2023 Toyota Sienna Long-Term Update: How are the driver assistance systems?

I’ve racked up a fair number of miles in our long-term 2023 Toyota Sienna in most situations imaginable at this point, so, it’s time to chat driver assistance systems. The Sienna doesn’t offer any magical hands-free modes or promise the world in terms of unique features, but this is a minivan, which means safety and these sorts of systems are of paramount importance to dissect.

The big ones are adaptive cruise control (with full-speed capabilities) and Lane-Tracing Assist. Toyota’s adaptive cruise is rather smooth in operation, though I’ve noticed it starts slowing a little too early on occasion as you approach slower highway traffic. You’ll eventually be pulled into the range that you set for the following distance, but it’s slow enough to do so that I find myself often being cut off by other motorists as I wait for the Sienna to close to a regular following distance. I’d place most of the blame on people jockeying between lanes here, but there’s no doubt that it ultimately makes using the system a deterrent on busy highways.

That said, if traffic is so busy that it’s stop-and-go, the Sienna is perfectly smooth and works through a traffic jam without stress, sudden stops or abrupt starts. Acceleration can be a little pokey if the car ahead of you whizzes away quickly, but the Sienna isn’t exactly a quick car to begin with.

As for the Lane-Tracing Assist, this system does its best to keep you centered in the lane when adaptive cruise control is on. It does its job, but you’ll need to babysit the wheel in curves and make a fair amount of corrections. Cruising in a straight line is always safe, and its lane placement is solid, but I’ve driven plenty of systems that are far superior to this level of lane-centering, most notably in one of the Sienna’s competitors, the Kia Carnival. Compared to the Honda Odyssey, it’s essentially a dead heat, and everybody’s ahead of Chrysler’s lane-keeping tech. It's also worth mentioning that Toyota makes it abundantly easy to switch this lane-tracing tech on or off as necessary via a hard steering wheel button. You might think that's obvious, but it's unfortunately not the case for every new car today.

I’ve thankfully never needed to use the automatic emergency braking w/pedestrian detection, though I did have a car make a Michigan Left (for those unaware) dangerously in front of me that caused all the alerts to light up and warnings to ring out. It was quite unnecessary since I was able to jam on the brakes safely as soon as the other car made their move, but had I not been paying attention, all of the systems would’ve surely snapped me into focus.

That said, please, everybody, put down your phones – these emergency systems are not a crutch to rely on.