R & B chanteuse Jill Scott once sang that “you can hate on me hater, because I am not afraid (that) what I got I paid for.” If ever there was a minivan hated on by all its peers and has earned its place as the best minivan on the market it would have to be the perennial champ the Honda Odyssey.
Since the release of the 1999 version there hasn’t been a redesigned competitor that has even come close to the all consuming dominance of the stylish, powerful and relatively frugal Odyssey. To be blunt, to buy another minivan would be dumb.
To look at these minivans from the outside you might look at the Kia Sedona as a fine bargain. You would be wrong. The Sedona suffers the worst depreciation of any single vehicle on the market today with nearly 60% of the value gone after three years. Heck, maybe a three year old Sedona isn’t such a bad idea after all with that much taken off the original value.
The Odyssey continually leads the industry in resale value (with the boring and nowhere near as useful Toyota Sienna) and has very few mechanical issues even in models that are nearly a decade old. Ask an owner of a decade old Caravan if they have had any mechanical issues and they will have a different story to tell.
The Odyssey is powered by a 3.5 liter 244 horsepower engine (17 city/25 highway) that in some versions come with “variable cylinder management” that allows the car to run only on three cylinders under low load situations and in traffic. Although it should be standard on even the base model, this can potentially save you a great deal of gas depending on your typical driving situation and style.
You can even pimp out your Odyssey with Honda voice linked navigation (one of the best systems in the industry), rear seat entertainment, leather, 360 watt sound system and much more. And the best part is the fact that you will get your money back on your investment in those options come resale time. That is mainly where the Odyssey and Sedona differ.
Granted, there is a $5 grand price difference between the Sedona and Odyssey but according to Consumer Reports there have been many years when the Sedona had so many quality issues they could not recommend it. (This is abnormal for Kias which are generally reliable.)
Powered by a 3.8 liter V6 with 244 horsepower (where have we seen that figure before?) the Sedona sticks to the Odyssey playbook with a fervor that borders on faux celebrity stalker-ism. If these vans were celebrities, however, the Odyssey would be Jennifer Aniston and the Kia Sedona would be Jennifer Love Hewitt. The Kia Sedona and Jennifer Love Hewitt mainly share their shallow pool of talent and inability to do anything but be poseurs.
The Sedona’s fuel economy, however is only 15 city/23 highway. 15 miles per gallon? You might as well buy a Suburban for those kinds of fuel economy figures. Not that the Odyssey is incredibly more efficient but it is a faster, heavier and sturdier feeling machine with better crash test ratings.
While there is a $21,000 basic Sedona you really have to pony up for the $28,000 EX to get upholstery that doesn’t feel like skinned rat fur, power sliding doors (a must for parents) and all of the safety features like rear parking sensors. Regardless of which minivan you buy you should always invest in the backup camera option (with navigation on the Odyssey, not optional on the Sedona).
This one oversight could mean the life or death of a child and it’s omission on the Sedona is truly shameful. It should be standard on the Odyssey but at least Honda can claim this is an older model heading for redesign next year.
There are aftermarket rear-parking camera systems available that can put the picture in a screen on your rear view mirror. This is a highly recommended investment that would probably be better made with an Odyssey which, thanks to its superior resale value, starts off as the best investment anyway. Not just for your pocketbook but for the safety and comfort of your family as well.
