Question Another mini van shopper!

We are going to begin shopping for a new to us vehicle after the holidays. We are 95% sure we are going with a 2012 or newer Honda Odyssey. Anything else we should even consider? SUV's with second row captains chairs? Although ideally, we would be buying an eight passenger. I've read through countless threads on here, but just want to make sure I am not missing anything.

2012 was the first year of the latest redesign on the Odyssey, correct?
On the eight seater, the captains chairs can NOT be pushed together if the extra seat is removed?
Any incompatibility issues with the headrests in the third row? They don't look very comfortable and I could see potential for carseats to not install well.
Anyone summarize the main differences between the EX, LX, etc models? Touring model will likely be out of our price range.

At info you can throw at me or direction you can point me in would be greatly appreciated! Is is the first time I am getting to shop for a relatively new to me vehicle and I want to make sure we don't settle and make the best decision for our family.

In case it matters, it is DH(5'9), myself (5'5 and primary driver), DS1 6/09 in a FR85, DS2 (10/12) rearfacing in Peg Convertible or Radian, and baby due in July who can ride in a SR35, CCO, or if I'm really lucky the new Peg infant seat that is coming out. There is potential for one more baby in a few more years.

Thank you!

I believe 2011 was the first year of the redesign. The captains chairs cannot be pushed together. You can remove either captains chair or the eighth seat. The headrests haven't caused us any trouble. When they are fully extended, they are actually out of the way pretty well. I don't have a firm grasp of the differences between the trim levels. Honda does have a great reference on their website. Except for a few things that have been added, the 2014 reference would be pretty close. I do know that the EX model is probably the best bang for your buck. I have a Touring but not Elite. We did not look at any other minivans because IMO, there are no close competitors. We personally steer clear of newer Toyotas but I know there are plenty of happy Sienna owners.

I wouldn't rule out the previous model Ody either. I love that we were able to get the Touring by getting one 4 years old at the time. The Old Touring is a 7 seater but the EXL+RES would be great. I really like my options with 4 kids.

I traded in a 2008 sienna for a 2012 odyssey and to be honest i really hate my odyssey. If you use the 3rd row on a daily basis, the 2nd row leaves a lot to be desired. The 8th seat is better than the old 8th seat but it is still an afterthought seat and I find it to be pretty lousy for rf car seat installs, which I would prefer so I can remove or keep flat a captain's chair, but the captains chairs have no inner armrests so if you remove the 8th seat for a center aisle, the captain's chair person's arm just hangs there.

I actually tried to buy my sienna back after I traded it in. Huge fiasco.

Not having two real captain's chairs, or being able to push two seats together, is really a pain. I'm considering getting seats from a junker LX, that doesn't have the 8th, so they have inner arm rests, oddly.

I know a lot of people like them but man, i still hate my ody. I have tried, but I hate it. Make sure you really think it through and test out seats.

We love our ody. The third row headrests are great. The headrests need to be in the up position but that is how they should be if you are using the seat anyway. They are also removable. I sit in the third row and they don't bother me. They don't push forward so so they aren't a problem with boosters. Consider the Honda care extended warranty if your are buying certified from a dealer. The 2011 is the first of the new design.

I can't remember all the differences between the trims but I believe most of the ex's came with blue tooth.. Maybe after 2011?... The L stands for leather in ex-l... The ex l can be had with either navigation or rear entertainment... Or neither but not both. I can't remember which trims have satellite radio and back up camera. I have a Touring Elite and I know the touring has the smaller movie screen and navigation. Other questions?

We also had a 2012 sienna and I hated that van. Too many issue and Toyota was beyond hideous to deal with.

The 2014 Odyssey is technically within the same gen as the 2011-2013 Odysseys, but safety-wise, it's a different generation (i.e., a better one). Keep that in mind.

cso1997 said:

I believe 2011 was the first year of the redesign. The captains chairs cannot be pushed together. You can remove either captains chair or the eighth seat. The headrests haven't caused us any trouble. When they are fully extended, they are actually out of the way pretty well. I don't have a firm grasp of the differences between the trim levels. Honda does have a great reference on their website. Except for a few things that have been added, the 2014 reference would be pretty close. I do know that the EX model is probably the best bang for your buck. I have a Touring but not Elite. We did not look at any other minivans because IMO, there are no close competitors. We personally steer clear of newer Toyotas but I know there are plenty of happy Sienna owners.

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Thanks for the headrest information! We are going to look at a Sienna as well, but there are many things we aren't crazy about on paper. We will see if that is true in person just to know we exhausted all options.

MommyShannon said:

I wouldn't rule out the previous model Ody either. I love that we were able to get the Touring by getting one 4 years old at the time. The Old Touring is a 7 seater but the EXL+RES would be great. I really like my options with 4 kids.

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I would consider a 2010, but DH seems very set on a newer year with lower mileage. I think I would be happy with a 2010 seven passenger that I could push the captains chairs together on though!

YinzerMama said:

I traded in a 2008 sienna for a 2012 odyssey and to be honest i really hate my odyssey. If you use the 3rd row on a daily basis, the 2nd row leaves a lot to be desired. The 8th seat is better than the old 8th seat but it is still an afterthought seat and I find it to be pretty lousy for rf car seat installs, which I would prefer so I can remove or keep flat a captain's chair, but the captains chairs have no inner armrests so if you remove the 8th seat for a center aisle, the captain's chair person's arm just hangs there.

I actually tried to buy my sienna back after I traded it in. Huge fiasco.

Not having two real captain's chairs, or being able to push two seats together, is really a pain. I'm considering getting seats from a junker LX, that doesn't have the 8th, so they have inner arm rests, oddly.

I know a lot of people like them but man, i still hate my ody. I have tried, but I hate it. Make sure you really think it through and test out seats.

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Thank you for this perspective. As I said up thread we plan on looking at a Sienna as well to make sure we have exhausted all options. Unfortunately on paper, we don't love the Sienna, or Toyota for that matter.

tl01 said:

We love our ody. The third row headrests are great. The headrests need to be in the up position but that is how they should be if you are using the seat anyway. They are also removable. I sit in the third row and they don't bother me. They don't push forward so so they aren't a problem with boosters. Consider the Honda care extended warranty if your are buying certified from a dealer. The 2011 is the first of the new design.

I can't remember all the differences between the trims but I believe most of the ex's came with blue tooth.. Maybe after 2011?... The L stands for leather in ex-l... The ex l can be had with either navigation or rear entertainment... Or neither but not both. I can't remember which trims have satellite radio and back up camera. I have a Touring Elite and I know the touring has the smaller movie screen and navigation. Other questions?

We also had a 2012 sienna and I hated that van. Too many issue and Toyota was beyond hideous to deal with.

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Thank you for all the info on the models and headrests! Leather is a must and we don't really care about navigation or rear entertainment. We aren't DVD in the car people unless we are on a long road trip in which case we use attached portable devices. I hear you on Toyota, but it seems like people either love or hate their Siennas.

loki said:

The 2014 Odyssey is technically within the same gen as the 2011-2013 Odysseys, but safety-wise, it's a different generation (i.e., a better one). Keep that in mind.

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I read the 2014 passes the IHHS plus test, but I don't think it's going to be in the budget. I am completely comfortable with the 2011-2013 Odyssey safety ratings though!

We have several dealer friends that will be helping us on our search. It is going to save us money and allow us to get more than if we were random people walking into a dealership. It is even possible it will be a one owner, lease turned in, clean car fax bought at an auction. Time will tell!

Thanks everyone. Keep that information coming!

Toyota was awful to deal with when dealing with out old van. There was a leak in the cargo area that happened while under warranty but the dealer blamed leaves in the liftgate and by the time it was clear it was really truly leaking, it was mildewed and beyond gross AND out of warranty. We went round and round and round and I was so fed up by the end we gave up and traded it in. There were a lot of things I just took for granted were normal in a van so didn't really check out in the Honda which I was kicking myself for later. For example out Sienna second row seats tumbled, the Ody ones slide. Tumbling is a lot easier. More room to get back there PLUS if your kid doesn't put it back just right it will just plonk down into place, whereas with the Ody if they don't pull the seat back into position it will just keep crashing back and forth on the track while you drive. And you have to push the BACK of the seat, not the butt of the seat, to lock it into position, so no leaning back at a red light and fixing it. Drives me cookoo. It is so much nicer to have easy access to the 3rd row if there are little ones using it every day.

Also the back windows of the ody (3rd row) don't open - I guess there were problems with the motors in one gen so they solved that by... making them not open. So now my girls STILL keep asking me to open their windows (like I could in the old van) and it makes me want to sceam every time. I would have never thought to check if the back windows open since every other van, they do.

We also discovered that while the ex-l boasts I think 7 speakers - they are pretty much all in the FRONT of the car. So that movie system we sprung for? The kids in the 3rd row couldn't hear it. We ended up buying parts - 3rd row sun shades, speakers, new speaker pillars - and ripping out the back half of the car and putting them in so the kids in the 3rd row can hear the movies or radio now. (there is a subwoofer back there but it doesn't do much) ANd it's really cool that we did that and makes the car feel like our own BUT you shouldn't have to rip the back out of a $32k van and put your own speakers in. Unless you buy the touring elite, you get shafted on speakers. The sound is great from the front seat so while you are driving you don't realize what is going on in the 3rd row.

And that 8th seat is no where near as car seat friendly as the 8th seat in my old sienna.

It just doesn't work as well and I wish we had considered certified used but I was so afraid of buying someone else's problem car. But I do still think of going back...

My next project is armrests or some other solution for those captain's chairs. If I can tackle that one, it will be pretty awesome... not as awesome as my old car but still a cool problem to have solved.

Out of what is new out there... I think I like it best... but the really threw away some good features with the 2011 redesign... Toyota and Honda both.

I wouldn't tell someone NOT to buy one but I would say be aware of these quirks.

The new gen Siennas only have 3 top tethers which would have really reduced my seating arrangements with 4 kids.
The older Ody 8 passengers can move the seat over too. It's just the small 8th seat you remove instead of a console. The styling is very different so maybe you can convince DH to try both. With 3 kids, I think I'd like the newer ones, with 4 I'm glad we have the old one.

MommyShannon said:

With 3 kids, I think I'd like the newer ones, with 4 I'm glad we have the old one.

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That's about how I feel ... only I have the newer one LOL.

Here's the current ody with a high back booster and using the vehicle headrests. You can see that the booster sits flush with the vehicle seat. FWIW... I have configured the van so that I removed a captains chair and put two seats in the 2nd row and had easier access to the 3rd row.

Oh, and for perspective, ours is a 2006 Touring with 145,000 miles. We love it. DH has done lots of preventative maintenance mainly around 100,000 miles. We got it in Jan 2010 so it was probably really 5 years old. I think a 2010 EXL or Touring would be great though I have no complaints about ours.

tl01 said:

Here's the current ody with a high back booster and using the vehicle headrests. You can see that the booster sits flush with the vehicle seat. FWIW... I have configured the van so that I removed a captains chair and put two seats in the 2nd row and had easier access to the 3rd row. http://s66.photobucket.com/user/tlk...4-4E56-9811-32454A0D3D82_zpsbfllokya.jpg.html

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Not trying to hijack.... How easy is it for a booster kid to get in/out of the 3rd row with the way you have your second row configured?

We're looking at the '14 Oddy (due to the structural changes that passed the overlap testing), but I have one kid who will be 3rd row and he needs to get in/out at school drop off line. We will have two car seats in the second row.

sunnydayz said:

Not trying to hijack.... How easy is it for a booster kid to get in/out of the 3rd row with the way you have your second row configured?

We're looking at the '14 Oddy (due to the structural changes that passed the overlap testing), but I have one kid who will be 3rd row and he needs to get in/out at school drop off line. We will have two car seats in the second row.

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I think it is quite easy. I sometimes put my car pool kid back there and I have to buckle him into the sure ride... So I climb back there. It isn't fun but I'm almost 5'11" tall. My son loves sitting back there in a booster and jumps in and out without issue but mostly I make him sit in the 2nd row.

sunnydayz said:

Not trying to hijack.... How easy is it for a booster kid to get in/out of the 3rd row with the way you have your second row configured?

We're looking at the '14 Oddy (due to the structural changes that passed the overlap testing), but I have one kid who will be 3rd row and he needs to get in/out at school drop off line. We will have two car seats in the second row.

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Hijack away...good question!

I debate between the newest generation and having a three across, taking out a second row seat and putting DS1 in the third row, or trying to convince DH to look at a 2010 and putting the two captains chairs next to each other.

We bought a 2010 Ody at the end of August with right under 40,000 miles on it. I love it! We did take out the small 2nd row seat so we can get to the third row as needed.

I have both kids in the captains chairs normally, but have moved Ds1 in his Frontier 85 to the 3rd row when we had grandparents riding with us.

In 2011 we were debating between the new Odyssey and the old one.

We wound up with a very gently used 2010 because I liked the seating arrangements more.

I had a boostered kid and two rear-facers. I wanted the boostered kid in the back row, so I needed to be able to push the two captains chairs together to create a side aisle for him to use to get back there. With the newer generation, I could have removed a captains chair for that purpose, but we didn't have room to store it.

I'm still really really happy with our '10. No complaints, really, except I wish it had a better center console up front.

FWIW, ours has leather and a backup camera, no navigation or DVD.

I have not been happy with how any of the seats I want to use install rf on that middle seat. I don't know if it is because we got leather or not. If it weren't for that ... it would be a lot easier. Supposedly ff installs go better. That 2nd row used as intended makes for very comfortable seating, and the legroom in the 3rd row is great as the kids get older, but they really didn't think through the fact that a lot of people with this van are going to have kids who need to access the 3rd row every day and they should have made that as easy as possible. Taking out the ability to move the chairs, without making that center seat a TRUE seat or having inner arm rests on the captain's chairs, was a big boo boo that didn't have to happen. Instead they introduced wide mode which doesn't offer any benefits that having a full size middle seat wouldn't have given you.

jordansmom said:

Hijack away...good question! I debate between the newest generation and having a three across, taking out a second row seat and putting DS1 in the third row, or trying to convince DH to look at a 2010 and putting the two captains chairs next to each other.

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Have you looked at the new generation Nissan Pathfinders ('13-'14)? The have second row seats that fold and tumble forward even with a car seat installed. They seat 7 and get minivan gas mileage.

I'm waiting to see them in person to feel out the 3rd row ( I need a 3rd row that will hold adult sized teens).

YinzerMama said:

I have not been happy with how any of the seats I want to use install rf on that middle seat. I don't know if it is because we got leather or not. If it weren't for that ... it would be a lot easier. Supposedly ff installs go better. That 2nd row used as intended makes for very comfortable seating, and the legroom in the 3rd row is great as the kids get older, but they really didn't think through the fact that a lot of people with this van are going to have kids who need to access the 3rd row every day and they should have made that as easy as possible. Taking out the ability to move the chairs, without making that center seat a TRUE seat or having inner arm rests on the captain's chairs, was a big boo boo that didn't have to happen. Instead they introduced wide mode which doesn't offer any benefits that having a full size middle seat wouldn't have given you.

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That's so discouraging.