In terms of ride and handling the Sienna has always been competent, and for 2015 Toyota has stiffened the van’s underpinnings and tweaked the suspension to provide an even more assured feel. On top of this the SE has a sport-tuned suspension and the bigger alloys, giving it handling chops that aren’t merely on par with the average crossover, but actually better than many, all while maintaining a comfortable and compliant ride. The only downside is that the van’s low ride height gives you less ground clearance than you might expect from such a big vehicle, with the result that I managed to noisily (but harmlessly) scrape the passenger-side rear mudflap across my mother-in-law’s driveway curbing when arriving to pick her up, much to her surprise.

Safety-wise the Sienna gets traction control, stability control, ABS brakes, active head restraints and a comprehensive array of airbags, and its structure is robust enough to garner “Good” ratings in most IIHS crash tests, and an “Acceptable” rating in the challenging new small overlap front crash test. Combined with the available driver-assist technologies this earns the Sienna an IIHS Top Safety Pick+ award.

Inside, the 2015 Sienna is as functional as ever, but now a whole lot nicer. The new dash design follows the path already established by the Camry, Corolla and RAV4, which means there’s a padded leather-look dash panel with contrast stitching, pinstriped trim (woodgrain in Limited and XLE models), and a big seven-inch touchscreen display providing central control of all the infotainment functions. The front door panels have padded inserts and soft-skinned rigid uppers, while the back doors get rugged, well-matched rigid plastic uppers. Cabin storage is taken care of thanks to a floor-mounted tray and a big console bin (my only remark with this being that its large size rather begs some sort of organizer inside, because as it is I can imagine it becoming a bit of a disorganized mess). Overall the look is modern and sophisticated, and a big step up from the previous interior.

Ergonomically, all the controls are laid out in a logical manner, and I found the infotainment interface to be reasonably intuitive – at least, I did once I realized the manual tuning function was controlled by (surprise) an actual tuning knob. What a great idea! All Siennas now get three-zone automatic climate control, with a separate small climate control display and individual temperature control knobs for each zone (the control for the rear is smaller and centrally mounted – all very logical). Back seat passengers can also take matters into their own hands thanks to a local climate control panel in the left-side roof panel.

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