Simple Sienna big on usability
After spending some time with the 2018 Toyota Sienna, I have to wonder why anybody who needs to carry kids, pets, camping gear and whatnot, would ever opt for an SUV.
Minivans don’t pretend to be something they’re not. They’re family haulers with all the styling virtues of Croc slippers. But that’s giving them an unnecessarily bad rap.
After being coddled in the Toyota Sienna, which has about the same interior space as an average living room, I think its lack of street cred is a pretty good trade-off for the added convenience it offers. You might argue that SUVs are better suited for Canadian winters because of the availability of all-wheel drive, but that argument doesn’t hold with the Sienna because it’s the only minivan on the market available with on-demand all-wheel drive.
Sienna pricing starts at $34,690, but my tester is the top-trim, $46,090 XLE AWD equipped with the $7,200 Limited package. It carries seven passengers, though eight-passenger seating is available on other trims.
The Sienna is five metres long and almost two metres wide, so its size might intimidate some drivers, but it’s actually remarkably easy to drive and park. This is partially the result of its abbreviated nose and high seating, both features that offer a very good forward view. The windows are large and mostly unobstructed, offering excellent visibility all around. A rear-view camera is standard across the trims, though the minivan’s tall rear end stirs a lot of snow in wintry conditions, and the camera gets obscured almost immediately.
The interior is somewhat spartan, even by minivan standards, but it is highly functional. Controls are neatly arranged and easy to reach, and the shift knob sits on the centre stack, right by the steering wheel. There’s a drop-down 16.4-inch video screen and Blu-ray player for rear passengers, and two headsets are included.
While the Sienna’s second-row captain’s seats adjust fore and aft, they don’t fold flat like they do in Chrysler’s minivans. They are removable, though, and they weigh about as much as a few bags of groceries. The thirdrow split bench folds into the floor, and with the second-row seats out, the Sienna essentially transforms into a cargo van, with 4,250 litres of storage behind the front seats. Towing capacity is 3,500 pounds (1,588 kilograms).
The Sienna is tuned for a quiet, cushy, limo-like ride. Steering is probably the lightest I’ve felt since driving a friend’s 1980s Cadillac Fleetwood. In the city, the Sienna proved highly manoeuvrable, with a tight turning radius — tighter than most mid-size sedans.
Despite its all-wheel-drive powertrain, you won’t find a button on the dash to activate the AWD system. Toyota calls it “active torque control” and the AWD switches on automatically only when needed. It’s seamless in operation, and I can attest that it does exactly what it’s designed to do: Make winter driving easier.
My test route included a trip into Quebec’s Mauricie region during a modest snowfall, along about 40 km of winding country roads that hadn’t yet been cleared. Equipped with winter tires, the Sienna easily managed the tough, wintry conditions.
Since the Sienna doesn’t pretend to be an adventurous off-road vehicle, it has no drive modes except for Sport, selected by moving the gear shifter left when in Drive. This alters transmission mapping for more robust gear changes, but that’s all it does. Otherwise, the only other thing a driver can do is turn off the stability control or turn off the traction control to get out of deep snow.
Toyota’s Safety Sense driver aids add a measure of safety and convenience, so if the driver is distracted by sibling shenanigans going on inside the van, the vehicle keeps an eye on what’s outside and gives you warning or takes over some of the controls to help prevent possible disaster. Safety systems include adaptive cruise control, pre-collision warning with brake assist and lane departure with steering assist and auto high beams.
The granddaddy of all minivans, the Dodge Grand Caravan, when fully loaded, costs about the same as the Sienna XLE AWD, while the Toyota undercuts the top-of-the-line Honda Touring by about $4,000. Those minivans feature frillier interiors, sure, but there’s that one feature the Sienna has that’s not available in any other minivan: All-wheel drive. That feature alone would seal the deal for me, but add its user-friendliness, cavernous interior and its smooth, quiet ride, and it becomes the family hauler par excellence.