Smooth, responsive, and refined, the 2006 Kia Sedona’s new 3.8-liter V6 is also powerful enough to break the front tires loose accelerating around turns. Open it up, and you’ll even hear a pleasantly aggressive growl from behind the firewall. The five-speed automatic transmission features Kia’s Sportmatic manual gear selection, with which the driver taps the gear selector up for upshifts and down for downshifts. We didn’t use this much – the Sedona is a minivan, after all – and when we did, upshifts lagged a bit but downshifts occurred without delay. Driven normally, the Sedona’s transmission shifts unobtrusively, and it includes grade-logic control to hold a gear on steep ascents to keep hunting to a minimum and on steep descents to increase engine braking. During our drive in the Sedona EX, we averaged 17.7 mpg in a mix of city and highway in mountainous northeastern San Diego County.