2007 Hyundai Entourage Review

Hyundai Entourage – Review: They say no one wants to buy minivans anymore. The reasons run to the typical: not sexy enough, not enough status in it for mommy or daddy. Yet minivans like the Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna sell briskly, often with waiting lists and salespeople click-clacking over MSRP deals. Perhaps, then, it’s really that a minivan has to be darn good to make it, thanks to picky shoppers and clever automakers who innovate and keep family needs front and center.

What We Drove

As the new competitor in the minivan segment, we wanted to see how Hyundai was bringing their version of the Kia Sedona to market. That's no surprise, of course: Hyundai owns Kia, and with ownership comes perks such as the right to rebrand a top-grade minivan such as the Sedona. In this case, our tester was a base $23,745 Entourage GLS, including $595 destination, with cloth seats and body-color plastic trim on the outside.

Why We Drove It

Funny thing: minivans are the love secret most automotive journalists hold in the deep, dark corners of their souls. We can’t help it. Despite their boatish, awkward appearance and clumsy performance, they represent the pinnacle of interior innovation, these most usable of vehicles. Sure, they don’t look like much, but yessir, they sure are handy to have. That includes the Entourage, which like the Sedona is a serious player in the minivan segment and another good reason why General Motors and Ford should not bother attempting to get back into this market anymore. As such, we drove the Entourage to see if Hyundai was able to take the Sedona blueprints and transfer the good stuff over to the “other” brand.

Performance

When it comes to minivans, the kind of performance that matters most is what goes on inside. Road manners still matter, of course, and the Entourage also does a credible job of starting, stopping and going. It’s powered by one engine, a 3.8-liter V6 making 242 horsepower and 251 lb.-ft. of torque. The engine is mated to a five-speed automatic transmission that does a great job of managing power. The combination provides enough power and quick acceleration to get the job done. Stopping is aided by four-wheel ABS brakes, and hard stops are handled nicely.

Handling

We were on the way to carve a canyon in our tester when we realized...our tester was a minivan. So we headed for the mall via the freeway and discovered that the Hyundai Entourage is really not a bad handler, one that should give drivers confidence enough to make maneuvers. Of course, it rocks like a drunken housewife at a rockabilly concert, which lines it up with the Toyota Sienna, behind the Honda Odyssey and in front of the domestics.

Visibility

If you can’t see out of a minivan, you probably should buy a cane, and the Entourage is no exception. True, these are big vehicles, but there’s plenty of glass and the Entourage’s low second row seat headrests make it easier to see out of the back window.

Fun to Drive

Fun, translated in MinivanLand: kids like it, it’s inexpensive, functional, with plenty of room and powerful enough to get out of its own way. So yeah, the Entourage is fun.

Front Comfort

Overall, the Entourage offers front row occupants plenty of room to move and breathe, though we would have liked to have an armrest that was adjustable. While the driver’s seat is supportive, we didn’t like the seat height adjustor, or the lack of thigh support from the seat bottom. Soft touches all around the driver make the experience more comfortable, however, though this is probably not the minivan I’d want to drive on long trips.

Rear Comfort

There’s plenty of leg room in the mid-and-rear rows -- maybe too much, in fact, as the center cupholders are hard to reach. The mid-row window rolls down, a nice feature copied from the leading minivans. The most comfortable aspects of the Entourage -- from the play pen area -- is the leg and shoulder room while the worst thing is the cupholder placement.

Interior Noise

It’s a big rig, so it’s a little loud, with whiny road noise and some slight whistling wind around the front windshield. Compared to Toyota, the Entourage needs a few extra squirts of sound deadening to damp the cabin’s tendency to vibrate and creak a bit too much.

Loading Cargo

Close your eyes and you’d think you were loading up a Sienna, such are the similarities. As far as the Entourage goes, with third-row seats up you have a deep well good for loads of stuff. With seats down, you get a flat and almost square area that maximizes storage space. As with most minivans, the process of removing the second row is a pain – especially getting the darn seats back in – and that compromises cargo expansion. The seats are light enough, but there’s no handle with which to hold and direct them.