Caravan vs. Sienna comparison. Both very good

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.
However, the stow-n-go has come at a significant price, the loss of seating flexibility in the 2nd row. The captains chairs cannot be pushed together. There’s no equivalent to the 8 passenger configuration in the Sienna.
The loss of the 8 passenger configuration has been our biggest worry in switching to the Caravan. Only time and the arrival of our 2nd child will prove if the captains chairs meet our needs.

Seating comfort
Front seats comfortable in both. Sienna has a telescoping steering wheel but the Grand Caravan has power adjustable pedals.

Back rows
Sienna:
The 2nd and 3rd rows both seem quite comfortable. You don’t feel like second class citizens.
The 3rd row in particular is very comfortable even for 3 adults. Seems to be plenty of room although we’re not big people.
I do find the A/C vents to be somewhat annoying. The oblong style vents can’t effectively be pointed away from you. I hate having ice cold air hitting my head yet there’s no way to point it so that I don’t get the chilly treatment. This causes some hot spots as well since you can’t really cool the ceiling effectively.

Grand Caravan:
The 2nd row seats are small, thinly padded, the seat back is short. The seat is not flat, it is higher at your knees. It doesn’t look like it should be comfortable, but turns out it is quite comfortable. The smaller seats help make the cabin feel more open without a significant downside.

On the otherhand the 3rd row is less comfortable to me than the Sienna. It feels narrower, both side trim areas are fat cutting into hip room. While leg room is adequate, toe room is at a premium even with the 2nd row seats all the way forward. There’s a handle for the 2nd row stow-n-go that prevents you from putting your feet under the seat making it cramped.
The seat is also even less flat than the 2nd row. The seat back’s most vertical position is reclined too much for comfort. I assume they did that to prevent rear visibility from being affected, but it would have been trivial and no cost for them to allow the seats to sit more upright. Would be more comfortable and you could also manually recline the seats for a better rear view. In the current position, if you rest against the seat back, there’s also very little head room.
The sliding door windows do not open. The rear quarter windows are power and controlled only from the front.
A/C vents: Some Caravans come with oblong vents similar to the Sienna. Some come with circular vents similar to the Honda Odyssey. I much prefer the circular vents. They’re very flexible allowing you to point the airflow in any direction. By complete luck our Grand Caravan has the round vents.

Convenience
Power driver side door very useful. Don’t understand why the Sienna only has passenger side. It’s like a tease that bugs you. Maybe it’s ok for older children, but seems like they’d be able to open the door themselves. But when carrying a baby or toddler, having the driver side power door is very useful when walking up to the car.

Grand Caravan
Both side doors are power in this configuration. Very useful. The Caravan also has a neat system for combining power and manual mode. The doors always work either way. If you hit the button they power open/closed. If you grab the handle it works manually (unlike the Sienna). And best of all, if you try to close the door or rear lift gate and you don’t close it hard enough, the power system takes over and finishes closing it for you. This is unlike the Sienna where you have to start over and try again.
It’s also worth mentioning that the doors on the Grand Caravan are significantly lighter feeling and easier to manually open/close than the Sienna doors. The Sienna liftgate is especially hard to manually close.

Cargo utility
I miss the hooks that were available in the Sienna to string a cargo net across. The Sienna has several along the side and bottom of the cargo area. The Caravan essentially has none. This means that you can’t really pack the rear vertically without the whole mess falling out.

The Sienna also has an extra hook on the dash by the front passenger seat that’s very useful for hanging takeout food. I miss it in the Caravan.

Construction
Don’t remember the Sienna that well anymore, but generally whenever I look the underside of a Japanese brand car, I never see any rust. I assume the Sienna was like this. In the Caravan, several pieces are already solid rust, including the front suspension arms, the rear spring rockers and other miscellaneous pieces. The Caravan also has many open gaps in the underside which seem prime for catching water and road salt, probably promoting rust down the line.

Initial Quality
With the Sienna we had, I can’t blame any defects on Toyota. I believe the delivery defects were caused by the dealer.
The Sienna had no rattles, no defects of any kind no matter how slight that I’d blame on Toyota. Build quality, fit and finish were excellent.

I have as yet not taken the Caravan in for any delivery defects, unlike the Sienna which had two dealer caused deliver defects.
Fit and finish on the Caravan is very good, better than I expected in a Chrysler. One trivial defect with a plastic airbag label that won’t recess properly. Otherwise excellent including spacing between doors, alignment of body panels etc. Our rental had an interior body panel that would not set properly against the door frame.

Noise
The Caravan has several low volume rattles which are usually not annoying because they require special situations to inspire them and because they’re not very loud. The other Caravan’s we’ve driven had no rattles, so it’s a little disappointing that the one we bought has some, but they’re minor enough not to bother me.
Caravan is generally quiet. Engine is pleasant sounding at any throttle level. I’ve read reviewing saying the Caravan is noisier but I again find that unfounded or not relevant to this particular Caravan.
Both the rental Caravan and the one we bought have a low volume whine at 65mph. If I had first heard it in the one we purchased I would have been worried, but I had grown to accept it in the rental so it hasn’t bothered me. We did an overnight testdrive on another Caravan which did not have the whine.

Sienna is generally quiet, possibly a little quieter than the Caravan. Engine has a neat sounding growl however it kicks in even during normal starts which gets tiring after a while. Need to kick the Sienna into higher RPMs more often which inspires somewhat more engine noise.

Dealer experience
A big part of reliability is how hard it is to repair the vehicle. We don’t have good Toyota dealers in my area. They get enough business they don't need to provide good service. Our Sienna came with minor delivery defects which I believe the dealer caused. The dealer was incompetent and unconcerned about fixing the problems. Ended up taking 3 weeks and 5 trips to the dealer immediately after delivery. Worst repair experience I’ve ever had and it just made it worse that it was a minor problem that caused it.

The Caravan hasn’t been back to the dealer at all so I can’t comment yet.

Towing:
We need the minivan to tow our boat which weights about 2500lbs. I never ended up towing with the Sienna. We’ve towed a few miles in the Caravan. However I can make some observations about probably relative towing performance.

Generally the Caravan looks like it maybe a more comfortable tow vehicle. It has a number of advantages.
- Tow option includes load leveling suspension which really does work. Many Sienna owners end up having to buy air lifts to prevent the rear end from sagging.
- Transmission: The Sienna will only torque lock in 5th. Realistically it will usually sit in 4th and out of torque lock, causing lots of transmission heating and very poor gasmileage. The Caravan will torque lock in 3rd and 4th.
- Engine: The Caravan feels like it has more torque making it easier to pull up a ramp and allowing it to tow easier in 3rd or 4th without having to downshift.
- Traction control: Our Caravan has traction control. Our Sienna LE did not. Traction control is useful when towing up a ramp to prevent the front tires from losing traction and spinning.
- Emergency brake: When backing down a ramp its nice to have a brake you can apply and take off. In the Caravan you press down the emergency brake and pull a lever to release it. If you’ve backed down and the brake isn’t on hard enough you can just press on it harder. In the Sienna you press the brake to engage it, press again to release it. If you didn’t get it down hard enough the 1st time, pressing on it again releases it which can be really scary when your on a ramp with a big boat trying to pull you into the water.
- Rolling back: The Sienna rolls backwards when in Drive as if it were a manual in neutral. The Caravan resists more which is less scary on a ramp.

Conclusion
In conclusion, both minivans have their strong points. The Sienna has the widest range of available seating options, and a comfortable high quality interior. The Caravan has superior handling.
The Caravan has not been getting much press of late, but based on our driving and use experience the Grand Caravan and Town and Country are still worthy competitors to the Sienna and Odyssey.


9 month update
I think its helpful to hear from actual users of products to see how they're holding up over time. With that in mind I'll periodically update this review.

The Caravan now is about 9 months old and have almost 11,000 miles on it.

Reliability: We had the rear power liftgate motor act intermittently. It was replaced under warranty. It took them several weeks to receive the part which seemed overly lengthly. Repair was uneventful although the dealer managed to scratch some interior panels they had to remove.

No other maintenance issues of any kind have occured. There were no (zero) delivery issues. The car has been back to the dealer for the one repair and a oil change. I did the second oil change.

We have towed on one 120 mile trip. The van did very well. Pulled the boat reasonably well, was stable on the road and highway. Engine revved more than I expected coming up the ramp but not excessive. Self leveling suspension worked well.

Regarding 7 vs. 8 passenger seating. Baby #2 has arrived. I'm not sure how the Sienna would have worked out. It may have been nice to sometimes have the middle seat 2nd row seat. However it has been a lifesaver to have the open aisleway to be able to get to the 2nd and 3rd rows. We now live out of the van using it for frequent diaper changes and nursing. Its provided us a degree of freedom and ability to get out with a baby that we never had with our 1st child. Its been fantastic.

We have fully utilized the 7 passenger seating. The 3rd row is defintely not as comfortable as the Sienna but we've made due. I've been happy with how the van drives even with a full load.