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2013 Toyota Sienna Review: For the Love of the Minivan

For the love of the minivan. Check out our 2013 Toyota Sienna Review here. Video and photos of our week long AMAZING experience. This minivan has EVERYTHING. Can you tell we are just a little excited to be borrowing a minivan from Toyota so we could take the new 2013 Toyota Sienna on week long road test experience.
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The team at Toyota heard that Kenzie and Kyle had been dreaming of someday owning a minivan and said they could make their wish come true by letting us demo the car for a road trip. I can’t begin to express how ecstatic my kids were when they heard this news. For 2 months they were looking forward to us riding the Toyota Sienna for a week at home and a 3 day road trip to upstate New York for my college reunion at Cornell.

Here is a video review showcasing many of the features we love. Overall, we rate the 2013 Toyota Sienna as a top family car as it is ultra functional and luxurious. It has every feature a family needs and more. DVD players, window shades, auto doors, safety features galore – like lights on the side mirrors that light up if a vehicle is in your blind spot when you might be trying to pass on the highway.

So yes, you can see we are all now minivan obsessed and in love with the Toyota Sienna.So many extra features that are so much fun like the dual moonroof and these window shades for the kids. Seriously, Toyota has thought of everything!

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Here’s a list of some highlights for me – aka the Mom Chauffer! Many of these may be features others take for granted but as someone who does NOT own a minivan or more updated vehicle, all these features were a total luxury to me. (I’m currently driving a 2007 Lexus RX 350 that only can fit 2 kids in the backseat with car seats too)

What we loved:

– Impressed with the giant trunk space

-DVD player! This is amazing as my kids have never experienced a movie in a car on a road trip. A real thrill for Mom and Dad too as this made the ride so much easier on the kids as far as making the time pass

– Automatic doors and trunk. So easy!

– It drives like a car – smooth and easy and doesn’t feel like a huge mobile or boat I’m driving around in even though the 2013 Toyota Sienna gave us more than enough space for everything we wanted to pack on our road trip and daily trips to the pool and sports activities.

– Extra seats so I can carpool with more kids. Currently, I live in carpool purgatory as I can only drive around my own 2 kids given the carseats take up so much space so we don’t have room for more carseats and kids with a single row in the back.

– USB plug so I could charge my cell phone. Hooray! Another luxury I currently do NOT have in my existing vehicle. What a lifesaver this would be during long road trips, when I forget to charge my cell phone or during those hurricanes and bad summer storms when we lose power and electricity for days at a time.

– GPS. Awesome. I don’t have this either in my current car. Can you tell how much I loved driving this vehicle?

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Here’s what the DVD player looks like. It also included wireless headphones for the kids so they were able to listen to their movies while Dad and I could play the radio or chat without hearing the movie. Genius!

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Here’s the giant trunk space. Our car is literally filled here with everything we needed for a 3 night 4 day trip too. Can you believe how much space we have left? Plus there is a 3rd row of seats too besides the captain’s seats that we put Kenzie and Kyle’s car seats into.

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I honestly loved everything about this car. The only small thing that I found difficult was to reach the radio station controls while I was driving, however, the steering wheel has buttons on it so you can control all your radio settings from the steering wheel so you don’t need to reach into the center of the vehicle to do so.

The 2013 Toyota Sienna starts at $26,000 and the model featured here which was more luxurious and included leather seats and other perks like the entertainment system is priced closer to $40,000.

You can read all about the Toyota Sienna minivan’s specs and pricing on the Toyota website here.

Kyle smiling as he is relishing the glory of living his minivan dream with the Toyota Sienna. What a week!

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Note: Thanks to Toyota for providing us with this vehicle for 1 week so we could post a review for other families. As always, all thoughts and opinions are our own. 

 

14 thoughts on “2013 Toyota Sienna Review: For the Love of the Minivan”

  1. Looks great. We are “car shopping” for an SUV or Minivan that will comfortably fit 3 kids, a dog, and a month’s worth of vacation supplies…will have to check this out!

  2. I am hoping to get something bigger soon cross suv or min van. I love the Sienna and loved your review the kids are so cute. I like the blind spot in mirror that is pretty cool feature along with the rest to have.

  3. Know what else a beautiful minivan like that one is good for? If you get locked out of your home and it’s an hour to the locksmith arrival on a hot summer day. It’s like having a minihouse to wait in and enjoy!

  4. I have to say, I never thought I was a minivan person– until I have two kids and realized how amazing they were in terms of convenience. The Sienna looks wonderful, I’m going to have to check it out!

  5. He that’s a cool mini van . as per my views i love the mini cooper and i like a lot the features if you are willing to know how fast and best it is you should read it’s review and moreover it’s the mini with multi-facilities available in it.

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