CHICAGO, Sept. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Cars.com, the premier online resource for buying, selling and now servicing cars, has teamed up with PBS's "MotorWeek" to evaluate the current crop of minivans and determine which outperforms its competition. With the help of a real family in the market for a new minivan, Cars.com experts evaluated five of the most popular models: the 2015 Chrysler Town & Country, 2015 Dodge Grand Caravan, 2015 Honda Odyssey, 2015 Kia Sedona and 2015 Toyota Sienna. After extensive testing, the 2015 Kia Sedona earned first place.

"The all-new Kia Sedona is a champion of quality and refinement," said Patrick Olsen, Cars.com editor-in-chief. "A great ride combined with a quiet cabin and numerous innovative features made the Sedona an obvious selection as the ultimate minivan."

The tests resulted in the following ranking:


    1. 2015 Kia Sedona
    2. 2015 Toyota Sienna
    3. 2015 Honda Odyssey
    4. 2015 Dodge Grand Caravan
    5. 2015 Chrysler Town & Country

"Minivans are among the most utilitarian vehicles sold today," said Olsen. "It's not uncommon for minivan shoppers to buy them fully loaded, so we tested the 'ultimate' minivans with a price cap of $50,000, allowing us to assess the current offerings in technology, features and drivetrains."

The five minivans went through extensive testing that included:


    --  135-mile course on varying road types to test each minivan for
        real-world MPG.
    --  Round-robin testing, where multiple experts drove each minivan
        back-to-back on the same course to test ride, handling, comfort,
        acceleration and more.
    --  Testing by a family in the market for a new minivan to evaluate
        features, cargo space, ride and more.

For full results and scoring details on the Ultimate Minivan Challenge, or any of the recent Cars.com multicar comparisons, visit www.cars.com/news.

ABOUT CARS.COM

Launched in 1998, Cars.com, a TEGNA Inc. (NYSE: TGNA) company, is an award-recognized online destination for car shoppers and owners that offers information from experts and consumers to help research, price and find new and used cars, as well as information around service and repair for car owners. With more than 30 million monthly visits to its web properties, Cars.com offers millions of new and used vehicle listings, expert and consumer reviews, side-by-side comparison, build and price tools, unbiased editorial content and much more. In 2015, Cars.com introduced a new service and repair feature to help consumers find the right service provider and understand how much to pay with the fair-price estimator tool. Cars.com puts millions of car buyers, and now owners, in control of their shopping process with the information they need to make stress-free buying, selling and servicing decisions.

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SOURCE Cars.com