A feature I have come to appreciate on my minivan is the power sliding doors. I have some older friends that often ride with me and being able to open the door for them is a real convenience.
Also, I have a 12 year old dog that is beginning to suffer with arthritis. It is really s help to.be able to push a button and have the door slide open. Sometimes I have to help.him in. SUVs don’t have sliding doors.
Unless they break. Two people I knew who had Caravans - both had the power doors stop working. Very expensive fix.
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@MikeInNH. After 10 years and 120,000 miles, the sliding doors in the 2011 Sienna I sold to my son have functioned flawlessly. I have had no problems with the sliding doors in my 2017 Sienna in the 35,000 miles I have racked up.
People like me who suffer with Geezeritis and find that Medicare won’t cover the cost of Geritol® find power assisted features such as power sliding doors a real asset.
SUV’s are not Mini Vans , period . They are worlds apart in their function .
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The “function” of an SUV is to make runs to the store and haul kids to school/soccer/softball. Most are built on passenger car platforms, just like minivans. The apparent “ruggedness” of most SUVs is strictly a matter of styling. They fill the same niche minivans did and station wagons before them.
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We own a Toyota Sienna minivan and a Toyota 4Runner SUV. They are completely different vehicles. There is no way I could load two cellos, a violin, a French horn, a trumpet, and a flute and 6 passengers in a SUV and travel 50 miles to a concert venue and back again with the 4Runner as I have done with the Sienna. There is no way I could haul a set of 4 timpani in the 4Ruuner as I have done with the Sienna and the other hand, there is no way I could get the Sienna through 10" of snow as we have done with the 4Runner.
The visibility, especially in backing up, is certainly better in the 4Runner than in the Sienna.
Which vehicle do I prefer? Neither one. I would rather be driving a Mazda Miata.
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Here’s one way to get around that.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU_fshxE3Gk
We had a Dodge Caravan when the kids were younger. Extremely practical and people hauler and also as a small truck. But it got old and they fell out of fashion. Men won’t be seen in one for the fear of erectile dysfunction, women won’t drive them because they are so 90’s. All the new crossovers do is to try and make them function as well as a minivan without looking like one.
The market has decided. At 50K, 99% would buy a Lexus RX or a Highlander than a Sienna.
One note: The $50K price I quoted was for the top trim line 2021 Sienna. I believe the prices for the 2021 Sienna start around $30,000. All 2021 Siennas, from what I have read, will be hybrids.
The 2021 Sienna is getting great reviews so far, particularly for the gas mileage but you can’t remove the 2nd row seats, Some trims do offer 2nd row captains chairs that are like your recliner in the living room. My brother was in the market a little over a year ago but wouldn’t even consider a AWD Sienna.
You can’t go wrong going back to basics, can you, @B.L.E
But like the truck builders who manufacture new chassis and install rebuilt early EPA regulation drive trains there will be ways around John Deere’s efforts control the market.
There are also other options. Massey Ferguson, New Holland, Case, International Harvester. Perhaps on of John Deere’s competitors can make a selling point of “repairable” tractors.
Then there’s always the Amish option.
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Occasionally I get up early enough to see the Agricultural news program which often features auction prices of tractors and while John Deere models are the most prominently mentioned others are mentioned and I can only guess that the squabble over owner maintenance will affect the popularity of Deere’s competition. Surely they won’t jump on board to block owner’s getting into the onboard electronics.
My FIL grew up in Germany with a guy that went into the farm equipment repair business. He stayed in rural, Northern Germany. A Romanian tractor builder went out of business in the 1990s, and this guy put in a bid for all the tractors and parts that the defunct company had, and he won. The tractors were bare bones and very sturdy. Because these things would last forever, they became popular. My FIL’s friend became a very rich man selling parts all over Europe for the basic tractors that wouldn’t die, but still needed parts to get back to the fields.
Things used to be so simple. After an afternoon of replacing the nearly inaccessible starter on the company’s fork lift engine, I couldn’t help but show the guy changing that starter this photo.
A picture to think about next time you are in the bilge of an inboard/outboard motorboat replacing the starter.
Kind of an unfair comparison. Boat bilges kinda can’t have giant access holes as part of the body 'cause, like, the boat would sink. 
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I’ll bet that a perfectly workable wiring diagram of that tractor could be scribbled onto a post-it note.
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Probably over 95% of drivers on the road have that attitude towards a minivan. They would rather be seen commuting along the highway on roller skates rather than having someone accuse then of being seen in a minivan.
@gmallan55_149168 You are probably correct. I think Lt. Columbo had the right idea driving his battered Peugeot convertible.
I was transferred from a country school to a high school that drew students mostly from the wealthy part of the community. When I got my driver’s license in 1957, one of my parents’ cars was a green, 1952 Dodge coupé. That Dodge had the flathead 6 cylinder engine and the Gyromatic “lift and clunk” transmission. At first, I didn’t like being seen in that car. I was complaining about the car to my dad and remarked that the car had the speed of a turtle and I wished we had something more stylish like the other kids in my school. My dad said "How many of your classmates have the privilege of driving a ‘Green Turtle’? One of my friends heard my dad’s comment and the Dodge became known as the ‘Green Turtle’. Suddenly, it became a cool car. I drove the Green Turtle everywhere. My parents also owned a 1954 Buick at the time. It had a V8 engine and a manual transmission, and was a fast car for the time period. However, I preferred driving the Green Turtle. The fact that I didn’t have to shift gears and bench seat was a great car for going out with Little Iodine.
Today I drive a minivan. It’s the ‘in vehicle’ for transporting my musician friends and their instruments to gigs.
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Mu uncle has his vw eurovan mainly to transport a double bass.,