Test driving cars

This weekend we went looking at cars. We are looking for a vehicle to replace our 93 Nissan Sentra. (I bought his car while I was in college. It has been a great car, and is still running great.)

We were looking at Minivans and midsize SUVs. On Saturday, we went to the Honda dealership, to look at the Pilot and the Odyssey. I had seen a very good review of the Town & Country, so we decided to also go to the Chrysler dealership.

Today we decided to go to the Toyota dealership to check out the Sienna and the Highlander.



At the Honda dealership we took a look a the Odyssey, and really like the interior. Then we looked at the Pilot, and it was so much smaller than we expected. We then test drove the Odyssey, and really liked it. We drove the Odyssey with the Navigation system, which is something that I really want to get. It was a great car, and I think that it will be a hard car to beat.

Then we went to the Crysler dealership. We sat in the Town & Country that was in the showroom, and it felt like it was poorly put togehter. We asked the sales person to open the tail gate, but he couldn't because the battery was dead. (What kind of car is it where you can't open the door when the battery is dead?) I don't think that I would ever buy this car. I just got a bad impression about it.

When we went to the Toyota dealership, we sat in a Sienna. We didn't like the layout of the dash, as well as it didn't seem like there was much visibility out of the back window. We also looked at the Highlander. We liked the idea of the Highlander, because it has a third ro of seats. When we looked at the seats in the back, we realized that only a little child could fit their legs back there.

So I think that we are leaning toward the Odyssey. One thing that we want to figure out is how we can get XM into this car. Honda only offers Sirius satellite radio, and we already have to XM radios, and we like the service. The head unit is seperate from the navigation system, but it is tied together enough so that the radio mutes when there are navigation prompts. If we decided to buy a replacement head unit, we would need to find one that can do the navigation prompt muting. Or the other option is to put an fm modulator in and use a XM Commander.


Update:
I just looked at the XM and Honda websites, and it XM is availble on Honda models. It looks like the sales person was not correctly informed

Update #2:
It looks like the XM radion that that have does not work with the Navigation system. I will have to look for another solution.