Chrysler's new minivan: 2017 Pacifica | FerrariChat

Chrysler's new minivan: 2017 Pacifica

Discussion in 'General Automotive Discussion' started by Nurburgringer, Mar 11, 2016.

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  1. Nurburgringer

    Nurburgringer F1 World Champ

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    #1 Nurburgringer, Mar 11, 2016
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    As the very happy owner of a '11 Town and Country I've been psyched for a while to see what the next gen Chrysler hauler was about.

    Looks pretty good from the pics (I see some Mercedes in the side/rear 3/4 view) and ~$43k fully loaded is competitive. But until I drive one not putting down a pre-order or anything.

    Should be a little lighter (not that 4500lb is all that much for a 7-passenger vehicle), nicer shifting, even quieter and more comfortable than the last gen.

    The brilliant "stow and go" 2nd row seats are supposedly even more comfortable, with a welcome button on the B pillar that automatically moves the front seat forward to drop them into the floor.

    Panoramic sunroof is cool.

    Hope they'll have a rich dark brown leather interior option like the last one.
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  2. Scotty

    Scotty F1 Veteran
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    #2 Scotty, Mar 11, 2016
    My wife and I never had kids but we owned an AWD Town & Country minivan for almost 8 years. I've never owned a better utility vehicle. We used to blow up a queen size air mattress and sleep in the back of it. When flyfishing, 4 folks could sit (1 at each side door, 2 at the back) and put on/take off waders. I could take 3 friends mountain biking and all of our bikes would fit inside, in the back, not broken down. At that time nothing had more interior volume with all of the seats removed (it beat Suburban's, etc.). And it got reasonable gas milage (we'd get 25 to 27 on the highway).

    We moved on when stow and go seating eliminated the AWD option, and got sucked into the SUV thing. We are now doing more hard core offroad stuff, so our rig of choice is a Wrangler Rubicon. But I read that this was going to be available with AWD--if so, it would have more utility the way most people use SUV's than SUV's. But the public perception of these a soccer mom bombs is hard to shake.
     
  3. F2003-GA

    F2003-GA F1 World Champ
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    #3 F2003-GA, Mar 11, 2016
    The Pacifica is looking good especially the plug in version :)
     
  4. Nurburgringer

    Nurburgringer F1 World Champ

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    #4 Nurburgringer, Mar 11, 2016
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    Scotty - there's still nothing that can beat a minivan's interior volume! Not even a Suburban.

    Personally the Stow-and-Gos is more important to me than AWD, but with your usage I fully understand going the Wrangler route. Even an AWD minivan won't have the ground clearance to do much offroading.

    Funny article today on Jalopnik about the minivan "image".
    http://jalopnik.com/if-youre-a-real-grown-up-minivans-are-cooler-than-cros-1764226230
    It kind of pisses me off that Chrysler apparently compromised the new van's utility (smaller windows mainly) trying to make it more palatable to those that have some kind of problem with minivans (they're not going to buy one in any case), but money talks...

    Besides picking up the occasional sheet of plywood, this is why I love the stow-and-gos:
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  5. tbakowsky

    tbakowsky F1 World Champ
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    #5 tbakowsky, Mar 11, 2016
    We have a 2012 R/T, and it's great. I'll have a look at this new one, and if it is a better unit I'll trade up. But so far our current van has been trouble free, but as with any first year new model I may wait a couple of years and wait out the issues that usually show up.
     
  6. Scotty

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    #6 Scotty, Mar 11, 2016
    Those planes are awesome. I build furniture, and I could put 4X8 sheets of hardwood plywood into the back of mine.

    We had a big snowstorm here, and we had first generation Blizzaks on the AWD minivan. We actually pulled out a stuck 4WD Explorer and a 4WD Jeep Cherokee one night (we were just driving around to see how it did). It was awesome. But living we where do and doing what we do (docs) we have to be able to get to a hospital in (potentially) any conditions. For urban/suburban storms we'd typically see the ground clearance was fine (so it worked). But there were fishing spots I could not get into, and it isn't easy to mount 33's (or 35's) and a winch onto one. But they really trump everything else in terms of general utility.
     
  7. Nurburgringer

    Nurburgringer F1 World Champ

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    #7 Nurburgringer, Mar 12, 2016
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  8. Nurburgringer

    Nurburgringer F1 World Champ

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    #8 Nurburgringer, Mar 17, 2016
  9. dmundy

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    #9 dmundy, Apr 18, 2016
    I'm planning on looking at one, but trying to wait until the hybrid is out. I haven't driven a cvt vehicle that I liked yet, but I want to give it a try.
     
  10. rdefabri

    rdefabri Three Time F1 World Champ

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    #10 rdefabri, Apr 19, 2016
    This looks nice, but I agree @dmundy - CVT is meh. I have a Nissan Pathfinder, with CVT. While I wouldn't call it a negative, it's not great. The Pathfinder is a solid car, but the CVT is the one piece I would have eliminated.
     
  11. Ak Jim

    Ak Jim F1 Veteran
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    #11 Ak Jim, Apr 20, 2016
    Still love my 1997 Ford Aerostar AWD.
     
  12. Nurburgringer

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    #12 Nurburgringer, May 5, 2016
    I stopped by the local Chrysler dealer yesterday to see if they had any to check out.
    Salesman that grabbed me before going in had basically no knowledge about the Pacifica at all. Said he thinks they're supposed to have training on it in a few weeks, but there was nobody there that had any idea when they'd have some in stock.
    I knew way more about it than the guy whose job it is to sell them. Depressing...

    On the bright side, Google has chosen the Pacifica as it's next self-driving car!

    Minivans Are the Future

    That's awesome. I for one can't wait for autonomous cars. Had to drive ~25 miles towards downtown on Tuesday and it took me 70 minutes. Humans SUCK at driving in traffic.
    Houston will never get public transportation, the entrances and exits from major highways are pretty much fixed, so no matter how many lanes they widen Rt 290, 45, Rt 10, Beltway 8 etc unpredictable humans with one eye on their cell phone will always **** things up.
    Computers and GPS controlled cars that communicate with each other to keep traffic flowing is our only hope to improve traffic around major cities.
    Bring on our autonomous car overlords!!!!!
     

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