But How Does Each One Minivan?
The entire point of a minivan is to move people and cargo as efficiently as possible. We’re not talking fuel economy here—but rather the nuts and bolts of moving humans into and out of the van. It’s about how comfortable they are once inside, how easy it is to fold seats or access the third row, and how suitable a van’s rear seats are for smaller kids and car seats.
Anything that gets in the way of any of those performance metrics kills your day-to-day efficiency, whether by forcing parents to stoop or extend their backs strangely to fish a kid from a rear-facing seat or adding frustration to dropping seats for hauling extra luggage. Parents also must often contend with overlapping in-the-moment crises—fussy kids, sniping spouses, or the damn dog that won’t stop barking—while loading or unloading the car. These are the low points, when your fight-or-flight synapses are firing on the edge of control. Do you really want to wrestle with that finicky second-row tilt-and-slide feature or hit your head on the ceiling in that one place one … more … time … during this chaos?
The Kia Carnival is not the van you want to reconfigure on the fly. Its second-row seats have several similar-looking levers that actuate different functions; in a week of using them, we never figured them out. Activating the tilt-and-slide action on the second-row seats to access the third row proved highly problematic for us, with returning the seat to its original position proving difficult or impossible, after which its occupant must grope around to find the under-cushion slider release and cushion-side recline lever and manually do that.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW
You can remove the Carnival's second-row chairs entirely by tilting the whole unit forward and lifting it out after folding the seat backs flat atop the cushions and finding the appropriate release. The outboard chairs are bulky and heavy, and the center seat, when removed, took 20 minutes to reinstall after its tracks skewed unevenly. Add in the optional rear-seat entertainment screens that stick out into the door opening like iPads on wall mounts—which the second-row seats slam into when you try to tilt and slide them forward—and the Kia is best suited to older kids or adults. Preferably those who never want to adjust anything about the otherwise comfortable seats. At least the third row’s folding action (it disappears into the floor) is operated via satisfyingly large plastic handles that make lifting the seats out a snap.
If for some reason you’re buying a minivan to drive around alone, the Carnival is probably your best choice—you can ignore all of the above. It comes with a gorgeous pair of screens that live in a curved glass panel atop the dashboard, the materials inside (at least in this high-end example) are excellent and upscale, and the infotainment system is easy to use.
The ID Buzz is notable here for not having much that gets in the way, per se, but also because there isn’t much of anything going on inside. It’s a big box with seats. Simple. In place of acrobatic folding seats is a 60-40-split second-row bench and a 50-50-split third-row bench; the seat backs of both rows fold flat atop the cushions (the only ones to fold truly flat, forming an even load surface), but neither folds into the floor. VW offers a handy, easily removable shelf for the cargo area that lines up with the folded seat backs. Some judges weren’t sure about the liftover height, which is higher than that of the competition, but the elevated load floor sits comfortably at an adult’s hip level—so, no stooping to set items down like you would with the other, lower-slung minivans here.
Alternately, some on our staff found the step into the front seats arduous—there are no nearby grab handles, so you’ll plant as much of your foot as you can fit on the shallow lower sill step, hoist yourself up by the door armrest and the steering wheel, and shuffle your feet up into the pedal box. It’s less awkward for taller occupants, but shorter drivers will notice this Buzz’s step-in.
Up front, there are small screens (both the digital gauge cluster and central touchscreen), and the preponderance of touch-sensitive buttons on the steering wheel and dashboard take getting used to. The volume slider control is particularly heinous. And the interior materials are merely so-so, with lots of attractively styled hard plastic on the door panels. There are flashes of luxury in the standard massaging front seats (also heated and ventilated) and the $1,495 electrochromic sunroof that can switch from sun-blocking opaque to semi-translucent, but its overall feature set is far more basic than you’d expect for the price.
And there’s no getting around the Buzz’s only major packaging flaw, other than its elevated floor—the cargo space behind the third row is shallower than the rest, though it’s also taller; get clever stacking suitcases, and it’s probably fine, but the other vans here enjoy deep wells behind their third rows (that the third rows collapse into when not needed) and generally speaking more space back there. On the flip side, the tall Buzz has the most interior volume here, so fold its seats, and there’s a huge, boxy cargo area to work with behind the front seats.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW
You can remove the third-row seats entirely after folding them flat, and they slide out once released. Handy grab handles on the back of each one let you carry them like big briefcases. The second-row chairs are technically removable, but you’ll need tools to undo the handful of bolts, and their removal isn’t intended as an everyday function.
Aside from the limited seat configurability, the Buzz impresses with its spacious cabin, which has the tallest vertical height of the bunch, allowing you to walk (not crawl, semi-folded in half) only slightly hunched from front to rear. The sliding doors are massive and leave yawning openings none of the other vans can match, so anyone should be able to load a baby into a rear-facing seat without bonking their heads on surrounding pillars or the roof.
And the tilt-and-slide functions for the second row actuate with an effortless, spring-loaded action, so kids could do it. (They take a little more muscle to push down and back into place, but unlike in the Kia, they return to their original positions.) Every seat slides fore and aft (the second row by a lot) and reclines, the cushions are super comfortable and high enough that some kids’ legs will dangle (adults will be very comfy), and there's legroom to spare. In fact, the third-row seats are as comfortable and spacious as most of the other vans’ second-row perches. It may lack fancy screens and other frippery, but the Buzz’s rear quarters have huge windows (though no built-in shades), overhead air vents (delivering unimpeded air to kiddos in rear-facing car seats), and USB ports for every passenger. Are the windows-within-windows in the sliding doors odd? Sure, and so are the door-pocket-only cupholders in the second row, but the entire ID Buzz is odd, so they kind of work. It’s also surprisingly good at basic vanning.
Also good at the basics of minivanning? The Sienna, though that’s about all it’s good at. The cabin suffers from so-so build quality, bleak materials quality, and elevated road noise. Some core elements are well executed: The third-row seats are the only ones in this bunch that can be folded into the floor and raised back up with one hand; there are huge and sturdy vertical grab handles running half way up each B-pillar that make it easy for anyone of any height to haul themselves into the second row (great for multi-generational families with grandparents in tow), and there are overhead air vents.
Cleverly, the Sienna’s second-row seats fold and tumble forward, standing vertically against the front seat backs to open a massive cargo hold with the third row stowed. They’re out of the way enough that you don’t need to remove them as you do in the Pacifica or Odyssey for the same max-cargo mode. Beyond those baseline efforts, though, the Sienna starts to fall apart. There were trim pieces in the third row that were loose, and the front center console (home to the center armrest) wobbled when leaned on. Seabaugh complained that “Just about every switch, vent, cover, and handle felt like it was gonna snap off in my hand.”
The third-row environs are also the bleakest here, with thin, flexible plastic forming the inner cabin wall and armrests and cupholders (it’s all one big molding). There is one USB port on the passenger side back there, and the windows are small and tucked behind thick C-pillars. Cushion heights are too low in the second and third rows; fine for kids, but adults’ knees will be elevated above their butts. Again, the experience is OK for those not in the back—so, mom and dad—but your kids will be happier in any of the other vans, even the frustrating-to-use Carnival, which at least has nice materials everywhere and more comfortable seats.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW
Honda’s Odyssey has some quiet excellence here. One of the older vans in this bunch, it nonetheless has some unique features and is among the more comfortable options for passengers. Every rear seat is well cushioned, though the third row sits a little low, and air vents, armrests, and USB ports abound throughout. New for 2025 is an enlarged, more modern (read: thinner-bezel, higher-definition) rear entertainment display the folds down from the ceiling (standard on the Touring and top-level Elite tested here). Honda also allows passengers to connect headphones to it via Bluetooth, though the third row also has a headphone jack. The windows are decently large (and all get roll-up sunshades), even in the way back, and materials quality throughout is excellent, bordering on Acura-like.
Also new this year is Honda’s half-digitized gauge cluster, which looks sharp and offers some configuration options, and a so-so touchscreen with yesteryear-looking graphics; it’s too bad Honda didn’t upgrade the Odyssey to the bigger, sharper display with Google Built-In tech that it gave the Accord recently.
Moving back from the front seat, the second-row seats can be removed, and it’s a straightforward process, as in the Pacifica: fold the seat backs against the cushions, release the rear latch points, tilt the seats forward, and lift them off their hook mounts. The center second-row seat is lighter and therefore even easier to remove.
The Honda’s party trick is its so-called Magic Seats, which in the second row can slide fore and aft and side to side (the center seat only goes fore/aft). Remove the center seat, and you can shove the two outboard chairs together on one side, leaving a permanent walkthrough to the rear—or bring a car-seat-bound child up close to between the front seats so whichever parent is in the passenger seat can tend to them. Remove the outboard chairs, and only a small hump is left behind (Honda keeps the side-to-side sliders on the floor, with the fore/aft sliders staying with the seats when removed), but it’s rounded to not snag cargo slid in from the sides or back. This setup is quite good whether you occasionally need full-cabin cargo hauling capability or more regularly transport people only, since it’s relatively easily reconfigurable yet the seats are supremely comfortable. Our only notable complaints are with the switchgear, which is scattered to and fro and gives the dashboard a button-dense vibe.
This brings us to the Pacifica, the best all-around minivan here at hauling people and cargo. Regular Pacificas get Stow ’n Go second-row chairs that fold flat into the floor—a class exclusive—in addition to a fold-flat third row. Hybrids like this one use those underfloor spaces for the batteries, so instead it gets more thickly padded seats that can be removed like the Honda’s. They come out easily, though they’re a bit heavy.
MORE ID BUZZ REVIEWS: 2WD First Test | AWD First Drive
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW
It's no mere workhorse, either, with decent materials throughout, classy, quilted Nappa leather (a Pinnacle trim exclusive), an attractive brown-and-black coloring scheme, and the most user-friendly touchscreen of the bunch. We dig the way the rear-seat displays fold flush into the front seat backs, out of the way. As Seabaugh pointed out, “They offer A/C adjustments, include an ‘Are we there yet?,’ slew of streaming options, plus HDMI ports and games you can download.” Chrysler’s FamCam in-vehicle camera system lets you keep tabs on your brood from the driver’s perch and touchscreen. You can zoom in on specific seats, and it even works in the dark, giving you a night-vision view that aftermarket headrest mirrors (for eyeing rear-facing-car-seat-bound kids) can’t match.
Every detail is thought of: There are overhead air vents, sunshades for every window (included on most versions and common option packages on lesser models), and most controls are bundled together and work logically. The Pacifica puts buttons for opening each sliding door and the tailgate together on the overhead console; those buttons and the redundant ones on each B-pillar (for rear-seat users to activate) operate with a single press—the Honda and Sienna have rocker switches (open on one side, close on the other), but why? The Chrysler and every other van here use a single button that, when pressed, simply puts the door in the opposite state it’s currently in. Open? The button will close it. Shut? The button opens it. Simple, no fumbling necessary.
It's the little things that remind you Chrysler’s been doing the minivan thing for a long, long time. Anyone can operate the rear seats. Anyone can operate the doors. In short, it has the fewest frustration points and operates with the most satisfaction of the vans gathered here. The Pacifica even looks good, though its fundamental design dates to 2016 (with a refresh for 2021). That styling upside brings with it one of the Chrysler’s few downsides: its somewhat low roofline, which feels among the lowest here next to the similarly sleek Honda’s. It has no effect on headroom inside, but you’ll notice the lower height when loading a child into a seat or entering or exiting the third row, which requires slightly more of a duck than in the other vans. Conversely, that lower stance makes getting in and out of the front and second-row seats a snap for adults—just plop your butt down and swing your legs in. It’s neither too high (like the Buzz) nor too low (like a car).
