New-to-us Sienna!

AdventureMom

Senior Community Member

• Feb 13, 2007

• #1

We thought long and hard about the Sedona but then the folks with the Sienna we'd been looking at agreed to go down on the price to make it comparable to the Sedona price and they also were giving us the most for our Outback. (Yes, we wanted a minivan to begin with but had talked ourselves out of it, because we don't have a large family so we don't *need* it. Well, we *wanted* it. Less then a month old, our Outback did take a little of a hit when we traded it but not nearly as bad as thought it would. I think the hardest pill to swallow is that a few months ago we could've bought a new Sienna in the color we really wanted if we had not convinced ourselves to get something we didn't really want to begin with (wagon) - but, life goes on )

We were so determined not to spend another night agonizing over which minivan to buy that we went out in the snow/ice to get this over with - we were the only people in the whole dealership. The icy conditions did make it hard to get rid of the AWD Outback. Great vehicle, just not what we wanted.

Anyway, here's the cars.com picture of our 2006 Sienna LE (13,000 miles)!

 

scatterbunny

New member

• Feb 13, 2007

• #2

Ooohhh, it's beautiful!

 

Patriot201

Car-Seat.org Ambassador

• Feb 13, 2007

• #3

Congratulations!!! It is beautiful!!!

Be careful in the ice. It is pretty nasty out!

 

CRS

Senior Community Member

• Feb 13, 2007

• #4

ohhhhhh very nice!

 

AdventureMom

Senior Community Member

• Feb 13, 2007

• #5

Thanks... We like it, too. DH said that if I didn't decide today, he was going to buy one tomorrow and just bring it home and be done with it. So my plan today was:

1) see how low I could get the Honda dealer to go on an 07 Odyssey LX (very low) and how much they'd give us for our Outback (just pennies...)
2) contact (for the umpteenth time) the dealer with the Sienna and make them one final offer (which they countered with a reasonable price) and see how much they'd give us for the Outback (quite close to what we paid for it! And much more than anyone else offered us)
3) if the other two above didn't play out, then we'd get the Sedona. But the color we wanted with the roofrack was three hours away. So that played into our decision alot.

We almost bought the 2004 Quest SE (with all the trimmings) but after researching and finding out that the 04 Quest is quite a lemon for many folks, we opted not to. The warranty had expired and DH read that it took Nissan that first year (and lots of money) to figure out how to fix the kinks with in time for the 05 model year. I think I may have gone for it (those skylights are nice!) but DH wasn't going to even entertain that idea anymore.

So, now the search is over and we went with the vehicle we planned on purchasing from the beginning.

 

T

tchrgrrl

New member

• Feb 13, 2007

• #6

Congrats!

 

S

southpawboston

New member

• Feb 13, 2007

• #7

AdventureMom said:

We were so determined not to spend another night agonizing over which minivan to buy that we went out in the snow/ice to get this over with - we were the only people in the whole dealership. The icy conditions did make it hard to get rid of the AWD Outback. Great vehicle, just not what we wanted.

Click to expand...

congrats! if you got your sienna for about the same price as the sedona, you'll make out ahead in the long run, because the sienna will retain a much higher resale value!

if you drive in ice/snow you really should consider getting dedicated snow tires for the winter season. they do make your vehicle considerably more safe! for the price of a BV you can make your whole family safer

 

AdventureMom

Senior Community Member

• Feb 13, 2007

• #8

southpawboston said:

congrats! if you got your sienna for about the same price as the sedona, you'll make out ahead in the long run, because the sienna will retain a much higher resale value!

if you drive in ice/snow you really should consider getting dedicated snow tires for the winter season. they do make your vehicle considerably more safe! for the price of a BV you can make your whole family safer

Click to expand...

Ya know, I was just telling DH this morning about you and your snow tire recommendation... He thought it sounded like a good idea - the only issue is that here in the DC area, we don't deal with it as often as you do up in Boston. So which ones are you recommending?

Oh, and we were driving ever so slowly on the way home b/c it *was* slippery. The Sienna did quite well, however.

 

S

southpawboston

New member

• Feb 13, 2007

• #9

my recommendation would vary depending on your needs (snow traction, ice traction, wet traction, dry traction, comfort, quietness, etc). i would suggest you go to tirerack.com and use their "compare" feature to compare different brands and models that fit your van. they will compare all the above features with user ratings--kind of like epinions, but better. pretty neat. then find a local tire dealer and ask them if they can get that tire for the same price (or close) as tirerack.com. it's more convenient than ordering tires by mail

if you can swing some extra cash, buy a set of rims too so that you don't have to de-mount and re-mount them each season, which can get expensive. for a minivan, you probably don't want a "sport" winter tire, so i might recommend the michelin X-ice ($81 at tirerack) or the blizzak REVO1 ($91).

 

Jeanum

Admin - CPS Technician Emeritus

Staff member

• Feb 14, 2007

• #10

Congrats on your Sienna. Yours looks like the same Desert Sand Mica color as ours. I don't have any specific snow tire recommendations for your Sienna. Ours has the stock all seasons and they work reasonably well, although I tend to avoid driving in snow storms whenever possible and my tires are barely broken in with about 10K miles on them. I did have to attend a meeting that wasn't canceled by our lovely snow storm last night. The slow drive home in blizzardy conditions was not fun mainly due to poor visibility from high winds and blowing snow creating white outs, but I didn't experience much slippage. I even made it up our sloped driveway through a big snow drift to the haven of our garage without getting stuck or losing tire grip.

Enjoy your new van, and have fun installing carseats, etc.

 

lynsgirl

New member

• Feb 14, 2007

• #11

Congrats on the gorgeous van! I was laughing at myself, because I was looking at your pictures and thinking "oooh, so nice!" and then "duh - hello?" It's the *same van* I have and here I am drooling over yours rotfl. Oh well! I guess it means I'm still very, very happy with my van . Enjoy yours! New vehicles are always a fun occasion.

 

A

arly1983

New member

• Feb 14, 2007

• #12

I love love your new van. We have been driving minivans lately looking for something to replace our CRV. This is definatly going on our list.

 

AdventureMom

Senior Community Member

• Feb 14, 2007

• #13

Jeanum said:

Congrats on your Sienna. Yours looks like the same Desert Sand Mica color as ours. ...................Enjoy your new van, and have fun installing carseats, etc.

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I think ours is Silver Shadow Pearl... Nolan's MA installed like a breeze, although he was upset at the time b/c we were getting rid of "Sylvie" (the silver Outback)...

 

Splash

New member

• Feb 14, 2007

• #14

You had the Outback for a MONTH before trading it in? Wow, I thought *I* hated my Subaru! I also wanted a van, but since we have only ONE child, and we ALREADY have one minivan, I talked myself out of it and into a vehicle I truly dislike a great deal (Forester).

So, what car seat(s) are you keeping?

 

AdventureMom

Senior Community Member

• Feb 14, 2007

• #15

Splash said:

You had the Outback for a MONTH before trading it in? Wow, I thought *I* hated my Subaru! I also wanted a van, but since we have only ONE child, and we ALREADY have one minivan, I talked myself out of it and into a vehicle I truly dislike a great deal (Forester).

So, what car seat(s) are you keeping?

Click to expand...

Splash, I felt the same way about our Outback, unfortunately, and so did DH... I do think it's an awesome car - drives/handles like a dream. But, just not what we wanted. Since I'm the one who nixed the minivan deal (just before signing papers) b/c we only have one child, etc., back in December, he said he was leaving it up to me - that if I could get us out of the Outback and into a minivan with very very minimal negative equity on the Outback, then he'd go for it. So we settled for a used minivan rather than new (and without driving 3hrs each way to get a new Sedona, which we came very close to doing). I have to say, I already love having a minivan...

We ended up sending ALL of the seats back. And we got every penny back, except for shipping. I was completely honest about the ones we used a couple of times but I guess it all looked fine to them. Since I wasn't extremely happy with any of them, we're keeping him in the MA for now and waiting to see what's up with the new Recaro. Then we'll decide on that or a Regent...

 

A

arly1983

New member

• Feb 14, 2007

• #16

Oh, I hope the recaro comes out before they ship my Regent in April. I would love to know if I would like that better or not. Me and DH are also having that problem right now with cars: He loves CRV, I think it is too small, but then he doesn't want to get rid of his F150(his father who passed away, got it for him when he got a full schoolarship to college). We can't see having three cars and so ......who knows, I know one thing though, I am saving lots of money on gas because I hate to drive with Camille screaming in my ear and no one will ride in back with me bacause there is like 12 inches in the middle of two carseats. I wish I could post a picture of me wearing my seatbelt shoved in there like a sardine