dd
Grand Caravan VS Toyota Sienna
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/Web...?displayRecent
Copied from a post from a guy that had both the new Toyota and Dodge vans.
Ownership comparison between 2005 Toyota Sienna LE 8 and 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT.
Intro:
This is a rare opportunity for me to review two vehicles within the same class after having used each of them for several months and several thousand miles. I bought a 2005 Toyota Sienna in July 2005. End of August the vehicle was in a severe accident while it was parked and unoccupied. Vehicle was eventually totaled. While they attempted to fix the Sienna, we were given a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan SE which we drove for a month until they totaled the Sienna. We then went shopping for a new minivan and ended up with the Grand Caravan.
We ended up driving the Sienna for 3000 miles and owned it for 2 months. We drove the 2005 Grand Caravan SE (base model) for a month and 1500 miles and have now driven the 2006 Grand Caravan SXT (higher end model) for 3 weeks and 1500 miles. So it seems like a good time to document the differences between the vehicles.
Vehicle details:
2005 Toyota Sienna LE 8 passenger with package #2 and dealer installed class II hitch. Has 16” wheels, not alloy, rear drum brakes. Passenger power sliding door. Sale price was $25600 + doc fee and taxes.
2006 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT. Additional options include, tow prep package, power adjustable pedals, power liftgate, side curtain airbags all rows, red (extra cost). This vehicle has 16” wheels, alloy, rear disc brakes, dual power sliding doors. Sale price $24000 + doc fee and taxes. That’s $1800 under invoice minus $2000 rebate.
Driving
Visibility
Sienna: Visibility was very good to the sides. Rear visibility hampered by high 3rd row seats. My trick is to partially recline the 3rd row since we rarely have people sit back there.
Large rear side mirrors help visibility.
Grand Caravan has good visibility to rear and to right, but on left the headrest and side pillar block the view a little requiring more movement to get a good view. Side mirrors are smaller than in the Sienna.
Engine/Transmission
Interesting relabeling of engine power this year vs. last year although neither engine has changed.
Sienna: Engine went from 230hp to 215hp with 222ft-lbs of torque.
Grand Caravan: 3.8L (larger engine comes with Grand Caravan SXT) rating are debatable. Some places saying 215hp with 245ft-lbs of torque and others stating 205hp with 240ft-lbs of torque. The leading theory is that stow-n-go changes made the exhaust more circuitous cutting down hp rating.
Bottom line, the horsepower rating is now very close between the two although the Caravan has significantly more torque.
I also find it interesting that some magazine articles have described the Caravan engine as marginal even though there’s isn’t much power difference.
Sienna: The engine revs well, has plenty of power. Flooring from a stop yields amazing 0-60 times. Driving around town, the transmission can be annoying. It sometimes has a delay when deciding which gear to shift into making the Sienna overall not very responsive. I have never been able to predict which it would respond quickly and when it won’t. There’s no obvious pattern. Rolling stops are guaranteed to cause a delay that is annoying to me (You can guess how I tend to stop).
The engine feels weak on the highway. I attribute it to 5th gear being too high a gear for the available torque. The engine barely has enough torque to propel the car in 5th at a steady speed. Asking it to go up even a mild hill or accelerate requires coming out of torque lock or downshifting. Passing someone requires a heavy foot for some serious downshifting.
The engine seems to have little power below 3000 rpm. From 3000rpm up, the AC seems to get turns off and you tend to rocket (surge) with lots of power.
The transmission supports torque lock only in 5th. It does not torque lock in any lower gear including 4th. This is bad for towing. Given the low torque, it can’t tow much in 5th and will tend to sit in 4th, and without torque lock, causing lots of heat loss in the transmission and very poor gas mileage.
When coming to a stop or going downhill, the transmission will downshift to help braking. Maybe Toyota does this because the brakes are poor. The effect can be a little annoying around town.
Grand Caravan:
Engine feels more responsive in normal driving. Makes the minivan feel like a smaller more nible sedan than the large minivan that it is.
Engine has plenty of torque for effortless normal starts. It’s good at passing on highway. Is able to go up hills at highway speed while staying in torque lock providing superior gas mileage.
It’s a 4speed transmission, not a 5speed. Its 0-60 time is not as impressive as the Sienna. If pressed hard you don’t get that rush that you do in the Sienna.
The engine/transmission handle mild/normal acceleration well. Heavy foot driving, its plenty fast enough. There’s an in between where the engine is working harder and harder yet the transmission won’t or can’t shift down that can be a little frustrating. But at that point you’re accelerating pretty fast anyway so it’s not a travesty.
Towing: The transmission will use torque lock in 4th and 3rd gear allowing for more reasonable towing and better gas mileage than the Sienna.
Braking: When taking your foot off the gas, the Caravan coasts as if it were in neutral. This is great for gas mileage. If you have cruise control on, and are heading downhill, the cruise is apparently able to downshift the transmission to cause engine braking to prevent you from going too much over the set speed. This seems like a good compromise between coasting and engine braking.
Overall I have to comment that I give nod on this one to the Caravan. It is more drivable. It’s the old adage, “you buy horsepower but you drive torque”. This means that although most folks go by horsepower as the rating, torque is more useful when you’re actually driving in normal situations. Most folks don’t constantly drag race their minivans.
Mileage
Sienna:
Usual town/highway mix gave us 19mpg. Best we had on a tank was during a drive at 55-60 with almost no stops at 23mpg. Best we ever saw on the trip computer was 26 during that same drive in between stops.
Overall this mileage was much worse than I expected. I don’t understand how it could be possible to achieve 26mpg overall which is what its rated on the highway.
My theory is that the Sienna is optimized for the EPA tests and not for real world driving. Maybe if you can sit in 5th in torque lock at 55 you maybe can achieve 26mpg. But in normal driving, there’s too little torque to spare, the transmission always has to come out of torque lock or be in a lower gear greatly hurting gas mileage.
I also noticed that even a single jack rabbit start could ruin your gas mileage for the whole tank. If you push the engine gas mileage becomes horrible.
Grand Caravan:
Usual town/highway mix is giving us around 23mpg in similar conditions to the 19 from the Sienna. Best mileage I’ve achieved is 27.5 on the drive at 55-60 with some stops (McDonalds drivethrough) and several jack rabbit starts. Best reported on the computer over a sizeable drive was 29.3mpg.
I attribute the superior mileage to the torque available with the 3.8L v6. You can drive it with it staying in torque lock. It can go up hills and even pass someone slowly. Jack rabbit starts do not seem to greatly hurt gas mileage.
Things that hurt gas mileage include hitting the brakes (rather than coasting) and making the engine pop out of torque lock.
Overall I’m very impressed with the gas mileage given that EPA numbers are 18/25 vs. the 19/26 of the Sienna.
Brakes
Sienna
Brakes are one of the Sienna’s weakest points. They are generally mushy and unresponsive. The harder you press, the less it seems to add to braking causing some potentially scary episodes when you hit the brakes and expect to stop faster than you are, requiring even more pressure. I feel like Fred Flintstone with my feet through the bottom of the van trying to stop it myself.
Let go of the brakes after pressing them hard and they slowly come back up with a slurping sound.
The brakes help to make it feel like you’re driving a giant slow to go slow to stop vehicle.
Caravan:
Brakes are totally different from the Sienna. Brakes are responsive. They stop the van quickly. The harder you brake the more it adds to braking making it brake even faster than you thought making it feel very secure. Reported braking distances are the same or longer than the Sienna, but it feels much better.
Brakes are one of the Caravan’s strong points.
Handling
Sienna:
Handling generally good around turns. Not much body lean (unlike the 2006 Odyssey). You feel like you’re driving a minivan but you don’t feel unsafe.
Steering it too light for my taste. In a parking lot you can steer with a pinky. Can feel disconnected from the road. Although not unpleasant, it doesn’t inspire you to find a twisty road.
Emergency handling can be sloppy depending on tires. I test emergency handling by going 30-40mph, and jerking the steering wheel to the left then right and see how the body responds. With Dunlop tires its somewhat wallowy, but not scary nor any particularly bad response. With Michelin tires that they “upgraded” us to (its not an upgrade), there’s a scary whiplash after affect that whips the rear end a while after you completed the swish. It tries hard (and succeeds sometimes) in trying to get the rear end to break traction. That could be dangerous in slippery road conditions.
Grand Carvan:
The 2005 Grand Caravan SE that we rented had very good handling. Generally better than the Sienna. The 2006 Grand Caravan SXT has larger wheels and alloys. Its handling is excellent in some regards.
Steering feel is very good. Somewhat stiff which feels better for serious driving, but may feel less luxurious to some. Comes back to center well.
Very little body lean in turns. Makes you want to whip around turns. In fact I have taken turns so fast that I’ve slid around the turn. I’m confident doing that in our VW Golf, but it was a new experience in something as large at the Caravan. It handled it reasonably well and surprisingly not scary.
Emergency handling with the Bridgestone Turanza tires is good. It wallows somewhat after the test but with no scary after effects.
End result is that although you may not go seek twisty roads, if you happen across them, you might actually enjoy the drive.
Ride (bumps)
Sienna:
Generally very accommodating. Front handling small and large bumps with ease. The rear however seems a little stiff making the ride harsher for passengers in the rear. You can feel little bumps in the rear more and they sometimes cause vibrations throughout the Sienna. It’s as if the rear end has to be stiff enough for the potential load. Similar to driving a pickup truck with the truck bed empty.
Grand Caravan:
Handles large bumps well front and rear. Ride for rear passengers is just as smooth as the front. Ride in our Caravan with load leveling suspension is firmer than the Sienna. You can sometimes feel smaller bumps throughout. It’s a small price to pay for the better handling. I think having the load leveling suspension avoids the need to have the rear suspension be as taught as the Sienna’s.
Cruise Control
Sienna: Drive by wire system. Holds speed well. Usually has to pop out of torque lock to go up a hill.
Grand Caravan: Relatively antiquated drive by throttle cable. Motor running the cruise control can get behind causing it to overreact and not keep speed in tact.
Interior layout
Sienna:
Flexible 8 passenger configuration, but little floor space. Seats crowd the floor. Tray table between the front seats of marginal utility. Fast start/stop will make things fall from the tray table. Pocket in it is small. Most useful are the cup holders in the tray table, but they’re available elsewhere in the Caravan.
With the full 2nd row, the 3rd row feels inaccessible and way back there. Requires opening a door to get into the 3rd row or some gymnastic maneuvers (which we’ve done).
Grand Caravan:
Much more open feeling to the cabin. Lots of floor space. Wide aisle between the 1st and 2nd row seats. Haven’t missed the tray table from the Sienna. We prefer the open aisle to easily move back to the 2nd or 3rd row seats. We can also fit a medium size cooler between the front seats which won’t fit in any way in the Sienna.
The Grand Caravan has the innovative stow-n-go feature in the 2nd row. This is an ingenious, somewhat complex folding mechanism that allows you to very easily fold the seats into the floor. It is really nice to be able to fold them down. Its nice when coming back from the building supply store or even when camping or hanging out in the car to have loads of open floor space in the minivan.
