How good is the Toyota Sienna Transmission?

Also check the repair costs. Also check the retained value curves. Good Luck.

I have a Sienna. No problems with the tranny. Don't pay much attention to rumors, off the wall comments ect. Honda should be good as is the Sienna. Both are excellent vehicles.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

Honda has placed an 8-year, 80K mile warranty on the transmission.

New Odysseys do not have this problem, as the design defect that caused the fluid leakage was corrected.

I would say Sienna tranny is better, but the programming on the Odyssey is better. The Toyota Sienna suffers from bad programming and hesitation issues. For example, when making a rolling turn, and you accelerate, you will notice that the car is not responsive. Toyota has tried to fix this issue, but search on edmunds.com for hesitation and tranny and toyota or lexus. You will see a lot of problems.

However, once you learn what the car is doing, you can get used to it. I would still buy a Toyota over a Honda, but do not think that Toyota is perfect.

You could look for survey responses on those vehicles here:

Hmmm... You might look at the Chrysler, Ford and Chevy van surveys to see how many Honda and Toyota owners switched to those brands because of transmission failure. Feedback about the "new" Sienna will still be very light.

And you could just peruse the CarTalk site for fun - there's lots of laughs there. Look for the survey of 10 Worst Cars of the Millenium, for instance.

Thanks. One thing I have found is on Edmunds on the consumer ratings. The Honda Odyssey, for 2002 and 2003 years (I didn't check other years but found posts saying the same), and found bunches of folks with transmission problems. On the 2004 Sienna, which is the year the van got big enough to compete with the odyssey for room (IMHO), there were no problems with the transmission reported. There was a common thread about the AC Compressor, but no transmission problems. I'm thinking Toyota now. I am so fickle.

Honda had major problems with their new AT when it first came out. Problem was identified and repaired and AT's replaced. It is now a reliable AT.

I've read the edmunds minivan DB's pretty extensively when I was considering Sienna (pre-gas hike) and Honda had a lot of complaints on its tranny and sticking sliding doors as well. I test drove used models of both and found a stuck slider on the Honda I drove.

I think driving a used model of 'anything' your considering buying is a very telling gauge of how a vehicle will hold up.

I'm not sure if enough time has gone by to declare the Honda tranny problem cured.

CP

The story I heard (from a Honda dealer) about the Honda transmission issues is as follows:

1. Honda beat Toyota in the horsepower race - but forgot to use a transmission that could handle the increased power. Not a problem if you did not "use" the power.
2. This was limited to one or two model years. Find out the model year and avoid these years.

"I think driving a used model of 'anything' ----->your