Just an old minivan - and I’m in love.
I’m a young dad driving a minivan and happy about it. How did we get here?
At my wife’s baby shower last year, one of the questions was whether or not we, especially with me as a car guy, would drive a minivan. To many peoples’ surprise, my answer was a resounding yes. Absolutely 0 shame. What was also surprising is how quickly we ended up with one.
Hope I don’t get hate for this but I’ve been a Ford Fan for a long time. Turns out that it’s only Fords of a very specific era and nothing new from Ford is worth looking at. I own a 2011 Fusion and 2005 Taurus you can eat off of and my daily driver 2008 Escape at the time was getting up there in miles and starting to rust.
Figured Toyota was worth looking at for my daily driver too. My wife had a 2013 Ford Cmax Hybrid, but it seemed that newer Ford products just don’t cut it anymore. So we replaced the Cmax with a brand new Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid and I began casually looking for a 2011-2020 Sienna to replace the Escape with.
This 2008 Sienna XLE AWD fell into my lap and with only 48,000 miles and a one elderly Californian owner history, it was too good to pass up. Plus my parents replaced their Windstar back in the day with a brand new 2008 Sienna LE, and nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
I’ve had this van since November of last year and have put my touches on it, detailed polished and coated it, rust proofed it, gotten up to date on all the maintenance and replaced the brakes all around. Factory fluids and parts are a breeze to work with on this thing. I’ve also added some OEM+ upgrades to this thing including Fog lamps (a crime that the XLE didn’t have then standard), chrome front grille, OEM HID headlamps, woodgrain steering wheel, possibly the final set of factory carpet floor mats in existence, and the biggest project - adding the JBL 10 speaker audio system. That requires the entire dash harness but to have factory Bluetooth, it is worth it. And the sound was far superior to the base radio. I know that subject comes up from time to time here and yes it’s possible to put JBL into a non JBL car but requires a lot of work and parts!
Now that everything is done and this thing has gotten the royal treatment, I look forward to many years ahead. I obsess over cleanliness and presentation so glad I can share this old rig here. 51k miles on her and counting - I don’t think you’ll find a nicer one of these in existence.
TL;DR: a creampuff van fell into my lap and after getting spoiled with special treatment upgrades and maintenance, I am excited for many years of being a minivan dad. My parents had one of these years ago and I am reliving my past with this clean old van.