Anyone here drove an Alphard in Japan?

[TVT]

hahahaha.. 3.5L really steady.. the engine sound.. really turn on.. but the thing is.. 2.4 I find is a bit underpowered.. For Estima is okay.. Alphard 2.4 underpowered..

S-Max and Sharan.. Lose to Alphard big time in terms of space..

Shouldn't Alphard be compared to Galaxy, Elgrand and Elyssion instead of S-max and Sharan?

[VellfireS]

Shouldn't Alphard be compared to Galaxy, Elgrand and Elyssion instead of S-max and Sharan?

 

I think Galaxy is out of the league.. The competition is between Elgrand and Elyssion.. But Elyssion I think here no more..

[Presea]

My bad... I personally don't like boxy MPVs, so I used that for a comparison (in an earlier post)

And all the MPVs I have tested this year have been the smaller sized ones...At the moment, the Sharan and S-Max tops my list

However, as I have also included crossovers like CX9 (and Sorento/Santa Fe/XC90) in my shortlist, I decided to open up to the possibility of the Alphard, hence the extended "test drive" in Hokkaido.

 

If I do consider the Alphard/Vellfire, than the Elysion will definitely make my list (because I have previously owned a vtec car and I badly miss the creamy smooth rpm curve)

 

And although in a similar (7-seat) genre, both the Q7 and the Land Rover Discovery 4 fails as one is way too expensive (Q7) and the LR is too utilitarian; the SE almost broke a fingernail trying to open and close the rear seats from the tail gate.