Florida had much smoother acceleration but I thought the interior was cheaper looking and feeling than our Sienna. We have the low end CE version and it's just fine with my family. The seats are comfortable, the ride is smooth and quiet and the power windows in the sliding doors are great. All in all, you can't go wrong with one of these things.

We have the 3.0 liter 6 cylinder engine, which is supposedly the same engine Toyota uses in some of their race cars. It will propel the car at an easy 80 mph even while towing the boat. Pulling the 3,000 lb boat out of a steep launch site is no problem as well. The noise level in the cabin could be a little lower, it's a little difficult for those in the back seat to hear what's being said in the front, I suppose this is better on the LE and XLE models – probably more sound insulation. Gas mileage has been respectable, usually about 22 to 23 mpg carrying my full load of one driver and six passengers on my 27 mile commute to and from downtown.

We have the four bucket seat model with the back seat that folds into the floor. It's been real easy to convert to and from seating to storage. With the seats down, you can haul a whole lot of cargo, even more if you fold the second row of bucket seats up toward the front. There are little hooks on the buckets seats that hold them in place when they are folded forward. The standard CE accoutrements include a very nice six speaker sound system with CD and auxiliary input. I love the aux input for plugging in my iPod or a laptop computer to play audio books, music, and podcasts through the main car speaker system.

The stock tires that came with the car lasted us 50,000 miles which isn't bad for factory tires. They were quiet and had good traction in all weather conditions – and when I say ALL weather I mean it, we live in Minnesota. Anyway, I'd highly recommend the Toyota Sienna for anyone needing the most people and cargo hauling capacity for the buck and high dependability in the bargain. Thanks for listening!