Toyota Sienna shopping

[Anonymous]

We are in the market for a Toyota Sienna hybrid as we’re going to soon outgrow our current car (won’t have enough seats!). We don’t care about buying new vs old with low mileage, but we do care about a few things: AWD, 360/overhead camera, spare tire, memory seats. Apparently the camera only comes on the platinum trim and is not even an option on other trim levels and we use this constantly with our current car and tight driveway with retaining walls. We visited a dealership in MD who basically said we won’t find what we are looking for and to just take what we can get-they had one on the lot they were trying to sell but it had packages we didn’t care about and no spare tire which is non-negotiable for us-we travel to a rural area often where cell service is spotty and roadside assistance can take a while, which is not great with young kids. We’re flexible on timing into the fall, so aren’t in a huge rush.

Any suggestions on other dealerships in the extended area to try? Just finding it hard to find ones with the spare tire. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

I hate Toyota dealers. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate Toyota dealers. Good luck.

Yeah, sorry, this.

For some reason awhile back, Toyota decided they were going to charge a crazy premium for their cars and still not make enough. And people line up months or years for them. Makes no sense to me.

[Anonymous]

The AWD Sienna has never come with a spare tire, at least not since the 2nd generation, so no, you won’t find those features together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The AWD Sienna has never come with a spare tire, at least not since the 2nd generation, so no, you won’t find those features together.

It actually did/does, just can’t have the ottomans too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The AWD Sienna has never come with a spare tire, at least not since the 2nd generation, so no, you won’t find those features together.

It actually did/does, just can’t have the ottomans too.

Ok—I looked it up. The gas AWDs never did because the rear driveshaft and exhaust on the AWD did not leave the normal space for a spare tire under the vehicle. I guess on all the hybrids there’s a space for a donut spare inside. OP, you can get it without and just pay to add it later—lots of info online about doing this yourself.

I’ve driven about 300K miles in two AWD Siennas (the first was totaled by baseball sized hail, or we’d still be driving it) in the mountain west and we ditch the stupid run flat tires and keep high level AAA just in case.