Last year we voted the 2007 Kia Sedona as Cars.com’s Best Deal for Big Families in our Lifestyle Awards. The Sedona was also named Editor’s Choice in our Minivan Faceoff. Kia’s minivan bested the Toyota Sienna and Dodge Grand Caravan in our Faceoff thanks to its reasonable price, excellent IIHS crash-test ratings, standard options and safety features, and long-term warranty. Since the Faceoff, a redesigned 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country have become available with unlimited powertrain warranties, and there’s also a recently worked-over Nissan Quest. The Hyundai Entourage and Sedona share chassis and powertrains, as well as many of the same features, also making the Entourage an excellent value.
Despite its new competition, the Sedona is still one of the best minivans for the money. The base, standard-wheelbase model starts at $20,695 and comes with a load of safety features for its price, including an electronic stability system, antilock brakes, seat-mounted side-impact airbags and side curtain airbags. However, it lacks cargo volume behind the third row and the third row is not very comfortable. An extended-wheelbase LX model with more useable cargo space starts at $23,595.
The Toyota Sienna and Honda Odyssey offer slightly higher-quality interiors and start in the $25,000 range, but the extra price doesn't mean those minivans have higher safety ratings. The Sedona and Entourage are the only minivans to earn the IIHS’ Top Safety Picks award. If you value all-wheel drive or technology like cylinder deactivation for better gas mileage (features the Sedona doesn’t have), the Sienna and Odyssey have those options, respectively, but of course at a price premium.
Update: The 2008 Honda Odyssey recently earned a Top Safety Pick award from the IIHS.
Learn more
Kia and Hyundai's depreciation is improving. But no, it's not as high as say Honda. However, many people when shopping put more weight on monthly payments and not resale value down the road.
Can you give me a comparison between the Toyota Sienna and the Honda Odyssey?
My opinion....buying any car is a lose-lose situation. There is no bigger money waster for any family than cars...at an estimated cost of $8000 a year to own an average vehicle my advice is this:
-Buy what you need and nothing more
-Take really good care of it following all maintainence schedules.
-Drive it until it is not financially feasiable to do so.
See if your question has already been asked and answered
Your question has been successfully submitted to Ask.cars.com. It will now be reviewed by our editors and we'll answer it soon if we think it's a useful question. You will be notified via e-mail when the answer is posted. Ask.cars.com tackles your questions about new cars and the car-buying process. Unfortunately we can't answer questions regarding:
Have our experts answer any of your questions about new cars.
Don't worry — we won't publish your last name or email.
The real answer is - there is no best minivan for the money. Think this way. When you are going to buy, you are going to think that for the money Kia or Huyndai are the best. But when time to sell it comes around, you are going to find yourself in a big money loss situation because resale value on those cousins (and American Makes too!!!) is super-bad.
It all comes down to the question, how long are you going to keep it around? If you plan to run it to the ground - get Kia. If keep for few years, don't get Kia. But this is going to be loss/loss situaation once you in a minivan market.