2023 Toyota Sienna Reviews, Pricing & Specs

For plenty of shoppers, the minivan aesthetic is a hard sell. Perhaps the sliding doors and slab-slide designs recall memories from our childhoods, when we were buckled up in the back seat with Cheerio crumbs in the carpet and mom or dad in the front seat, trying to decipher their Rand-McNally road atlas on the family trip to Lake Placid, NY.

For whatever reason, the arrival of the 1990’s body-on-frame SUV spelled eventual doom for the minivan’s social status. However, many of those big, bulky SUVs soon gave way to car-based crossovers which, to improve aerodynamics, dropped the truck-like designs and morphed into what are essentially high-riding minivans (sans the sliding doors). With that context, we’d argue that the minivan is not nearly as unstylish as it might seem. In fact, with its larger cargo capacity, easy access, and creative interior features, the minivan is the smart choice for most families.

Toyota has invested clear effort to rid the Sienna of its minivan style. For one, the front-end styling resembles a Japanese bullet train. And although most trims feature 18-inch wheels, the front-wheel-drive (FWD) iterations of the XSE and Platinum trim levels both feature 20s.

There are plenty of trim levels, too. Shoppers can choose from a base LE Sienna or move up the ladder to the XLE, sporty XSE, upper-class Limited, or top-shelf Platinum trims. For 2023, there’s also the new 25th Anniversary Special Edition trim, which sits just below the Limited trim level, price-wise.

We expect the XLE trim level to be the starting point for most value-conscious shoppers. It adds standard LED fog lights, standard power-sliding doors, and a standard power liftgate—the latter two options become more valuable the more children you’re tasked with shepherding into your Sienna.

Inside, the Sienna is easy to love. We drove a Platinum trim model for this test car and were quickly smitten by the lovely and high-quality brown leather upholstery. Similarly, our Sienna test car had beautiful wood-grain accents on the center console.

Toyota sells the Sienna with seating for seven or eight passengers, although you’ll need to settle for either an LE or XLE trim if you want the larger human capacity. On the bright side, those eight-seaters with a middle bench seat can support three-across car seats in the middle row, secured with LATCH anchors.

When Toyota revealed the fourth-generation Toyota Sienna in 2020, it dropped the traditional gasoline engine and fitted every model with a hybrid.

Toyota uses a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine mated with two front-mounted electric motors, plus a third rear-mounted electric motor for all-wheel drive (AWD) trims. The powertrain components combine for 245 net system horsepower, specs that look a fair bit less impressive than the competition’s.

There’s not quite enough power for the Sienna’s ample size and weight, and its continuously variable transmission (CVT) tends to claw its way up the rev band—it’s just not the best-sounding powertrain. Compared with the more powerful Odyssey, we grew a little weary of the Sienna’s lackluster acceleration.

However, we’re thrilled with the Sienna’s chassis and steering. The platform is sound and surprisingly nimble. The Sienna is easy to drive around town, despite its size, and it cruises on the highway with no problem. Considering this is a big minivan, the Sienna is genuinely fun to drive.

In particular, the Sienna’s light steering feel is great for driving in the city. It’s rare to find a minivan with this sort of tidy turning radius. Toyota offers a few drive modes in the Sienna—EV, Normal, Eco, and Sport—but we’d recommend keeping the Sienna in normal mode. Eco mode extends the CVT’s simulated gears a bit too much and dampens the throttle way too much. EV mode is largely useless; it hypothetically lets you drive the Sienna on electric power alone, but we were unable to stop the gas engine from engaging every time we tried it. Finally, Sport mode simply isn’t dramatic enough to convince anyone that they’re not driving a minivan.

Minivans are beautiful bastions of cubbies and nooks and shelves and bins, and the 2023 Toyota Sienna is no exception. The interior storage solutions are brilliant. There’s plenty of space for a large bag or purse in the open cubby below the center console, and a long shelf extends from the middle of the dash all the way in front of the passenger’s seat. That shelf is perfect for a phone, and in higher trims, it comes equipped with a wireless charging pad.

The Sienna also has a big bin in the center console and enough cupholders so everyone on board can have at least two drinks.

At over 200 inches long and stretched over a 120.5-inch wheelbase, the Toyota Sienna is a big vehicle. Shoppers looking for three rows of seats in a smaller package may be drawn to the marginally smaller Toyota Highlander. That said, the Sienna’s minivan platform makes amazing use of space. Unlike in a three-row crossover, there’s a huge amount of cargo space behind the Sienna’s rearmost seat.

Thanks to a deep floor, the Sienna delivers 33.5 cubic feet of space behind the third row and, with that seat folded into the floor, it offers 75.2 cubic feet. Total cargo space comes in at 101 cubic feet. Although those figures dwarf the Highlander’s (16 cubic feet behind the third row, 84.3 cubic feet, max), the total cargo space number does fall short of other competing minivans. The reason is that, unlike the Honda Odyssey, the middle row of seats cannot be fully removed from the Sienna. Nor can they fold into the floor, like the Chrysler Pacifica’s stow-n-go second row. If you need maximum space, consider one of those competitors. If you expect to have people in the second row regularly, however, you likely won’t mind the Sienna’s permanent middle row.

Additionally, the second row captain’s chairs are incredibly functional regardless of its occupant’s height. Our test car featured extending ottomans for a bit extra thigh support. The middle-row seats also slide forward and backward on a long track. Slide them forward, and the Sienna’s third-row seats can accommodate genuine, life-size adults with genuine legroom—not something you can say about most three-row crossovers.

Toyota has some impressive new technology on display in models like the 2022 Tundra and the 2023 Sequoia. Unfortunately, that tech is not on display in the 2023 Sienna.

Instead, the Sienna makes do with Toyota’s older infotainment interface. Pretty much all the core features are still there—SiriusXM satellite radio, Bluetooth connectivity, standard Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, an optional navigation system, and the Sienna boasts seven USB ports. The older infotainment interface also benefits from some physical buttons, a functional feature that’s rapidly disappearing from modern cars. While touchscreen buttons look nice, they often require you to take your eyes off the road for longer than you’d need with a physical button.

However, the interface looks and feels old, and it can be a bit clunky to use. For instance, both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay require a wired connection. Additionally, to access Android Auto, we needed to enter via the menu view every time; there is no dedicated button, tile, or icon. Even selecting the audio tile when playing music via Spotify on Android Auto didn’t take us to the desired software. Instead, it took us to Toyota’s music player, showing our Spotify selection on a decidedly not-Spotify display.

Outside of the old design and a few quirks, however, the Sienna’s technology is reliable. A 9-inch touchscreen didn’t seem impressive to us on paper, but we were pleased that it didn’t look undersized in person. The 12-speaker JBL audio system in our press car also sounded good.

If the 2023 Toyota Sienna’s infotainment tech underwhelms you, rest assured that the minivan’s standard safety technology will impress. The Sienna comes standard with a host of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) including automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, lane-departure warning with steering assist, blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, automatic high beams, and adaptive cruise control. These valuable safety features are particularly important in a family car that’s likely to be used for driving with kids aboard.

It comes as no surprise that the 2023 Toyota Sienna was awarded 5 stars in crash tests facilitated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). And, while the 2023 model has not yet been rated by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the mechanically identical 2022 Sienna received a Top Safety Pick+ designation.

When it comes to safety, Toyota clearly doesn’t mess around. That said, its competitors from Honda and Chrysler are also Top Safety Pick+ winners (the Kia Carnival received a Top Safety Pick award, but not a TSP+). And Toyota doesn’t fill the Sienna with some of the more gimmicky features found in family haulers. For instance, Honda offers CabinTalk, an intercom system that helps the folks in the front seat communicate with kids in the way back. And Chrysler has its FamCam—a rear-seat camera system that lets Mom and Dad keep an eye on their rear-seat progeny.

Having kids is expensive, and that extends to your transportation needs. Shuttle one child around regularly, and you probably won’t outgrow a typical compact crossover. Upgrade to two, however, and soon enough you’re driving them around with their friends, and three rows become a necessity. So, how much is that extra row going to cost you?

The Toyota Sienna’s MSRP starts at $37,470, including a $1,335 destination fee. The top-tier Sienna Platinum trim soars at $52,930, and our test car’s as-tested price was $55,325.

However, remember that all Sienna models use a hybrid powertrain. That means you can expect significant fuel savings when compared to gas-powered minivans and crossovers. The EPA rates the Sienna with AWD at 35 mpg in the city, 36 highway, and 35 combined. With FWD, the numbers are 36 across the board. For reference, the EPA estimates the Honda Odyssey at 22 combined, the Kia Carnival at 22 combined, and the Chrysler Pacifica at 20. There is one PHEV on the market—the Chrysler Pacifica hybrid that delivers excellent fuel economy—but that model starts at over $50,000.

The Sienna, like all family haulers these days, is a big investment. But with its excellent fuel economy, it’s a more frugal purchase than its competitors, making it an ideal choice for budget-conscious families.