2006 TOYOTA SIENNA LE

Had I started this blog a year ago, I would have written about the nightmarish, yet fruitful purchasing experience we had buying out 2006 Toyota Sienna LE minivan. We bought it at Priority Toyota Richmond.
We paid just over $24,500 for it with the package that included the passenger power sliding door and aluminum allow wheels - because we all know that aluminum wheels make a minivan look sporty.
First lets talk about what I like about the van, now having put almost 25k miles on it.

• It has lots of room, very important since our desire for this vehicle was to keep each of our three children out of arms reach of each other.
• The van handles well for a 4200 lb. vehicle, nice turn radius for navigating the Target parking lot and those tight fast-food drive-thru lanes
• There is fairly little road noise at speed. I can still hear my son in the back seat as long as he isn't whispering.
• I don't like superfluous motorized gadgets, but I find myself hitting the button for the automatic sliding passenger door without a thought. It works... for now.
• 25k miles and no major issues to speak of. Well, the neighbor crunched the bumper a bit when she confused my driveway with the road early one morning... but that isn't the van's fault.
  
• The seats in the rear fold down flat and the center row folds forward, this affords a largs space to put large items in... easily transported my wife's somewhat high-end eliptical cross-trainer (later article). Too bad the van wouldn't carry the exercise apparatus into the house for me.
• Good acceleration at low and highway speed. It has VVT-i which means Variable Valve Timing with intelligence. All this means is that it has more power across the RPM range.
  
• It has roll-down windows in the back... meaning the second row windows. The term "roll-down windows" seems a bit antiquated these days though. This was a must have for us.

So all in all it is a good vehicle. Now however are my few dislikes:

• It looks like every other van out there... really, from some angles I can't tell it apart form the Honda van and just the other day I got mad when in a parking lot, I couldn't unlock the tailgate... it apparently wasn't my van... mine was in the next lane.
• The radio seems possessed by a Japanese gremlin from time to time. The display will often show a bunch of strange characters and the radio lights will at other times flicker off and on. It always works though.
• The gas pedal, or throttle. Sometimes, I think the VVT-i is asleep. When coming to a "rolling stop" and hitting the gas slightly, there is no immediate response. This lasts for about a half-second. Then there will be an abrupt response when the throttle seems to try to make up for that lost time. This is mildly bothersome, but the service techs tell us this is normal behavior. I expect their story will change once the non-factory extended warranty kicks in.

All in all, it is a good solid vehicle. My parent's Dodge van (which was considerably more expensive) has been in the shop several times for what we'll call gadget failure. I don't see this happening in the near future with the Sienna.

Now if Toyota would just import their hybrid AWD van to the states...