@porcupine73 We are also in love with siennas. Test drove one and are planning to get one soon. The space and ease of access to the kids is amazing and minivans are the queen of optimizing space, gas milage and safety. The Toyota specifically is extremely reliable and safe. We also tested oit the Honda, and while it was definitely okay, for the negligible price difference I felt the Toyota had a slightly more reliable history as the car brand is known to be great, and the layout and inside was just much better. Even though they were the same year the Toyota looked much newer and updated. That said the Honda is very comparable in safety and would be my second choice. I was also drawn to the ability to get the Toyota with a hybrid, which would bring gas savings.
I was really on the fence about minivans a couple years ago, and was thinking of getting a bigger SUV, but the space to gas to comfortability ratio is just unparalleled when you compare a minivan and a SUV. I really was looking at the Subaru ascent but just can’t justify the lack of space compared to a minivan.
Just beyond the aesthetic, whatever you can do in an SUV you can pretty much almost always do in a minivan and it be more comfortable, cheaper, and slightly safer.
It’s also really great for not only your kids, but when you inevitably start doing outings and play dates, you can pick up other kids or if you have guests carpool, etc.
As for features… I think most of those come standard now. I would say for sure the auto closing doors so you don’t have to worry about slamming them and worried about little fingers getting caught, and backup cams for safety. But like I said I’m relatively sure those are all standard nowadays.
