boulder_bum said:
I thought you only had the backup camera with the EXL Navi and above, but I guess that's actually the multi-angle camera (with "wide" and "down-from-the-bumper" views).
At any rate, for someone who gushes so much over an AWD feature, you sure have a narrow view of the convenience of some of the electronics.
I personally use the navigation constantly, and it's especially great for family road trips when navigating unfamiliar towns and finding nearby gas stations and restaurants. I'm not even a traveling salesman!
I also have a tight two-car garage and am completely reliant on the parking sensors. With the beep indicators, I know just when I'm in the right spot to allow a walkway in front, and still be pulled into the garage enough that I don't close the garage door on the van. They also help tremendously for tight parallel parking. I'm pretty terrible at parking such a large vehicle, and the camera and sensors are a great help to me!
For the mileage, $150 in gas/year is $150 and it helps you recoup thousands over the life of the vehicle. It also pollutes around a ton and a half less carbon per year, for those concerned with such things.
The other extras are nice, too.
Personally, I love the Touring, though I think the EXL RES is a great choice, too. Again, it's subjective on whether you think the package is worth it.
Well I think I have test driven and compared these vans, features and driving characteristics more than most on these forums.
Maybe because I don't really want a mini van but find we need at least one of our vehicles to be one for carrying passengers and stuff, I did allot of testing to try and convince myself that a loaded model would make me happier.
So, maybe my perspective is a bit different than most here, but after all of the driving and testing, I think "dressing up" either the Odyssey or the Sienna to be a $46,000 Odyssey Touring or a $51,000 Sienna LTD AWD (in Canada), can result in a disappointment for someone who has owned a $50 - $70,000 vehicle.
Both of the vans are noisier than they should be, the base Honda has a 5 speed transmission that puts a drag on performance. The Honda has an odd bang when it hits certain types of rough road surfaces (several demo units did it) and both vans are a bit slow to warm up in the winter.
For me to load up one of these vehicles, is like trying to dress up a 6 to look like a 10 and at a fair expense to do so.
That is why i said I'd just get the EX-L (in Canada).
So what will I do? We're getting a base Sienna (with power side doors). We know how to back up without cameras and sensors and wouldn't rely on a camera to make sure there was no kid behind the car. If we need rear seat entertainment, my kid can watch a movie on the iPad.
So, instead of $51,000 for a loaded Sienna, we'll pay $30,000 for a base model. My wife will drive it, in place of her 2003 Accord which we will sell for $12,000.
With the $32,000 we net from the sale and the van savings, I'm ordering a 2011 BMW 535i X Drive (AWD).
I had one for a day last week. It heats up in 10 minutes (no matter what the outside temperature). While I'm waiting for the heat, I get instant seat heat and steering wheel heat. It has an excellent ride, handles like a dream, has 300 HP and gets 19 - 20 mpg in the city with it's 8 speed transmission. It is also whisper quiet in town and on the highway (less than 65 db at 70 mp/h - compared to the Odyssey's 75 db).
The only thing it can't do is carry more than our family of 4 (+1). We'll have the base purpose built mini van for that. The BMW is no mass people mover and I've discovered that no matter how many options you load an Odyssey or Sienna up with, it is a far cry from the luxury it should be for it's price and the option costs are not justified.
That is why I recommended the the EX-L. A recent car magazine review came to the same conclusion. It said that they would buy a base model and save thousands over the more costly Touring model. After all of my testing - I agree.
By the way, I didn't gush over AWD, I was responding to those who say that awd has no real advantage over FWD. If you drive a car in the winter on snow covered roads, it helps you get around.
Shazzam
PS, Maybe you could have skipped the extra stuff on your van and built a larger garage instead, then you wouldn't need parking sensors to park.
I hung a tennis ball from the ceiling for my wife. Now she knows exactly when to put the car in park. As long as she doesn't tun the steering wheel when she is backing up, she goes out exactly the same way she came in (parking sensors don't really help with that anyway). That solution cost us about $0.03 for the string. We used an old tennis ball.
PPS "Recoup thousands" you say. What, at $150/year. That would be 10 years o get $1,500 back and in Canada, it costs $6,000 to get a 6 speed along with a bunch of stuff people on these forums say they don't really want. I don't see the payback in the transmission, but it does get the vehicle moving faster (although it is much busier operating than either the Sienna of the Chrysler T&C Touring).
I am driving a Chrysler Touring for 2 weeks while I'm vacationing in southern California. Don't like th steering, seats, styling etc. the gas mileage is poor, but: the engine is smooth and quiet, the transmission shifts flawlessly and it is quieter than both the Sienna and Honda on the highway (at least on these highways).
