Originally Posted By: Spazdog
Originally Posted By: JTK
... As far as handling and performance (if you want to call it that!), the Ody is the 'sports car' of minivans....
The Mazda5 is the sports car of minivans.
It's probably the only 'real' minivan as the others are as big as full-size vans from a couple of decades ago. Sometimes less is more.
I agree with JTK on that one, the Mazda 5 is not a minivan. It is a car where you can eventually sit 6 people,.. and they better not be adults if they have to sit in the last row.
It is either 6 seating with no luggage or 4-5 with some luggage.
In the Odyssey, we have already sat 8 in it with luggage for a one week cruise (with a thule on top but no use of the in-floor compartment, and all the necessary equipment for not yet 2 year old child, stroller included). We just let one of our neighbors use the car for a one week vacation in the Boston area with the car, once again, two families of 4 with luggage. When they saw the car, their first reaction was: "Cool, we will able to use bigger suitcases".
My parents, in their sixties, don't mind sit in the third, and me neither, at 6'1, I like to sit there sometimes when I need some quietness.
As you can see, I do the bare minimum for the car and didn't have a single problem to date with it. My wife doing only city driving for now achieves 18 mpg but me, without forcing do in the 21-22 mpg range when I use it. We have great highway mileage with it, close to 30 mpg as far as I remember.
We test drove both the Odyssey and the Sienna, and didn't have to think twice before choosing the Odyssey.
Like JTK said, if you want to avoid any problem with it, forget the bells and whistles, that are the parts which will failed (no electric sliding doors for example). It is cheaper to get the base model and more reliable.
