2008 Toyota Sienna

I recently had to take my Toyota Sequoia to the dealer for some kind of joint bearing replacement and got the pleasure of driving a 2008 Toyota Sienna for a day as a loaner. While I was initially unhappy with the idea of breaking one of my lifelong goals (never drive a minivan), I was relieved not to have to cram three car seats in the back of the Camry they originally offered me.

Preemptive Note: I do not own a Toyota Sienna. I have been driving a Toyota Camry for six years and a Sequoia for three years. This review will feature comparisons to a 2005 Sequoia, and will hopefully be useful to people trying to decide between a Sequoia or other SUV and a Sienna.

First Impressions from a Mom's perspective
The first thing I noticed as I was passing all my things over to the Sienna was the impressive trunk space. Unlike most minivans or SUVs I have been in, the 2008 Sienna has a little dip in the bottom of the trunk, which allows for more storage space. After laying my (large) stroller flat into the dip, the "bottom" of the trunk was even with the floor of the car. One of my pet peeves with my Sequoia is that I can't fit very much in the back of it after a shopping trip if I have the bulky stroller in it as well. This is not a concern with the Sienna.

Like many minivans nowadays, the middle row of the 2008 Sienna features two bucket seats, one next to each door. In order to get to the back row of seats, you have to walk between the bucket seats. While the walkway is convenient for little people who need to climb into their seats, the layout was a little frustrating to me because of the fact that I had to buckle three small children into car seats. The easiest way seemed to be to put one car seat in each bucket and the other one in the middle of the third row. Personally, I didn't like having to completely climb into the car every time I took the 'back row' child in and out of the car. If I found this a minor nuisance in one day of using the Sienna, I think it would become a major irritation after using it 365 days of the year. In this respect, I preferred the Sequoia, which allows me to access the car seat in the back row without ever having to get completely into the car.

Once I got into the driver's seat, I found a lot of things I liked better than in my Sequoia. Like my Sequoia, the 2008 Toyota Sienna allows you to set different internal temperatures and fan speeds for both the front and back sections. Unlike the 2005 Sequoia, I can set both of these differences from the front seat (with the Sequoia, these controls are reachable from the second row, unless you are a driver with obscenely long arms).

Another relatively insignificant perk that I got excited about is that there is a small compartment above the rear view mirror that pops down with the push of a button. I was expecting this to be the little sunglasses carrier that my Sequoia has in the same spot. What I found was an excellent curved mirror to show me what's in my blind spots (the sunglasses carrier was in a side compartment on the driver's door).

I also noticed that the Sienna has a built-in garage door opener near the 'blind spot' mirror. You can program the opener to work with up to three different garage doors, and speaking from experience with the opener in my Sequoia, this is a very convenient feature. Programming the opener is pretty easy, but you may need two people to program it, depending on the type of opener you have. I know that our garage door opener requires someone to push buttons directly on the opener while programming from the vehicle, but this still only took us about five minutes to do.

The backseat doors on the 2008 Toyota Sienna can be automatically slid open and shut with the push of a button on the vehicle's remote control. I thought this was very convenient, especially to help you get kids who are running ahead of you into the car faster, but I also thought the closing process was a little too slow. If I have kids running ahead of me to the car, that means I will also have them running ahead of me out of the car. I can't set the alarm until the doors are closed, which means the kids can be inside the store by the time I have the car secured if I'm waiting on the automatic doors. With the ages that my children were when I used this car (five, two and ten months), I found it preferable to manually close the doors.

So, how does it drive?
I felt very comfortable driving the 2008 Toyota Sienna. This car is 'short driver' friendly. I am only 5' 2" tall, and for the first time did not have to scoot the seat all the way up to the wheel in order to see over the front of the car, since the nose of the car is fairly short.

The day I drove the Sienna around town occurred in the middle of the Pacific Northwest's worst snow situation in twenty years. The standard tires on the Sienna handled the snow and ice well--an actual improvement over the tread-free tires on my Sequoia a the time. I never had any steering problems getting over ice patches, and as I bumped over huge mounds of ice on one road, the Toyota Sienna did not have me swerving side to side, as the cars in front of me were doing.

As far as general steering is concerned, I would definitely say two hands are necessary to drive over the snow mounds. The only roads I drove on that weren't covered in snow were the freeways, and the Toyota Sienna handled turns and changed lanes smoothly, with very little effort on my part.

Driving on the freeway, the Toyota Sienna accelerated fairly quickly, although it took a tad longer (maybe five seconds) to get up to 65 mph than my Sequoia. Between this and the fact that the tires handled the slippery roads well, I actually passed a few drivers in a minivan! Other than the kid music playing in the background, I was pleased with how quiet the interior of the car was on the freeway (and in the city).

According to the EPA, the 2008 Sienna with 4WD should get 16 miles per gallon on the freeway and 21 miles per gallon in city. While I did not have the car long enough to confirm or deny this, I can say that the car I used had a tank three-quarters full when I left the dealership, and after putting 40 miles of mixed city and freeway driving on it, it was still three-quarters full when I returned it.

Final Thoughts
If you are looking for a vehicle with a smooth ride that will seat up to seven riders, the 2008 Toyota Sienna is a good option. I still prefer my Sequoia, but if I were to ever consider purchasing a minivan I would not hesitate to buy a Sienna.