One of my friends is considering a new one of these for his wife's commuter and kid transport vehicle. His wife's work commute is quite short so she should be able to do most of it on electricity alone. She averages 13K miles a year on her current vehicle.
I don't honestly know much about these, but the long term reviews I've found are generally positive. My knee jerk reaction of "Run away, it's a FCA product!" probably needs to be reevaluated, so I'm curious what the opinion of the GRM hive is on these.
We really really really almost bought one instead of an 8 year old Odyssey.
But in the end I couldn't justify the price. TCO was getting darn close for both over a ten year period however. Never driven one but I like how they look and the idea is exactly what we need.
Wife and I just bought one in January. We love it. Its been absolutely rock solid for the nearly 8000 miles we've driven it so far. The CVT really works well with this drivetrain and as my wife found out, it will move along just fine when fully loaded when she was stopped for going 99mph in Cali (how she talked us out of that I'll never know) and that was on gas power only as we had drained the battery earlier in the trip. Its never felt gutless or struggled and cruising along on the electric motor is just nice and smooth with the ability to kick in the gas motor when needed is just a nice touch.
The only thing I think we miss, is the lack of stow-n-go for the middle row. The middle seats lift out, but they are heavy (they are much more comfy than the stow-n-go seats though, so there's that). But they fold forward and slide to get to the back and its still much easier to get in and out of the back than any of the 3rd SUVs we looked at, and we looked at ALL of them as the wife did not want anything to do with a minivan.
The battery recharges under heavy braking, so long downhills and stop and go traffic helps reduce gas usage. The charger included works great for overnight charging on 110V AC, of course you can add a 220V AC charger if you feel you want to charge it more quickly, but that is at the expense of the battery pack life.
Visibility is excellent, you're seated just as high as all of the CUV/SUVs we've seen and the additional cameras and sensors really help. The lower floor makes getting in and out much easier, our 3-year old and her 83 year old great grandma can get in and out on their own.
In our state, there is a $2500 DEQ rebate program along with the $7500 Federal Tax incentive, so it makes the price less painful in the long run. So its worth looking into what might be available for rebates/incentives, etc. in their area.
FCA has seriously stepped up their game (at least) in interior quality- the Pacifica is probably THE minivan, as the damn thing has LCD screens with their own HDMI and headphone plugins on ALL the seatbacks for passengers. Comfy as hell too, and the UConnect is probably the perfect blend between haptic screen controls and physical buttons.
But why they need a van? Because if they only have 2 with no more plans for more, the Chevy Volt can be gotten for real cheap and I can't think of a single person that didn't like them. Most owners only get gas once every 4-5 months from what I keep hearing.
GIRTHQUAKE said:
But why they need a van? Because if they only have 2 with no more plans for more, the Chevy Volt can be gotten for real cheap and I can't think of a single person that didn't like them. Most owners only get gas once every 4-5 months from what I keep hearing.
They've got 2 and definitely trying for more. They want a larger vehicle for traveling purposes, as they're 5+ hours from family. My friend already has a Mazda 3 and thinks it's too small for trying to do both kid duty. With the Volt being in the same size category, I'm sure they'll have no interest.
mtn
MegaDork
8/19/19 12:44 p.m.
We compared the standard Pacifica when we were minivan shopping. We ended up with the Kia, which we both liked better - slightly nicer interior, better looking exterior in our opinion, and the big reason, we got a stupid good price on it.
I wanted to try the plug in hybrid Pacifica, but nobody had one in stock for us to test drive. I called around to a few dealers that did have them in stock, but no one was willing to negotiate. I think the best deal I could come up with was about $42k after the government incentives. This was when they were first released.
Ultimately, we love the Sedona, to the point that if I tried to replace it with anything but a newer Sedona (or Telluride) my wife may divorce me, but I think that if we'd been shopping about 6 months later there is a good chance we would be in a Pacifica Plug-in-hybrid. At our mileage, it only works out to about $200 to $350 a year in gas, so not really a big deal.
