Car Throttle Parting Shot - The Chrysler Pacifica

Welcome to the Car Throttle Parting Shot, where we take a look at a production vehicle that has been recently discontinued, and ask “Was it really that bad?”. The German-American car company, Daimler Chrysler, was about to introduce a relatively new "Segment Buster" in the autumn of 2003. The idea was to marry the usefulness of a people carrier (Minivan as it were), to a go anywhere Sport Utility Vehicle, with better fuel mileage, and a better on highway ride. Unfortunately, as with all compromises, it never really lived up to any of the promises. It was a good idea, gone very bad, that inadvertently started the new larger Car-like Utility Vehicle (CUV) trend. Let's take a Parting Shot at the 5 year run of the Chrysler Pacifica.

The Chrysler Pacifica is among the new breed of crossover 4-dr wagons that aim to blend traits of cars, SUVs, and minivans. To that end, it offers three rows of seats for 6-passenger capacity, a suspension designed to provide car-like road manners, and available all-wheel drive. The Pacifica is taller than a car but lower than most SUVs. It also has an exceptionally wide body and is nearly as long as Chrysler's Town & Country minivan. The sole powertrain (at least for the first few years) is a 250-hp 3.5-liter V6 and 4-speed automatic transmission with manual shift gate. The Pacifica offers front-wheel drive with optional traction control, or all-wheel drive without low-range gearing. 4-wheel disc brakes, 17-inch wheels, and a load-leveling rear suspension are some of the standard features, with seating that consists of buckets in the 1st and 2nd rows and a 3rd-row split bench. The 2nd and 3rd rows fold but don't remove. This is one of the first vehicles that provided a head-protecting curtain side airbags that cover all three rows. Other notable standard features include power-adjustable pedals, and a tire-pressure monitor on AWD models, but were optional on front-drive models. You could choose leather upholstery, heated 1st- and 2nd-row seats, sunroof, power liftgate, navigation and DVD entertainment systems, and Sirius satellite radio. All in all a very well equipped vehicle.

Compared to other crossover wagons, the Chrysler Pacifica is relatively upscale and offers a wide array of creature comforts wrapped in elegantly chiseled sheet metal. Clever styling tricks make it look smaller than it actually is. Unfortunately, the Pacifica doesn't possess particularly great interior packaging. While the first two rows are spacious for occupants, the third row is acceptable only for children and leaves very little space for cargo behind it when deployed. The rearmost seat does, however, fold flat into the floor in convenient 50/50 sections. The Pacifica's Minivan derived suspension has garnered universal praise for its carlike ride and handling, although early models suffered reliability woes.

Early Pacificas also featured mediocre engines in a price bracket where potent and refined powertrains were the norm. Not helping matters were the large wagon's hefty weight and relatively unsophisticated four-speed automatic transmission, both of which took their toll on fuel economy. A significant update for 2007, however, brought about a new V6 engine, a new six-speed automatic for most models and updated styling.

After 2005, The Chrysler Pacifica is offered in three trim levels: LX, Touring and Limited, each of which is available with front-wheel or all-wheel drive. Base LX front-wheel-drive Pacificas are powered by a modest, 200-horsepower, 3.8-liter V6 connected to a four-speed automatic transmission with manual shift control. All other Pacifica models are motivated by a more sophisticated and powerful 4.0-liter V6 capable of 255 hp. The latter engine comes with a six-speed automatic, also with manual shift control. All Pacificas are rated to tow up to 3500 pounds. Base models feature two-row, five-passenger seating, while the Touring and Limited models boast the original six-passenger seating configuration.

Sales of these compromised crossovers have never reached expectations. Why? Well, along with the Crossfire, Chrysler optimistically priced these offerings far above customer expectations. They were simply too expensive for the Chrysler name. Realizing this, the LX was introduced during the 2005 model year, thoroughly de-contented, yet it still didn't make any difference. Chrysler didn't market the vehicle correctly, didn't add value to this first ever crossover, nor did it try and widen the appeal past it's Minivan roots. And so, during the Summer of 2005, Chrysler joined GM, and Ford in what has become the devaluation of the Detroit brand, offering Employee Pricing for everyone, and artificially creating demand.

The Pacifica also had another thing going against it, and that was the fact that it didn't share any of the interior furnishings with any other Chrysler, Dodge, or Jeep product. The window switches, audio and video entertainment options, seats, center console, or the instrument panel were not interchangeable with any other vehicle. The optional navigation system display is incorporated into the speedometer, and could be seen only by the driver. The power seat switches (along with heat) were on the door, a nod to it's Daimler parent, but never shared with any other Chrysler. The only thing shared was the engine, and the transmission, and even the gear selector was unique. This didn't help bring the costs down, thereby making the break-even point harder to reach.

The Pacifica also had a very bad reputation as far as reliability during the 2004 model year. While electrical gremlins persisted throughout it's entire production cycle, the 2004 models suffered from engine problems, transmission woes, and quality control issues. Chrysler did not handle these problems as well as they should have, which only compounded the problems during the launch of the car. It has been written that this was one of the worst new car introductions for Chrysler, with little or no advanced notice, hardly any pre-production publicity, and very little dealer training.

Is this car worth purchasing, either as a leftover new car, or as a good used car? Let me start by saying as a new car, you could do worse. There are still a lot of new 2007 and 2008 Pacificas available, and Chrysler has gone back to using the "Fire Sale" Employee Pricing scheme again, so they should be relatively affordable. If you want a used one, look for 2005 or later, and they should be real cheap, because their residuals have never been good. However, since the Pacifica introduction, there are better alternatives, Like the Subaru Tribeca, the GM Lambda offerings (Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia, Saturn Outlook, Chevy Traverse), The Honda Pilot, The Acura MDX, The Volvo XC90, and the Ford Freestyle/Taurus X/Flex. The Pacific may have been first, but it was never really that good, and that's my parting shot.