I recently sold my 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Limited with about 90k miles to Carvana because my local garage said fixing a misfire meant a headgasket andQuestions:
Has anyone had good experiences with the Chrysler Pacifica?
Does it fall apart over time, interior and/or exterior (unlike Toyota and Honda which are very well put together)?
(shakes, rattles, things coming loose, suspension loosening, clunking, plastic trim untrimming)
What about driver radar assist features, distance keeping cruise control, etc?
Driver's seat adjustability and comfort?
Anything else I should know?
. Maybe they misdiagnosed it, maybe not. I saw a lot of forum posts with engine trouble when I went looking. Unfortunately, I had been thinking about replacing it after the engine thermostat failed earlier this year (failed open, so engine couldn't get to full temperature, better than failing closed and overheating) and I was getting tired of it, and didn't know what to get, or I would have probably gotten more for it before it started misfiring. We had several early issues with the car, which I'm willing to put down to don't buy a first model year Chrysler, and certainly don't buy it the year before the model year; there was a can bus wiring problem that made the driver assistance features blink on and off frequently, dealer had no repair manual and had to figure it out with corporate and it took weeks, but they repinned the connector and it may have happened one time after that, and there were some issues with paint bubbling at the edges of the hood (trapped water during manufacturing?). Had to have the middle seat entertainment screens replaced a couple times early, then they worked most of the time (or really, were rarely used, so who knows?). Maybe one or two other things. Otherwise, kind of okay, until the start of this year. I didn't care much for the 9 speed automatic transmission --- you pretty much need to use the brakes to slow going down hills, L didn't help much; setting cruise control to the speed you wanted could slow down on the hills, but I think it just used the brakes; we also had some rough shifting, I think this was addressed by a firmware update, but they never would do it for us until recently; it shifted better afterwards, and perhaps would have been less clunky in its age if it had that firmware from the beginning. We were getting paint bubbling in different places towards the end, but didn't try to get that addressed because we had enough scratches and dings that it didn't matter anymore.
The fold mostly flat 3rd row and fold into the floor middle seats are great. You can just barely stuff a mini spare in the storage area for one of the middle row seats if you're not planning to stow the seat.
The housing around the rear view mirror developed an annoying squeak/rattle, but that may have been when the windshield was replaced by Safelite. The trim on the dash around the radio had started to kind of poke out, but didn't rattle.
I had a couple instances of the driver's wheelwell sound dampening/aerodynamic help stuff get jiggled and then there's a ton of road noise; only took a couple minutes to get it back right, once I figured out what the problem was, but man was it annoying before then.
Driver assistance features are pretty good. I didn't like the radar cruise much, because the following distance is in steps and I didn't like the steps; one is too close, the next one is an engraved invitation for everyone to zoom around you to get one car ahead; they may have changed that in the last 7 years though? The parking was mostly useless, but was workable. Lane keeping didn't include centering (but may now?), but worked well enough if lanes are striped well, and it doesn't beep so passengers can hear, it just gently pushes you back into the lane --- if you really want to drive on/over the lane, it lets you. My wife would sometimes get beeped at to put her hands on the wheel when they were already on the wheel, but I think we both thought that was funny. Automatic emergency braking at speed was sometimes a bit of an overreaction, but always pretty understandable. AEB in reverse would sometimes brake to protect plants that weren't really in danger, and on the right slope would think you're going to hit the road itself; at least it was clear what it was reacting to from the rear camera display. Parking assist is nice, and there's a button to turn off the beeps when you're at a drive-through or something. Also buttons to turn off the other assists.
The driver and passenger seats have lots of adjustments, and I found them pretty comfortable. Personally, I didn't care for the middle seats, but the back seats were nice; you can only adjust the back angle on those.
I don't think you're an extended warranty kind of person, but we bought one after not quite a year, because of the issues we had seen by then (probably should have tried for a lemon claim instead, but we really liked it at one year in), and I went with 7 year/100k, which the 7 years ended about 9 months too soon. Definitely shop the warranty separate from the car; there's some dealers that specialize in internet sales of factory extended warranties, and the prices can be better, but you can also pick from all the options --- the dealers I took it to were always surprised when I had a $0 deductible on extended warranty service, but I was expecting trouble to happen sooner or later, and it was just a little bit too much later.
Trying to make sure I cover all your other stuff in the intro... size wise, yeah, it's big, but it's not the biggest thing out there. Power folding mirrors help a bit on tight spaces, like car ferries. No idea on AWD --- was not an option until recently. I was interested in the Hybrid because we've been doing a lot of miles on sports stuff and I hated the transmission; Hybrid gives better gas mileage and the same basic two electric motor + gas engine concept as Toyota's Hybrid Synergy so no more ZF9 (although some say Chrysler didn't implement it well?), but takes away stow and go middle seats and power folding rear seats, so that's a no. Toyota's new generation Sienna that's all Hybrid doesn't even let you remove the middle seats at all though, so that's strictly worse. Stow and go middle seats is really great for a small family --- you can pack way too much stuff for a trip to relatives, and when you get there, unpack and then fill the van up with people.
Hope this is helpful, I know it's long.
Statistics: Posted by toast0 — Thu Jul 04, 2024 1:52 am — Replies 2 — Views 268