The kids and I headed down to Texas for Christmas and thanks to Toyota we cruised around the state in a 2017 Toyota Sienna.
I must confess: a minivan is my daily driver, so I was super bummed about spending our vacation in a minivan. Unlike many moms, I do not embrace the minivan life. I drive a minivan because at one point I had three kids in car seats and sadly for me, a minivan is a fabulous option when you have three or more car seats. However, on this trip I was going to be road tripping over 1,000 miles with my three kids, plus my sister, niece, and my mom. Since I needed a vehicle that would seat 7 it was either a minivan or an old school church van. Definitely not an option.
Related: 2020 Toyota Sienna: 8 Reasons Why the Minivan is Still the King of Family Vehicles
WHO THIS CAR IS FOR
- Families, especially those with 3 or more kids, who need a 3rd row
- Families with multiple kids in car seats.
- A family with twins or triplets–then everyone can bring a friend along or there’s room for grandma and grandpa
- Families with quintuplets–room for 5 car seats!
- Buyers who need space for 6 or 7 passengers
- Buyers who crave (or need) top safety and luxury features in their car
- Buyers seeking top safety technology in a new car
Related: 2019 Toyota Sienna XLE: How it Saved My Family Time – and My Sanity
WHAT THIS MINIVAN COSTS
*prices may have changed
- Base price:$29,750
- LE model: $32,540
- SE $36,990
- Price of the nicely loaded model we drove: $51,244
This van is not cheap. I drove the Toyota Sienna LTD Premium AWD (all wheel drive) which was priced at $51,244. It’s hard to think of spending that kind of money on a minivan, except I sure do wish my minivan had AWD. Since we are now into a new model year I decided to see if the price had dropped any. I looked up priced in my area for the model I drove and it suggested $42,314 – $44,804, quite a bit lower than MSRP.
The starting price however is a much more affordable $29,750. There are 8 versions of this minivan available, including a V6 option!
In case you were wondering about resale, I looked that up too and discovered that this minivan won the 2017 Kelley Blue Book Best Resale Value award. It’s too early to tell what the current model year will sell for in three years, but that’s good to know.
WHAT I LOVED
- Cargo Space – Between the seven of us, we had 7 suitcases, all of which fit into the back easily.
- 3rd row folds flat – The 3rd row can fold down into the bottom of the cargo area and give you a flat area to haul stuff.
- Two sunroofs – one up front and one in the back.
- Shaded windows in the middle row.
- Apple Car Play
- Second row captains chairs
- Household plug and USB port in the second row
- Heated steering wheel
- It’s low to the ground, making it incredibly easy for kids to climb in and out.
- There’s an infotainment center with a Blue Ray DVD player and 4 sets of headphones.
- 7″ touchscreen with navigation
- The layout of the front. Everything is easy for the driver.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
- MPG: up to 19 in the city and up to 24 on the highway
- It can tow something! – Towing capacity is 3,500 lbs
- They tour that with one motion you can drop the back seats into the cargo area. That may be true, but it took two of us to get those seats back out and set up. If I had not had help I could not have managed it.
- Unlike the 2015 Sienna the kids and I tested a few years ago, this one does not have the foot rests on the middle row captain’s chairs. It’s really too bad, as this was our favorite feature.
- The Sienna comes with Toyota Safety Sense:
- Pre-collision system with pedestrian detection
- Lane departure alert with steering assist (which you can see in action in the video below)
- Automatic high beams
- Dynamic Radar Cruise Control
- Blind spot monitoring
- Rear cross traffic alert
Disclosure: The Sienna was provided to me by Toyota for the purpose of review. All opinions expressed are my own.
Fun and completely useless fact: I drove the Sienna to meet my newest cousin baby Sienna. Isn’t she cute!
WHAT WE LISTENED TO IN THE 2017 TOYOTA SIENNA
Now you might be wondering what we listened to during our 1000K mile road trip. My sister and I are children of the 90’s, so it was all 90’s all the time. Here is my 90’s playlist, so you too can listen to hits from the 90’s!
