Gilligan is a troll from another group. He doesn't even own a car and basically just trolls these groups with no respect for the folks here.
Back to the 2006 Sedona.... Our Kia Sedona was delivered and picked up with two errors. Noisy fuel pump was the main issue. Rather than start us off with a problem, they quickly gave us a whole new van. This was from Major Kia and we just returned from a 1250 mile drive to Ohio and back. Again, this van is amazing! With the Garmin C340 GPS we carefully tracked fuel and speeds.
Average speed over 510 miles = 81 MPH Top Speed over 510 miles = 117 MPH Fuel Stops = 1 MPG recorded over 510 miles = 23 MPG
A few comments: We drove with AC off for most of the drive. We were three adults and some luggage. I used premium fuel and usually left the van in manual mode locked in 5th. The top speed of 117 MPH may sound crazy, but it was done on an empty stretch of road. The van was still pulling strong at that speed, but the profile of the van is not suited for this type of speed. Still, you can drive for LONG stretches of road at 90-95. It's very secure at these speeds. The large tank of this van means you can run over 400 miles without a stop! On handling: This vehicle was designed to bridge the gap between Honda and Toyota. It outhandles the Toyota, but misses the mark against the Honda. It's a plush ride most of the time, but I do agree that better tires would improve things. The Toyota is just too underpowered to be considered now and is about to get a better engine. Here's some more food for thought: When we visited the service center for our free oil change, not a single 2006 Sedona was in for service. The manager said they have had no problems that kept a single Sedona overnight. In the end you can only go by your own experience. Somewhere someone's Sedona is a Lemon and Kia is not quite on level with the Toyota or Honda yet. The gap HAS narrowed. More importantly you might actually prefer the 06 Sedona over other minivans overall....as we did. At 30K or so, it's not cheap to buy. Kia did not design it to win just on value. It's a better van in many areas than the others. Motor Trend recently did a shootout and the Sedona came in second behind the Honda...but it was a close second. It easily beat the Nissan and Chrysler. Read the review and you'll see that the Sedona was right up there. Toyota refused to enter the shootout....they didn't want to lose to the Kia. Next up: We're waiting for Subaru to bring out a AWD luxury van.
Robert B NY