18,750 miles later we find ourselves trading our 2011 Sienna LE for a 2012 Odyssey EX. Why take the huge 1st-year depreciation on a perfectly new Sienna? I'm still wondering myself, but here goes:
1. Sienna's grade logic, especially downhill in the mountains, just doesn't compare to Honda's. While Honda with cruise engaged holds the speed very tight, Toyota lets the speed increase nearly 10mph over the set speed before dropping a gear, and by then you very well could have a ticket, especially when your set speed is already above the posted limit.
2. While the overall Sienna steering and driving feel is good, Honda's is still better.
3. Sienna's seat mounts behind the 3rd row take up cargo space. The Odyssey's well behind the 3rd row is totally clean. While on the 3rd-row subject, Sienna's new folding mechanism is good, but Honda's is better still.
4. Love the long-slide middle row in the Sienna (and will miss this the most), but don't like the wear marks on the plastic floor tracks. I can't imagine how bad this would look on a van used by children since it looks so bad after just 1 year with no more use than sliding the seats back and forth.
5. Honda now has Bluetooth and audio streaming on the EX like Sienna had on the LE last year. I can change tracks up and down on my Droid using the steering wheel controls without ever hooking up any wires. Plus, Honda's system accesses all 3,000 contacts in my phone book while Sienna does not. Hard drive storage is a nice bonus. On the downside, Honda non-navi does not allow voice dialing of raw numbers, but does allow dialing of pre-stored voice tags. We rarely used this on our Sienna, but still hope Honda adds this feature on future models.
6. Driver's dead pedal on the Ody has been fixed so I fit again. Legroom in the 05-10 Odyssey and 11 Sienna was fine, but I didn't fit in the 11 Ody. I'm happy to say the driver's left legroom in the 12 Ody feels like my old 05, which is good.
7. Still can't see anything out the right rear window in the Ody with the 2nd row in a normal position because of the design of the rear quarter panel. Sienna is still superior here so that's a compromise we have chosen to live with.
8. Ody fuel economy promises to be better. On a 30 mile controlled loop purposely designed to get the best economy possible at 68mph, my clearly broken in Sienna achieved 28mpg while a brand new Ody EX achieved 32mpg. Clearly the gas savings will never make up for the depreciation hit I am taking, but it's still bragging rights. Besides, my experience with 4 Hondas and 3 Toyotas has been Toyota mileage always takes a hit above 70, whereas Honda mileage on the highway holds until at least 80 and sometimes 85 (06 Civic).
Our van is due off the truck this week just in time for a Christmas road trip. Our Sienna typically returned 22-23mpg on highway trips at 80; we're expecting much better from the Odyssey.
We still think Sienna is the best looking van on the market, but now that Honda is finally offering Bluetooth with streaming audio on US models with a cloth interior, we're going for the better driving feel and gas mileage. BTW, we were scheduled to have the sliding door pop fixed on our Sienna, but that won't be happening now. I found a lot of disgruntled owners of 05-08 Siennas with sliding door problems that Toyota is not taking care of Sienna Power Sliding Door PROBLEMS, and that was also a factor to trade our Sienna before any problems develop.
We still have our 07 Tundra and 09 Venza, so we are not totally abandoning Toyota.
Thanks for long detailed observation and reasoning.
I would also consider Oddy if only ...
- Oddy offered an Accord 4 cylinder option
- Honda dealers near me were ok to deal with (I have to go across town to find a good Honda dealer). It's problem when dropping car off for service maintenance.
- value for $$$ spent on Honda were being too far a part these days...
I can live with other minor issues if van runs trouble free for most part....
What kind of mileage did you get with your '05 Ody? Ours was hilariously listed at 28mpg on sticker but usually averaged 18 and on a really long conservative highway trip could get 24...running my normal 75-80mph was only good for 22mpg. We're doing 20-21mpg average with the Sienna and 26 on highway trips at my usual speeds. I really wanted the Ody from a driving standpoint but the wife was stuck on the Sienna mainly due to color combos.
Hopefully they've improved the cruise on the new ones. That was one of the unhappy areas for our '05 Ody because it did not hold speed well particularly when you bottom out a hill and then start back up. I don't have a single complaint with the Sienna cruise as it's usually dead-on and I haven't noticed speed creep going through the mountains....but realistically I'm usually riding the brakes anyway because someone is holding me up. The times there's light traffic I haven't noticed any issues but we do have the tech package and I don't know what all the VDIM controls. I never run the radar cruise.
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2010 Camaro SS
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What kind of mileage did you get with your '05 Ody? Ours was hilariously listed at 28mpg on sticker but usually averaged 18 and on a really long conservative highway trip could get 24...running my normal 75-80mph was only good for 22mpg. We're doing 20-21mpg average with the Sienna and 26 on highway trips at my usual speeds. I really wanted the Ody from a driving standpoint but the wife was stuck on the Sienna mainly due to color combos.
Hopefully they've improved the cruise on the new ones. That was one of the unhappy areas for our '05 Ody because it did not hold speed well particularly when you bottom out a hill and then start back up. I don't have a single complaint with the Sienna cruise as it's usually dead-on and I haven't noticed speed creep going through the mountains....but realistically I'm usually riding the brakes anyway because someone is holding me up. The times there's light traffic I haven't noticed any issues but we do have the tech package and I don't know what all the VDIM controls. I never run the radar cruise.
Our 05 Ody with VCM got 25 at 80mph, which exactly matched the EPA highway ratings that were revised a couple years later. The original 20/28 EPA on the 05 models was using the old style rating system.
The 12 Sienna EPA is now 18/25; not sure what Toyota did to get the bump from 24 to 25. We had to keep ours under 70 to get 24 because it dropped to 22 at 80, whereas our 05 Ody returned 25 at 80. It will be interesting to see what the 12 Ody really gets. As I stated, my broken in 11 Sienna returned 28 on my test loop at 68, and a new 12 Ody with the 5-speed got 32 on the same loop. I'm expecting at least 27 from the Ody at 80 but we'll see.
Last edited by DanielAcosta; 12-20-2011 at 09:41 AM.
Reason: typo
Our 05 Ody with VCM got 25 at 80mph, which exactly matched the EPA highway ratings that were revised a couple years later. The original 20/28 EPA on the 05 models was using the old style rating system.
The 12 Sienna EPA is now 18/25; not sure what Toyota did to get the bump from 24 to 25. We had to keep ours under 70 to get 24 because it dropped to 22 at 80, whereas our 05 Ody returned 25 at 80. It will be interesting to see what the 12 Ody really gets. As I stated, my broken in 11 Sienna returned 28 on my test loop at 68, and a new 12 Ody with the 5-speed got 32 on the same loop. I'm expecting at least 27 from the Ody at 80 but we'll see.
As much as i like to believe the 05 Oddy gets 25mpg, i have to call BS on that. I purposely bought a 07 Odyssey EX-L R+N for a 3 year test. It has never come close to over 20 mpg despite many trips to SoCal.
It barely averaged 17 mpg during stay with us. The 04 and 08 Sienna i had that time beats the oddy by significant margin.
The two 11 sienna we have is worse than 04 and 08. But even with loaded limited AWD, we are still averaging north of 17mpg easily. While the FWD is around 19.5 mpg after 14k miles.
As far as BT goes- I have no problem accessing all my contact on my iphone on the sienna. I think its more of a user error.
As much as i like to believe the 05 Oddy gets 25mpg, i have to call BS on that. I purposely bought a 07 Odyssey EX-L R+N for a 3 year test. It has never come close to over 20 mpg despite many trips to SoCal.
It barely averaged 17 mpg during stay with us. The 04 and 08 Sienna i had that time beats the oddy by significant margin.
The two 11 sienna we have is worse than 04 and 08. But even with loaded limited AWD, we are still averaging north of 17mpg easily. While the FWD is around 19.5 mpg after 14k miles.
As far as BT goes- I have no problem accessing all my contact on my iphone on the sienna. I think its more of a user error.
You certainly get lower mileage on all your vehicles than I do. On the 18 mile highway test loop I used at 68mph, my 11 Sienna fwd V6 returned 28mpg while all 3 2012 Odyssey EX's I tested (5-speed) returned 32-33. My 05 Ody EXL always got 25 at 80mph, sometimes as low as 23 into a headwind at 85. The best I've ever done with our 11 Sienna over 18,750 miles is 23 at 75. I remember being disappointed that there was no improvement with our 05 Ody slowing from 82 (VCM off) to 80 (VCM on) because the mileage was the same either way. I will be doing a lot of experimenting with the 12 Ody and its new style VCM (6-4-3 vs the older 6-3) to see what speed on the highway is the sweet spot for mileage.
Regarding the phone book, it sounds like you have a higher end version Sienna that is allowing you to access your iphone. I just tried our 11 Sienna LE with a Droid and a basic Samsung, and all it does is allow me to make manual entries into the car's phonebook one at a time, same as our 07 Tundra. How do you access the phonebook in your iphone?
By comparison, the 12 Ody immediately pulled in all the entries from both our Droid and Samsung with no action on our part. The Droid did give a pop-up the first time asking me to give the car permission to access my phone list, but once I did all 3,000 entries were then displayed on the Odyssey's screen (sorted alphabetically with search capability).
Our 11 Sienna has been a great van for the last year and 18,750 miles, but for all the reasons I originally posted, we are expecting the 12 Odyssey to be better. If our 11 Sienna's interior didn't look older after 1 year than our 05 Odyssey did after 6 years, we'd probably keep it at least a couple more years to avoid the 1st year depreciation hit. Guess we'll find out in the months ahead if the Odyssey is as good as we're expecting it to be.
Please post how you access the phonebook on your iphone to educate others like me that could never figure it out. Thanks.
are your numbers based on the on-board computer for avg per gal? i had an 08 accord and currently use a 10 honda fit and both cars' on-board computers were giving false calculations compared to manually calculations. i took my fit in to get this corrected because they had a tsb for it. based on my calc, the computer was showing about 2mi more than what it was actually getting.
Regarding the phone book, it sounds like you have a higher end version Sienna that is allowing you to access your iphone. I just tried our 11 Sienna LE with a Droid and a basic Samsung, and all it does is allow me to make manual entries into the car's phonebook one at a time, same as our 07 Tundra. How do you access the phonebook in your iphone?
By comparison, the 12 Ody immediately pulled in all the entries from both our Droid and Samsung with no action on our part. The Droid did give a pop-up the first time asking me to give the car permission to access my phone list, but once I did all 3,000 entries were then displayed on the Odyssey's screen (sorted alphabetically with search capability).
Our 11 Sienna has been a great van for the last year and 18,750 miles, but for all the reasons I originally posted, we are expecting the 12 Odyssey to be better. If our 11 Sienna's interior didn't look older after 1 year than our 05 Odyssey did after 6 years, we'd probably keep it at least a couple more years to avoid the 1st year depreciation hit. Guess we'll find out in the months ahead if the Odyssey is as good as we're expecting it to be.
Please post how you access the phonebook on your iphone to educate others like me that could never figure it out. Thanks.
My contact transferred on the screen easily. No issues with iphone 3Gs, Iphone 4, and Iphone 4s.
I will go to my local dealer and play with one of the LE and took pictures. But i believe it will also transfer as well.
My contact transferred on the screen easily. No issues with iphone 3Gs, Iphone 4, and Iphone 4s.
I will go to my local dealer and play with one of the LE and took pictures. But i believe it will also transfer as well.
My EVO 4G also worked fine. I would suggest stopping by a dealership (perhaps phoning a few first to ask if they have a product specialist who is familiar with doing this).
are your numbers based on the on-board computer for avg per gal? i had an 08 accord and currently use a 10 honda fit and both cars' on-board computers were giving false calculations compared to manually calculations. i took my fit in to get this corrected because they had a tsb for it. based on my calc, the computer was showing about 2mi more than what it was actually getting.
I use manual calculations to confirm the onboard indications. All of my Nissan, Toyota, and Honda trip computers have been within 0.5 of what I compute manually.
My contact transferred on the screen easily. No issues with iphone 3Gs, Iphone 4, and Iphone 4s.
I will go to my local dealer and play with one of the LE and took pictures. But i believe it will also transfer as well.
That's a beautiful phone contact display, but you didn't say what model Sienna that is on. Is that the little screen like the LE has, or a bigger navi screen?
to the OP, if you dont mind me asking - what are they giving you as the trade-in value for the sienna? im considering finding a slightly used sienna and want to know what a real world number. thanks.
to the OP, if you dont mind me asking - what are they giving you as the trade-in value for the sienna? im considering finding a slightly used sienna and want to know what a real world number. thanks.
You can run the numbers yourself on kbb and edmunds, which is what I did. Both those sites for an LE V6 FWD with 18,750 miles came up with 21,500 for trade-in, about 24,500 retail. The dealer ran their own sites and also looked at auction results and came up with the same number. I checked with a friend at a Toyota dealer, who also arrived at the same number, so the Honda dealer was honest about it. I was amazed when the dealer showed me most of the 11 Siennas auctioned off had over 40K miles, so mine with just under 19K miles wasn't that bad. I gotta admit when it was parked next to the 12 Ody as we were transferring all our stuff from one vehicle to the next, our 11 Sienna looked very new and very nice.
We said goodbye to our 11 Sienna LE yesterday and took delivery on the 12 Odyssey EX. First 400 miles on my usual break-in run exceeded expectations. The first 400 miles consisted of 80 uphill (21.7 mpg), a short 10 miles on an unoffical handling track, 60 miles back downhill (34mpg), then a 220 mile round-trip from Phoenix to Prescott, which is a slight elevation gain going up and then back. Photo shows 32.2 mpg for the return trip from Prescott at speeds between 65-80, mostly 78 on the freeway. The 63mph average is because we had 8 miles of stop-and-go on city streets from the freeway to home. 26.2 was the total average for the day.
By comparison, last year our Sienna recorded 19 mpg uphill (vs 21.7 with the Odyssey) and 26mpg downhill (vs 34 with the Odyssey). The VCM on the Odyssey really makes a difference in the mileage under partial throttle openings and cruising, while the Sienna has noticeably more power under hard acceleration. The Odyssey maintains speed within 2mph going downhill, whereas the Sienna allows speed to increase 10mph downhill before even starting to shift down.
So the Odyssey delivered on the transmission and mileage performance we were looking for, which was one of the main reasons we made the trade. My wife likes the ease with which the Odyssey's second row slides compared to the Sienna's, but will still miss the space of Sienna's long-slide middle row. Odyssey's ability to store 18 CD's on its HDD is pretty slick; the higher end models hold even more (15GB vs 2GB on our EX). The transfer and display of all our phone contacts onto Odyssey's big screen is also nice, something that our Sienna LE did not do.
So for now we are happy with the Odyssey, but will always have fond memories of our year with a Swagger wagon. Yeah, I know, our Sienna was an LE not SE, but it was white so it looked like a swagger wagon to most people.
Last edited by DanielAcosta; 12-22-2011 at 12:53 PM.
Reason: Trying to get the image to show.
he first 400 miles consisted of 80 uphill (21.7 mpg), a short 10 miles on an unoffical handling track, 60 miles back downhill (34mpg), then a 220 mile round-trip from Phoenix to Prescott, which is a slight elevation gain going up and then back. Photo shows 32.2 mpg for the return trip from Prescott at speeds between 65-80, mostly 78 on the freeway. The 63mph average is because we had 8 miles of stop-and-go on city streets from the freeway to home. 26.2 was the total average for the day.
run your own calculations. my friend's 2011 pilot showing 24 MPG average.
in reality they getting 18-19... my boss had 2010 ridgeline. average MPG 21-23. reality-17...
for some reason honda's trip comps. always off.
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The times there's light traffic I haven't noticed any issues but we do have the tech package and I don't know what all the VDIM controls. I never run the radar cruise.
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