An all-wheel-drive minivan for those whose only excitement is climatic paranoia.
BY JARED GALL
Vehicles with four driven wheels have about them an aura of romance; the potential for off-road adventures or sideways rally action can have that effect. Minivans, on the other hand, have about them an odor of stale milk and other perks left behind by those occasional consequences of romance: children. Can adding all-wheel drive to a minivan make it a more exciting vehicle?
In a Word?
No.
And Then the Long Version
No Sienna—no minivan this side of the diminutive Mazda 5, for that matter—is what you’d call tossable, nor do they boast the ground clearance necessary for off-road excursions. Minivans aren’t about excitement. They are perhaps the most honest vehicles on the market, holding dear only one function: maximum practicality. No matter who prepares it, the recipe for such versatility is always the same—sufficient interior space to host your next family reunion, far more cup holders than seatbelts, and enough map pockets to get you to Betelgeuse by way of the Horsehead Nebula.
Since that stuff is the same from minivan to minivan, it’s really the features that grab the headlines in the minivan market. Since the birth of the breed, the race to provide the latest and coolest equipment has been a competitive one, and the success of a particular feature has always led to its adoption by every major player in the game. The Sienna, however, remains the only one to offer all-wheel drive. (Others have offered it in the past, but have dropped it from their minivans.)
We’ve long championed the purchase of a good set of winter tires over all-wheel drive. In our own winter-traction testing, the only dynamic arena in which all-wheel drive conclusively outperformed winter tires was straight-line acceleration, particularly uphill. In handling and braking tests—which measure the more important aspects of safe driving, especially in inclement weather—the installation of winter tires on a front-drive vehicle provides better performance.
Keep Reading: 2009 Toyota Sienna Limited AWD - Short Take Road Test
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