Not your average "Mom-bomb"

Author's Rating:

Pros: Price, value, peppy engine, comfortable ride, entertainment system

Cons: Exterior styling, rear anchors for LATCH hard to access

The Bottom Line: 
All in all, we are very pleased with the Sedona. Our payments are low, and for a family on a budget, it's a perfect fit.

Author's Review
My wife and I decided last October that she would quit her job as an R.N. and stay at home and raise our ten-month old son. We also had decided that her 2-door Explorer Sport was just too ungainly for an infant carrier so we sold it and began our search for an affordable minivan.

We narrowed our choices down to the Dodge Caravan and Kia Sedona. We had also looked at the Honda Odyssey but at the time (late 2002) there were waiting lists for Odysseys and with leather (with kids, you gotta have leather), the Odyssey came in at over $30,000.

The Caravan was a nice vehicle, with the automatic sliding doors, and we almost bought it at $27,000, but then we test drove the Kia and were blown away by both the performance and the price and have not regretted the decision ever since.

Our dealer (Jeff Haas Mazda/Kia in Houston) was great. For $22,500 (inc. TT&L) we bought a Sedona EX Leather with sunroof AND an aftermarket DVD/VCP Entertainment system and 10" pull-down LCD screen. Really, for all the nooks and crannies, storage space etc., this is by far the most-used feature in the van. Our now 18-month old son loves the TV and has watched countless hours of Baby Einstein, the Wiggles, and now both Toy Stories on it. The only drawback is when he rode in his grandparents' Suburban, he constantly pointed to the ceiling and cried, waiting for a TV to come down (they recently dropped $1500 for a RES in their Suburban. The power of a grandchild is absolutely mind-boggling).

The ride in the Sedona is smooth and acceleration is good. We are not performance-car enthusiasts, so I can't comment on stuff like torque, body lean, 0-60 times etc., but the van is a great vehicle to get things done here in the suburbs. A few times, we have taken the Sedona over 90mph and the ride was smooth and effortless. The only thing that reminded us that we were traveling above 90mph was the wind noise. I have to admit, over 70 mph and the wind noise was pretty high. Not howling, mind you, but enough to remind you you're not driving a 5-Series, so quit driving like it, idiot.

A great reason to choose a minivan over an SUV: in tight parking areas like grocery store parking lots, or at malls, kids are easier to get in and out of their car seat if you have sliding doors. With an SUV, you have to worry about not dinging the car next to you let alone reaching up higher to get your child out (my wife is only 5'2").

The leather seats are comfortable, and more importantly, durable. Dried milk and juice wipes off easily with a wet paper towel (or in my wife's case, one of the hundred or so Baby Wipes she has stored in the Sedona).

Some drawbacks:

Exterior styling is bland, even for a minivan. But hey, even in a souped-up Odyssey, no hottie in a convertible is going to give you the double-take.

The CD-holder at the bottom of the center console is hard-to-reach for my wife. The last thing I want her doing is bending over at the wheel trying to find a CD while she's driving.

Also, the top tether anchors for the 2nd row seats are on the floorboard behind them. They are tough to reach and you also have to pull up the carpet to get at them.

The rear door is HEAVY, compared to the Caravan, at least. To shut the door, my wife has to really pull down on it to get it going.

The tires. I don't know if I could ever get used to a tire with "HANKOOK" written all over it.