As enthusiasts, we sometimes trick ourselves into thinking that our cars either look faster than they are or, somehow, slip by as somehow stealthy. In reality, everyone knows a Tesla is fast these days. Your de-badged SRT8 Charger isn’t fooling anyone. Matt Hardigree is only human, don’t think I haven’t been through the same predicament. But if you want to be fast and truly want to sneak around town, your best bet is a new Honda Odyssey minivan.
I’m serious! Every year I drive a minivan from New York to Michigan as a road trip, with family, is always the best way to understand the state of the latest and greatest in rugrat transportation. A minivan is designed to get abused on a daily basis and yet still provide extreme comfort, which is basically half of the job of being a parent.
This is my third year running this test and the Odyssey isn’t the most luxurious van I’ve driven, nor is it the most fuel-efficient. It’s not even the cheapest. It is, however, the fastest and best handling. If you’re going to drive a minivan you’ve got a lot of choices and all of them do the basic job of moving kids from place to place. Why not get the one that’s fun to drive?
Will you use the relative sportiness of your minivan often? Probably not. Kids are an incredible amount of fun, but that fun is usually on their terms and you may get a kid that vomits when the road gets twisty. Then again, perhaps you’ll find a moment, on a back road, and then you’ll get to live your old life just for a fleeting moment.
Why Does This Car Exist?
Honda is unique among the biggest automakers in that it’s quite restrained with its product line in North America. It only has one truck in the form of the peculiar Ridgeline, which is a platform-mate with the Odyssey (and the Pilot and Passport). It has none of the big, truck-based SUVs that Toyota and Nissan have.
If it plays in a space, Honda expects to be competitive. That doesn’t mean Honda is overly conservative. It still gives us exciting performance cars like the Honda Civic Type R, oddballs like the hybrid Acura NSX, and even mainstream attempts at brilliance like the lovable Honda Element. It just means that Honda seems to do things slowly, and carefully, only entering a market if it thinks it can be competitive.
When it entered the minivan market in 1994, the Accord-based Honda Odyssey was most notable for its lack of sliding doors. It was more like an MPV than a true minivan. By the time the second-generation van rolled around it was bigger, V6-powered, and got the sliding doors it needed. Since that time, the Odyssey has been one of the more competitive vans on the market.
The current generation has been around since 2018 without many changes, so 2025 brought a visual upgrade in the form of an aesthetic that feels a lot more like the Acura NSX than, say, the new Honda Accord. This isn’t a coincidence. The new rear bumper, for instance, takes the vertical reflectors from the NSX. This, along with the new front fascia and larger foglights, is designed to give a more “premium, aspirational” look according to Honda.
I don’t know that many people aspire to be minivan owners. It just sort of happens.
Does It Do Minivan Things Well?
The default seating arrangement for American families is a seven-seat vehicle. That’s two parents, maybe three kids, and a couple of friends. Or it’s a family with one kid and a family with two kids. This doesn’t make sense to me. I keep running into situations with other families where we need eight seats.
A minivan, then, can be the perfect option here. Most minivans come either in a seven-passenger version with captain’s chairs or an eight-seat version. My family much prefers the seven-seat version because my daughter loves a captain’s chair, harboring the child’s belief that she’s the one in charge (a belief contradicted by her experience… usually). I want eight seats. Hell, I want nine seats. I don’t want a center console so much as I want a way to cram one more person in with me. I’m social like that.
The Honda Odyssey Elite I had featured seating for eight, with two up front, three in the middle, and three in the back. The car uses the same gauge cluster as my CR-V and therefore I was amused every time I saw how many seatbelts I could get plugged in at the same time.
So close…
Every year when we go for Christmas church service with my in-laws we either have to hope someone is sick or we have to take two cars. Not this year! All three kids, all four parents, and one grandma got to come along for the ride in comfort.
I’ve been barred from sawzalling the pillars off cars, so here’s a photo from Honda that shows you what the interior looks like if you remove the entire side:
I asked my family what they thought about being cramped back there and my sister-in-law was impressed with the comfort and everyone, even my mother-in-law, said they’d be fine being carted around like this for a few hours. The kids in the back were far enough away that I could barely hear them even if they did have complaints.
It’s here I should probably mention all the fun little tricks Honda does to make this an ideal situation for parents. First up is what Honda calls its “Magic Slide” second-row. This means you can remove that middle seat in the second row and either shove the two seats on the outside together or, if your kids are beaking too much for no reason, you can slide them apart. Here’s what that looks like:
The van is full of small, interesting features like this that you’ll definitely get the most out of if you’re road-tripping something like this.
One of my favorites is this two-stage sunglas holder that creates a mirror that looks back at your inhabitants. There’s also a camera mode, similar to what you find in other vans, but looking at the screen while driving isn’t something I like to do for too long. This is simpler and works better in my experience.
There’s a fold-down screen. I’m usually mixed on these because most kids have their own devices. Still, I don’t love the idea of my daughter on her iPad for the entire 14-hour drive. For some reason, it’s better that she watches Home Alone on a screen slightly further away and dangling from the ceiling.
All of this was made possible by an Amazon Fire Stick connected to the HDMI port in the center console that was hotspotting off of the car’s WiFi and then blasting audio via a pair of headphones that came with the car. You could probably also do this off of your phone if you don’t want to pay extra for your car to have WiFi.
This system worked for about 97% of the trip, with only a few short interruptions due to a loss of signal. My kiddo watched both Home Alone movies and more seasons of The Simpsons than I want to think about. We did make stops along the way and pointed out interesting places to her. We took some time to enjoy Cuyahoga Valley National Park and she earned another Jr. Ranger badge, so it wasn’t a trip completely devoid of education.
Admittedly, though, both my wife and I were a little burned out by the end of the semester and it was nice to be able to unwind and talk without a lot of interruptions. In theory, I could have used the “Cabin Talk” feature to chat with my kid via her headphones, but we discouraged her from listening too loudly to audio so it wasn’t necessary.
If there’s one downside to this particular setup it’s that my daughter kept losing the remote for the Firestick every time we stopped to do anything. It was never long and, yet, it was always annoying. My buddy has a previous-generation Odyssey and he loves it. It also has this:
A remote holder! Genius!
If there’s one minivan feature that rises above all others it’s the completely flat-folding floor, which Chrysler is still the king of right now. No one can top Stow-n-Go. Stellantis doesn’t do a lot of great things now, so you have to give them credit for having the absolute best seat-folding system in the business. Honda’s seats fold easily and create a flat floor in the back, but you can’t make all the seats disappear, which is always a disappointment.
This Thing Kinda Hauls
What it lacks in chair-stowage, the Honda Odyssey more than makes up for in low-key Q-ship performance. I think we’ve all gotten used to the idea that some SUVs are quick and powerful, even if few of them can shimmy on backroads without an expensive dose of magnetorheological dampers or other electromechanical trickery. The Odyssey doesn’t have any of that. It’s just an honest setup with MacPherson front struts up front and a multi-link rear suspension with trailing arms for the unpowered rear wheels.
That’s right. There are no powered rear wheels. While you can get various levels of “nice” in the Honda Odyssey depending on trim level, there’s only drivetrain configuration. You get Honda’s tried-and-true 3.5-liter V6, this time with VTEC and producing 280 horsepower/260 lb-ft of torque. I’m old enough to remember when that was a lot of power. The Sienna makes do with 245 horses while the Carnival Hybrid shuffles along with just 242 horsepower, though more torque. Technically, the Chrysler should be the hot rod here with 287 horsepower.
Ultimately, though, the 0-60 mph time is as low as 6.4 seconds when Car and Driver does the testing, making it faster than any minivan sold in the United States that isn’t a pure EV, including every varietal of Chrysler. It’s also faster than my Honda CR-V and, on a good day, Thomas’s Porsche Boxster. Torque steer is minimal, though you can chirp the tires a bit on a damp road if your goal is to please your kids or upset your in-laws.
I usually charge up a few on-ramps when I have a minivan just to test the vehicle’s acceleration in its most likely environment, and my family almost never even notices. They noticed with the Odyssey. When the VTEC kicks in it makes a not-terrible sound and pulls pretty damn good for a vehicle that can haul six kids and all their necessary snacks. The Odyssey also features a 10-speed automatic with a push-button interface and flappy paddles. The gearing for this is definitely more oriented for spryness than you get in any other traditional minivan.
Because it shares much of the switchgear with my Honda CR-V it was easiest to compare the two, and the Odyssey handles better in almost every way. Being FWD, it pulls itself straight across hundreds of miles of interstate (aided by Honda’s lane-keeping software). It doesn’t exactly dance around turns, but the lower center of gravity and rear stabilizer bar help keep the big van surprisingly well-planted. The electronically-boosted rack-and-pinion steering is a touch light, but more communicative than either my CR-V or any other minivan I’ve ever driven (excluding, of course, the short-lived Mazda5).
This doesn’t make it fast, per se. It’s not secretly a sports car. Don’t take it to your local SCCA Autocross expecting to take home any trophies. It’s a between-the-lines kind of fast. A maybe-the-kids-are-asleep-and-won’t-notice-me-apexing-this-turn kind of fast. A no-one-is-around-and-I-need-to-hear-noise kind of fast.
[Writer’s note: I feel compelled to point out that the Honda Odyssey is currently the only minivan sold in America with a factory racing team. We wrote about it, it rules. –TH]
The Sharon, Lois & Bram In The Room
Having only one drivetrain means that the Odyssey is now the only minivan on the market that lacks a hybrid option. With the Sienna, a hybrid powertrain is the only option. With the Pacifica, you’ve got to get the plug-in version. And with the Carnival, it’s an option. Because the Odyssey is older, Honda hasn’t yet decided to give it a hybrid option. Given the volumes it does, the CR-V, Accord, and Civic were first on the list to get the company’s hybrid system.
In theory, as Thomas pointed out, the Sienna is the no-brainer here as it’s hybrid only and starts under $40,000. In reality, it’s hard to get a Sienna at anywhere near MSRP so most other options are going to be cheaper.
I missed the hybrid, though. I drove almost 1,700 miles of around-town and highway driving and got an admirable 26.7 MPG. The Sienna gets 36 MPG city/highway/combined. That difference adds up quite quickly. The Carnival Hybrid gets 33 MPG combined, which is also significant if you drive these things long enough.
The Odyssey I borrowed was the Elite trim, and so it starts around $52,000 for all the goodies, including the 10-inch center screen, rear-seat screen, wireless phone charger, and hands-free liftgate. You’ll have to consult your family about whether or not all that’s worth it. As with most Honda products, the lowest trims end up being surprisingly nice and well-featured.
Would I Buy This One?
I assume a hybrid Odyssey will come along at some point, but it might not be this generation. It’s a shame, too, because it makes recommending the otherwise pleasant Honda van to people a little harder. I liked the Pacifica PHEV, but only as a rental or a lease, and would be wary for a long-termer. Give me the Honday any day. The Kia Carnival is the most attractive and most comfortable of all the minivans, and in base trim the hybrid is still a couple of grand cheaper than the cheapest Odyssey, which starts in the $42,000 range. It would be mighty tempting.
We’ll have a Sienna review from Thomas soon and I’d like to do the same test with the new version of that van, though I’ve also driven a rental version of the hybrid and thought it was quite capable, if not a touch overstyled and numb. Hopefully, the new version has improved.
Being a parent is expensive and the best deal might be the best deal. You can’t go wrong with a Sienna, a Carnival, or an Odyssey, so if you cross-shop and get a nice price on one the other that’s maybe your answer. If reliability is your key metric, then a Honda or the Toyota are safe bets. If you’re struggling with the idea of owning a minivan, the Carnival is the least-minivan-y.
If you’re less interested in a hybrid and fancy yourself a Max Verstappen, albeit one with a full brood, then the Odyssey is really the only choice.
There is nothing on the highway faster than a minivan. They are the stealth Ninja of the highway. My son and D-I-L have 1 kid and a Subaru Ascent. D-I-L especially gets upset when I call it a minivan w/ awkward doors. They just drove it 5100 miles on a X-country round trip w/ kid and 2 large dogs in crates. My son insists he didn’t set the cruise control below 80 MPH, which ain’t no big deal across Texas, but a little problematic in California. He reported that they averaged 23mpg (car computer) for the whole trip. He claims that the car’s computer is very accurate when onto hand calculations. The fact that he didn’t get a speeding ticket points up the virtual invisibility of the form factor.
We owned a well-optioned ’07 Nissan Quest (mid-cycle refresh) for a dozen years. That was the Maxima of minivans. VQ35, independent corners, huge doors, cavernous interior, and roof rails for a big Thule – it was great for bombing around town or speeding across the American West. Tremendously underrated against its competition.
Didn’t these have the avant garde interior with center mounted speedo and table top esque shifter? I don’t think I could get used to that setup as I like my cars to be driver-focused.
At least it had a transmission without third gear made of glass like the 2nd and 3rd Gen Odyssey’s had.
I gave a student with one of these decorated in Martini Racing livery
^should say “I have a student…”
Timely article as I just bought a Odyssey to replace our Pacifica so have a very fresh perspective for comparison.
Things I will miss about the Pacifica:
Stow and Go is awesome. Even though I only used it to haul stuff a few times it was really great when I needed it. It also was great when vacuuming the back to stow the seat and bring out the house vacuum and have a huge clear space that got thoroughly cleaned. Even better than the seats folding away, for us at least, was having the stow compartments for storage. You can really fit a lot of stuff in the area it takes to stow those seats.
The individual screens for the kids in back was nice to avoid squabbling. We were able to avoid individual tablets for a few extra years because the could do their own things if they wanted, or we could throw on a movie that they could both watch. Also, the Odyssey doesn’t have any built-in entertainment features for the rear screen, you have to hook up an external device.
It had full driver memory profiles: seats, mirrors, infotainment settings, temperature options, etc. The Odyssey seems to only be seats and mirrors but maybe I just haven’t figured out everything else yet. The biggest issue there is radio stations, my partner and I have very different tastes in music so agreeing to a fixed number of presets is going to be an ongoing challenge.
The on-board vacuum was nice for quick clean-ups but not that much different than hauling out the small ShopVac.
What I already like about the Odyssey:
Ride and handling is smoother and more comfortable. The seats in the Pacifica were not all that great especially on a long trip.
It is going to hold its value much better. I compared trade in values for the same age and condition Odyssey as our Pacifica and it was about $5k higher.
What I’m not thrilled about with the Odyssey:
The “magic slide” middle row it kind of neat, and can make access to the 3rd row fairly easy even with the middle seat in place, but that means the 2nd row (other than the middle seat) is not removable. You can push them to one side but not take them out altogether.
Third row is requires manual storage. Not a huge deal but more of a pain than just pushing a button.
What I will not miss about the Pacifica:
Dealing with Chrysler dealers. The first dealer I talked to played all scummy dealer games, really tried to lowball our trade-in by over $5k by making up a bunch of problems it supposedly had (problems not identified by 2 other dealers or CarMax) and acted like they were sitting on gold with the vehicle they had even though it had been on their lot since May and had been sitting so long the battery was dead. The second Chrysler dealer made many promises that they wouldn’t put in writing and kept trying to just get me to come in to make the deal. When I bought the Honda I was actually just going to test drive but they were willing to work with me on the spot and get to a good deal in about an hour.
I have a 2015, but the same button that lets you slide the seats also let’s you pull back and up to take the seats out. Seems strange that they would remove the feature in the newer model.
Same applies to the current-gen Siennas, too. In their case, I think it’s because there’s wiring connected to them for in-seat airbags.
And presumably, if you’re buying a minivan, safety is a big draw for you.
Obviously a mixed bag.
My 2018’s second row outboard seats are removable. I’ve done it twice now for hauling large payloads. Those seats are HEAVY though – I think I read they’re 70 lbs apiece, which seems right.
Hmm, I’ll give it a try again but even the sales guy didn’t know how to do it, not that that means much.
How better to advertise your virility than to showoff that you need a whole minivan to cart around your sprogs?
With a fast minivan.
Maybe those sprogs are from someone else. The chick banging badass bio dad(s) is(are) driving a kickass Hemi Charger(s) and the (insert emasculating insult here) minivan is for the pencil necked cuckold to unknowingly cart around the other guy’s sprogs.
Is awd version on the horizon at all? I’m slowly trying to plant the seed of a minivan with only the first kid on the way but fwd is non starter
Perhaps when the hybrid comes? I’d guess it won’t come for another generation, though, which given the redesign is probably 2-3 years away.
Makes you wonder with the Honda/Nissan marriage if we’ll ever see a Honda badged NV350 Caravan in the US.
2008 working at NTB is when i found out these were fast. Glad to hear theyre still quick.
“My kids watched both home alone”
I’m sorry for your loss.
Yeah I’m raving on the RAV4 Prime yet again, if it’s big enough for you. 5.5
seconds 0 to 60. Just under 40 mpg in hybrid mode. 35 to 55 miles in EV mode.
We had a 3rd gen Ody and LOVED it — we refer to the max child era as the “minivan years” with fond memories. It had that 2nd row middle seat that was usually in the garage, but could be installed when needed. I could also take the (stupidly heavy) second row seats out when I need to. And it HAULED as well. Faster than the Fox-bodied Mustang 5.0 of my youth.
I somehow missed the Odyssey racing story last fall, but I think this might make up for it:
If you go to the linked racing article now, scroll down to the embedded video. Hit play, and then immediately scroll back up and then DELIGHT in reading the article with the roaring V6 Ody soundtrack accompanying you for exactly as long as it takes to read the article!
You’re welcome 😉
British racing driver (and former Honda dealership owner) David Hobbs was the featured speaker at the 2013 (I think) edition of The Mitty at Road Atlanta. His ride? A Honda Odyssey Elite.
Yup! It was in Milwaukee (Glendale), WI, for some reason…
Mr Barber, of Barber Motorsports Park, also fancies an Odyssey for trips around the track.
I had the pleasure of chatting with him briefly at the Legends of Motorsport vintage race meeting there in 2010. He was walking across the paddock area and I told him how much I loved the facility. He stopped and said, “Thanks – what could we do to make it better?” Humble, but driven. A real visionary.
“Don’t take it to your local SCCA Autocross expecting to take home any trophies.”
Unfortunately, don’t take it to your local SCCA Autocross and expect to compete. As a general rule:
More specifically eligibility requires that the average track width has to exceed vehicle height.
And yet one day everyone will be autocrossing crossovers because that’s all that will exist (grey or silver only).
No doubt
Note the ford fiesta was banned with this rule…
so you cant race a X5 M at autocross?
No, but I could autocross my CX-50. 63.5 high, 65.4 avg track. Weird
A 2 inch drop should be easy enough. 69 inch high vs 67 inch track. Or a 1 inch drop with aftermarket wheels that have a wider offset.
I only have one thought about the Odyssey… which is one more than I usually have about minivans. The better handling vs other minivans is likely because this vehicle sits very low to the ground. As in low like a BMW sedan.
Whenever there is a significant snowfall, Odysseys are some of the first vehicles that I see get stuck as they literally get clothes-lined on snow very easily.
In case clothes-lined is some odd local dialect; what that means is the underside of the car gets packed with snow to the point where the car is literally lifted up a bit by the packed snow underneath. Thus the car wheels don’t have enough weight and the drive wheels just spin.
The only way to get yourself out is to get a flat shovel under the car and dig that snow out. It is truly a pain in the butt to dig yourself out….
I had this happen back in 1989 or 1990 with a Nissan Stanza in coastal North Carolina; the type of snow storm we would refer to as a blizzard and northerners would laugh off as flurries.
Clothes-lined is what the 11 foot 8 bridge does to tall vehicles. What you are describing is high centering. None the less, very interesting observation.
Technically correct, the best kind of correct.
“Sweep the leg.”
Seriously though, the Odyssey is pretty effin’ low to the ground.
Okay it’s fast in an instrumented acceleration test with only a driver aboard. So is a big-block pickup. But in a vehicle designed to carry a lot of weight (people or cargo) what matters is what it can do with 1400 lbs of people inside.
My butt dyno does not see a lot of difference between empty and fully laden. It will surprise quite a few bros at stoplights too 🙂
Yeah, if there is one time I am not wringing out my van (or turbodiesel pickup), it’s when the thing is loaded to max capacity. Be it 5 of my coworkers in the rental minivan, 13 of my kid’s classmates in our real van, or a cord of wood in the back of my pickup, I’ve never really done an impromptu 1/4-mile acceleration run or checked to see how early stability control kicks in. As a driver, without people or stuff to worry about flinging around, I tend to be notably more enthusiastic when driving.
I have no kids and treat my minivans like very roomy luxury sedans. While occasionally there is a load, its usually just me and maybe 1-2 other people.
When I bought the Voyager, I did test the Odyssey first and can confirm, the damn thing was quick. Almost ludicrously quick for a van, really. It also handled very well for a barge, certainly better than any 3-row SUV I’ve driven.
I love the one I tested, but just couldn’t get over the literal 10k difference in price between the Honda and the Chrysler (similar age and mileage, both used). Yeah I get the long-term reputations of both, but 10k is a lot of freaking money. The Honda was quicker, a little more pleasant inside and a little better screwed together. But the Chrysler had Stow N Go, Stow N Place (the integrated cross bar system that people don’t talk about), is still shockingly fast for a van, and is frankly, far better looking. If all things were equal price wise, I’d have taken the Odyssey. But so far I’m really happy with the Chrysler (about two years and driven from 60k to about 90k so far).
We were in a very similar situation, and also went Chrysler (albeit used for the Hybrid) vs the Odyssey & Sienna. You’re right though, I hadn’t even heard of the roof-rack cross bar system and was very pleasantly surprised when discovering it!
I feel bad for the people involved with designing the crossbar system, as hardly anyone is aware of them. Everyone knows a Subaru Outback comes with built in crossbars, for instance.
Had a cat who loved the crossbars on a 02 explorer, as it was a sleeping pen. Can’t wake up face first after hitting the floor if it keeps a cat from rolling off.
Now cleaning cats off the open garage door is a different issue
Yeah, Stow & Go is great (even though the middle seats are pretty thin in exchange) and the integrated crossbars is something that I think only Stellantis and Subaru do. Such an obvious solution, yet so rare. Ultimately my wife chose Ody over T&C — the Pacifica wasn’t released yet — for resale value and brand name, and in the long run it was basically a wash….higher up-front costs vs better residual value. Oddly, I’m now the one putting 95% of the miles on the van.
Another PacHy fan here. It really is a surprisingly capable performer as well, and by far the best looker in my opinion. And for all the naysayers, mine has been problem free for the 30k miles I’ve had it. Love the store-n-place roof racks that I deployed for the holiday lights this year. Even survived a deer ambush over the holidays with surprisingly minimal damage that didn’t sideline our trip. Gonna miss it now that we’re back and it’s going into the shop for repairs.
I have the regular V6, which has been fine, but was genuinely nervous to go near the hybrid. Keep reporting on the PHEV version, I’m curious to know how it holds up.
Can’t speak to the Pacifica long-term ownership experience, but in a rental lot, I will pick a Pacifica almost every time if there isn’t something cool like a GTI, Mazda 3, or Audi A6 in the lot. I do this, even when renting with no passengers. I’ve never seen a Honda minivan in a rental lot…this probably speaks to it’s relative popularity in the retail sector. I respect Siennas especially for the fuel economy, but hate renting them. The drivetrain on them sounds like fingers on a chalkboard. I hate those things more with every passing mile.
Fair, there aren’t too many rentals more comfortable or quite.
I have the previous gen and it just crossed the 10-year mark and 120k miles. Total unscheduled repairs, life to date? $33. Our XM antenna went bad around year 4 and the dealer wanted $800+ because the shop manual thought the whole headliner needed to be dropped. Nope, just a few fasteners in the back.
I drive it almost entirely on hills, suburban layouts, with occasional WOT jaunts onto the interstates that connect me with downtown or other suburbs. Basically the exact duty cycle it was designed for. Despite that, Blackstone Labs is always pushing me to go beyond 10k on oil changes, but that’s my mental limit and I stick to it. I estimate that I can still easily hit 60mph in under 8 seconds with no passengers, and that’s with the older 265hp engine and 6AT.
The fit and finish was always marginal, materials are cheap, and the tech and electronics were always behind the competition, especially being toward the upper end of the minivan range (I remember complaining about the insane $34k price for a midrange model back in 2024. How quaint!). The current gen is a little better, but I still think it’s lacking a bit.
I would definitely buy one again, but I’m probably waiting on the next gen. The current one just feels a little too similar, plus I’m waiting for more of the CR-V/Civic/Accord/Pilot design to filter out. I’d also love to see Honda put a hybrid in there so I can stop yearning for a Sienna. It’s a lot of vehicle, but not so much that you can’t run all your daily errands in it, even with one person. In something like a Suburban, I’d feel ridiculous….and speaking of Suburbans, the last time I rented one for a week, getting back in the Odyssey felt like being in a sports car. It’s all relative.
my 17 took about $250 in unscheduled maintenance in about 150K miles. The cable for the sliding door on the driver’s side, and the tranny cooler more recently.
Awesome…that was like an average 6-month period for my VWs, and that was doing almost all my own work. I’m definitely a convert to reliability. I don’t mind wrenching on an extra car or “fun car,” but not daily required transportation. This thing is such a workhorse it’s unreal. Not to mention how much lumber, couches and fridges we’ve been able to tote around with the tailgate closed.
i am getting at that point with the WRX. I’ve already done the rear wheel bearings, but the fronts are howling now, about a month later (what makes a subaru a subaru), and some stupid oil sump line from the turbo to the block, where it has a very fine leak, but it stinks up the car and the garage when parking. Plus it’s time for a walnut blast, spark plug change, and updated knock sensors.
My 2015, which we just sold a month ago after ten years of ownership, was about $45 in unscheduled maintenance in 113k miles – a clip for the roll up sun shade on one of the sliding doors and a replacement motor (harvested from a replacement actuator of a 2010 Odyssey) for the sliding door lock actuator. We were so impressed with it that we replaced it with a Pilot (AWD is a necessity to get in/out of our neighborhood, and my wife got tired of borrowing my car when the snow fell like she has the last three winters).
Is this still true? Seems like a lot advertised at MSRP locally, but maybe other regions are different.
I’m wondering what kind of person is still paying over MSRP for a mainstream vehicle in 2025.
According to our local dealer’s website, they have literally zero Siennas available right now. One 60k version “in transit”, and a bunch of 45k-55k versions showing up in February. If I expand the search to two other dealers not too far away, there’s a single 44k van available between the two of them.
Demand for these is still outrageously high.
Local dealer here still tries to get $5k over sticker on Siennas and Highlander/Grand Highlander hybrids. Another says they sell for MSRP, but add on $1200 in “paint warranty” and window tints to every car.
Even without the markup, you still have to get on a wait list most places and hope something comes your way in the next six months. And they’ll all saddled with at least $500 worth of crap from Toyota – door edge guards, a $70 USB cable, wheel locks, etc.
Some people have had luck reaching out to “out of the way” dealers, but some of those places don’t want to sell all their cars to out of towners.
My parents just bought a GH Hybrid for sticker, which admittedly did take some searching and waiting, and buying from an “out of the way” dealer. That’s a brand new model coming off a stop sale in a hot segment.
I had no idea anyone was still trying that stuff on Siennas that have been out for 4 years now.
Arguably the Grand Highlander is the biggest competitor to the Sienna. I was hoping they’d even each other out so you could buy one of them without too much pain. Not the case so far.
Besides those two cars, there is nothing else that size that gets 35 mpg and has AWD, which a lot of people want. Plus it is a Toyota, so you have the people who aren’t exactly going to go buy a Chrysler instead.
One dealership in San Jose has no Siennas and the other wants $5k over sticker
Had a 09 odyssey. total q ship. I’d be driving 20 over posted limits (in the flow of traffic) right past mr law with zero attention while cars around me got pulled over, consistantly. LOL
*Volvo XC40 Recharge has entered the chat*
When will we get the Honda Odyssey Type R?
Also, I would totally splurge on in car WiFi if I ever got the chance.
I’m going to ask Honda right now.
Yeah, the Type R would be like the cargo version LOL
But yeah, why don’t they make a cargo Ody?
Hybrid or not, I’m still impressed by 26 mpg highway from an N/A 3.5L V6 considering I get around 22 mpg over about a thousand mile trip on my 3.0L turbo I6. Maybe I’m too used to Volvo economy?
Some of that is cylinder deactivation, some is really tall gearing — but even with cylinder deactivation deleted on our 2015, we see 25mpg highway regularly, even with hills. A little bit of city driving or idling takes that down quickly, but steady-state cruising is great.It’s 700# heavier than my V6 Passat wagon, yet returns better city AND highway numbers (granted, the Passat has parasitic Torsen AWD, which takes up about 3mpg)
Also, I just realized who you were, glad to see you over here. Oppo started getting blocked on my work PC, so I’m here a lot more 🙂
I have an Odyssey. Very dependable except it frequently needs front brakes. My mechanic took it for a test drive once and told me, “no wonder you always need brakes, that’s the fastest minivan I’ve ever seen!”
Honestly, consumables like brakes are a relatively big expense with most minivans in my experience.
They share a lot of parts and design with sedans and smaller CUVs, but are generally the largest and heaviest members of the family, so they go through stuff faster.
Indeed, though I like to think Frobozz is wringing every ounce out of his Odyssey.
It’s actually my wife’s car. When I showed her your comment she laughed…but she didn’t deny it. I’ll have to ask the kids.
That’s exactly what I was told at the shop. As he put it, “your car is an Accord with a backpack.”
Our front brakes lasted 100k with mostly city driving. Of course, the very common brake pedal pulsating starts again within 10k miles but we just learned to live with it. Only hits us from 40-60mph, generally.
they are just undersized for the heavy ass car. I have bigger front rotors on my 17 WRX than the 15 Oddy. I usually replace them every 2 years or so. Raybestos wave rotors and stoptech pads about $250
Our minivan was in the shop when we were going on vacation last week and we had to rent a dodge durango. The Durango had a hemi and was gigantic and… was terrible for a family. Hard to get in and out of. Bad visibility. No space for luggage. High loading height, so hard to get that limited luggage in. Terrible fuel economy.
I’m admittedly not cool, but I really don’t understand why anyone with a family would buy an SUV instead of a minivan.
Not a Durango, but I was stuck with a Highlander when our van was in the shop after an accident.
There wasn’t a single thing the SUV did better than the van despite being about the same size (I think the Highlander was a smidge larger of a footprint but still less space inside compared to the van).
I could could live with a Highlander if you could actually take it off-road. Otherwise there are so many tradeoffs with an suv that it’s not worth owning one.
I love our minivan. I think people are more worried about self-image than practicality.
We got a Sorento recently because we 1. no Chrysler, 2. readily available and 3. price. Couldn’t get a similarly equipped van for nearly the same cost. Lift over, rear seat access etc aren’t that much worse and in reality the rearmost seats are used very sparingly, although with aging parents it’ll become more frequent.
I also find the minivan stigma to be bizarre. If you have a family, you aren’t cool. And that’s ok! Choices were made. But maybe it’s easier for me as I knew I wasn’t cool before having kids.
There’s a certain sense of freedom that comes with abandoning the pretension, and buying a minivan.
I know people buy the Durango because it can actually tow, especially with the V8, unlike many of its CUV competitors and a minivan.
Most people of course won’t ever tow anything, but for those that do, I can see why you’d want more of a real truck.
Get a Metris or a full-size van 😉
well yeah, it has VTEC, so of it course it’s fast 😉
Johnny Tran is taking an Odyssey to Race Wars this year.