Minivans are nobody’s idea of a fun vehicle, but they get a bad rap. Modern minivans all handle well and they offer tremendous value if you need to haul three rows of family around. They also have the largest cargo areas of all vehicle types. Honda has been in the game a long time and knows how to take the sting out of buying a vehicle that is less than thrilling to look at.

The minivan market is continuing on during the global transition to SUVs because minivans offer better use of space and drive nicely. Nobody does a better job in this regard than Honda. The Odyssey has been around so long that Honda has it polished to perfection.

Toyota’s Sienna kicks the Honda Odyssey to the curb on paper. Every Sienna is now a hybrid, and the gas savings over the life of the vehicle compared to an Odyssey are enormous. The Sienna is also available with all-wheel drive, which here in the Northeast seems to make sense for any family hauler. If you are buying based on facts and figures, get the Sienna.

The Chrysler Pacifica is the only minivan in America with a plug-in option unless you count the obscure six-figure Tesla Model X. If you have always wanted a plug-in hybrid minivan, get the Chrysler.

Kia’s Carnival pretends it’s not a minivan by sort of looking like a minivan in SUV clothing. If you want a minivan wearing a costume, get the Carnival. Kidding aside, the Carnival has a dramatically longer warranty than the Honda Odyssey, and Kia is stacking up reliability awards.

The Odyssey is a fantastic bargain in its lower trims. The base EX trim starts under $40K. The EX-L is about $43K, and the Touring has a price of around $46K. The top-trim Elite with fancy paint and the all-season package tops out around $52K. If there is a better big-vehicle value in the automotive industry, we can’t name it.

Honda finally stepped up and joined Toyota, Hyundai, and many other brands in offering included maintenance in 2023. Called Honda Service Pass, it covers select factory-scheduled maintenance for 2 years or 24,000 miles. Honda also added a trim it embarrassingly calls the “Sport.” The Sport adds bigger wheels and some minor appearance changes inside.

We have tested the Odyssey full of three generations of passengers on a long road trip. If you do this yourself, you will buy a Honda Odyssey. Everything just clicks. You can play with the in-vehicle PA system to yell at the third-row kids starting fires, use the ten thousand cupholders to hold sippy cups, juice boxes, water bottles, and lattes, depending on your generation, and every passenger in every seat is comfy. The driver gets a satisfying V6, and steering and handling are as good as or better than most three-row SUVs. Use it with just two rows of seats deployed, and the cargo space is ginormous. The driving characteristics and value are why so many people still buy the Odyssey.

Coincidental to our review being created, IIHS conducted a new type of front overlap crash test study in which it measured the forces on child-like dummies in the second row. Honda made news by being rated “Poor” in this new test. However, the Odyssey STILL earns the Top Safety Pick Plus designation because it aces every other test thrown at it. The Odyssey is a very safe vehicle. In a year or so, Honda will make small adjustments to the Odyssey’s seatbelts and airbags, and we are confident it will ace this new test.

Honda scored close to the industry average in J.D. Power’s 2023 Dependability Study. Consumer Reports blesses the Odyssey with its Recommended stamp and says that the predicted reliability score for 2023 is a respectable ⅘.

The Odyssey is a family hauler. All versions are pretty well-equipped. We’d pick the Touring trim since it has Cabin Watch and Cabin Talk, which are systems that help you manage a van full of sugar-fueled rugrats. Plus, it is only about 10% more than the base trim and has all the goodies you expect in a decent family vehicle.

Honda offers one of the shortest warranty periods in the industry. The two years of included maintenance are a nice accompaniment to this.

• Basic: 3 years / 36k miles
• Powertrain: 5 years / 60k miles
• If buying used, take a look at our best extended warranties

Most of the prior years of the Odyssey scored either ⅖ or ⅗ on Consumer reports reliability charts. Models earlier than 2011 earned just ⅕ and should be avoided. There was a transmission defect that impacted the Odyssey back then, and it is not worth the risk. We would suggest that the Toyota Sienna is a better used minivan purchase. It has earned mostly 5/5 or ⅘ reliability scores as far back as 2011.

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