I was under the impression that I was still cool until the day that I started shopping for a Minivan. I didn’t want one at all. I thought to myself “I’m still cool right? I don’t need a Minivan!” Wrong. I am not cool and I did need one.

After MUCH convincing by my wife we started looking at the Sienna and the Odyssey.

My first impression of the Odyssey was “wow, this is a minivan?” There was no contest. We found the best price we could and bought one.

Driving:
I’m not going to lie. I LOVE this thing. Driving it is a dream. So smooth and with power to boot. Very nice! Even though the Odyssey is as big as a lot of the SUVs on the road, sometimes I forget. It just doesn’t drive like a massive hulk. If you read my review of my last car (1994 Jetta) you’ll see exactly why I like this car so much. The Odyssey is the Ying to my Jettas Yang.

Inside:
I have the EX-L which means leather and I chose the DVD instead of the navigation package. The leather is sweet and I just dig having a DVD player inside my vehicle.

The kids went nuts when we brought it home and showed them the DVD player. The DVD player has a remote and wireless headphones. The headphones come in very handy because while the back is watching a DVD you can listen to the radio/CD/tape. Awesome.

By far the best feature is the simplest, the fold into the body third row seat. No lugging out some massive bench seat to haul stuff. It just disappears. This is the reason we didn’t buy a Sienna. So simply yet so usefull.

The one feature that I thought was just stupid was the heated seats…..until one very cold morning I decided to try it out. Again, NICE!

Outside:
Even though I love my Odyssey it is still a minivan. All Minivans pretty much look the same to me. This one included.

Conclusion:
Just buy it. It is pricy but so worth it. What I tell people is that if BMW or Mercedez made a Minivan, this is what it would be like. Well maybe for $10k more but you get the picture.

I am not cool and I love my Minivan.

Amount Paid (US$): 31000
Condition: New
Model Year: 2002
Model and Options: EX-L