2009 Honda Odyssey Touring

With all the talk of fuel economy these days, you might be fooled into thinking that 25 mpg on the EPA's highway test is impressive for a mid-size car. I don't think it is. 25 mpg is, however, an impressive result for a 4700-lb vehicle that can carry eight passengers in quiet comfort. When it comes to hauling people and stuff, the minivan was a better alternative twenty years ago, it was a better alternative to all of those big, ungainly SUVs people insisted on driving, and it's still a better alternative today.

Among those minivans, the Honda Odyssey remains king. And if you think you're too cool to drive a minivan, go ahead and try to sell your ill-handling, 12-mpg SUV now. You won't look so cool crying on the dealership floor when the salesperson tells you it's worth 10% of what you paid for it - or worse, that he won't even consider taking it in on trade.

What makes the Odyssey so good?
Well, for starters, it drives more like a luxury sedan than a big van. It's quiet and rides as smoothly as a limo. After driving an SUV, you simply won't believe how much road feel the Odyssey has on-center. Because it's front-wheel drive, the van does suffer from a bit of torque steer, but less than the Pilot SUV that's based on the same chassis.

The smooth V-6
The Odyssey won't outaccelerate a sports car, but its 3.5-liter V-6 generates 244 horsepower and never any vibrations. Journalists endlessly praise Nissan's VQ-series V-6, but every time I get into a Honda, I'm reminded that it is, in fact, Honda that makes the world's best V-6 engines.

The top-of-the-line Limited and second-to-the-top EX-L models can run on either three or four cylinders in addition to all six. In three-cylinder mode, the V-6 runs on one bank of cylinders; in four-cylinder, it runs in an offset V-4 mode. Those modes create strange vibrations and sounds, so Honda uses active engine mounts and active noise cancellation (via a subwoofer in the passenger compartment) to eliminate them. The change boosts fuel economy from 16/23 mpg city/highway to 17/25 mpg, and both engines run on regular-grade gasoline. The base engine makes 240 lb-ft of torque; the Variable Cylinder Management engine makes 5 lb-ft more, thanks in part to a slightly higher compression ratio.