Yahoo Autos The Chrysler Pacifica Is the Best Van – 2017 10Best Trucks and SUVs
Rarely will you read a paean to the minivan. The form simply fails to ignite passion. The minivan makes so much sense as a transportation tool that few people will admit to being so practical when investing in a new vehicle; to do so is to swim upstream against the cultural current toward crossovers and SUVs that promise the romance of adventure, excitement, and status. All that a minivan promises is near-perfect adaptation to the mundane transportation chores of the lives we actually lead.
The new-for-2017 Chrysler Pacifica is the latest exemplar of the minivan form, honed over decades into something quite different. This is not the cheap, rattly, three-door contraption you rode in as a child en route to ballet lessons or hockey practice. Chrysler gets credit for inventing the minivan in 1984, but it’s hard to connect those original utilitarian tin boxes—the Plymouth Voyager and the Dodge Caravan—with the large and luxurious land yacht that is the new Chrysler Pacifica. Lingering back-seat memories may be suppressing sales volumes nowadays, but there’s no such thing as a short-wheelbase minivan, nor a droning four-cylinder, manual-transmission edition with rubber on the floors and shiny vinyl seats crammed so close together as to incite sibling squabbles.
Even the least expensive Pacifica comes packed with modern safety, comfort, and convenience features. With a few options, its low-$30K sticker approximates the average new-vehicle transaction price, meaning there’s no built-down-to-a-budget offering, and occupants never feel like they’re confined to a low-rent appliance. Comfortable, quiet, and easy to drive, park, and load, it does everything but excite the driver into making haste on a backcountry two-lane road. When pressed into that latter mission, however, it’s nimbler than is most any alternative that can carry up to eight people. And a distinguishing trait from nearly all three-row SUVs is that the Pacifica’s third row can be occupied while still leaving ample space behind it for luggage.
The evolution of the minivan form over more than three decades has seen the focus narrow. Now built on its own dedicated platform with an aerodynamic and appealing exterior design, the Pacifica puts an independent rear suspension under a Chrysler minivan for the first time. This allows a low cargo load floor while improving ride quality and rough-road handling sophistication. Most Pacificas come with a strong, 287-hp 3.6-liter V-6 engine, nine-speed automatic transmission, and front-wheel drive, a combination that returned an impressive 31 mpg during our 200-mile, 75-mph highway-fuel-economy test. Chrysler recently added a plug-in-hybrid variant—the first to be offered in North America in any minivan—using the same V-6 engine plus a 16.0-kWh battery pack and electric motor/generators. It’s EPA-rated to travel up to 33 miles on battery power alone, putting most suburban playing fields well within gas-free driving range from home while maintaining all the long-distance travel capabilities of the standard engine. Choosing the hybrid eliminates the trademark Stow ’n Go center-row seats that drop easily into the floor (that’s where the battery pack lives) but offsets that loss with more comfort for adults in the removable seats that replace them.
The Pacifica just plain works, and it’s our best van for 2017.
2017 Chrysler Pacifica
VEHICLE TYPE:front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 7- or 8-passenger, 4-door van BASE PRICE:$29,590–$46,090ENGINES:DOHC 24-valve 3.6-liter Atkinson-cycle V-6 + 2 AC motors, 260 hp (16.0-kWh lithium-ion battery pack); DOHC 24-valve 3.6-liter V-6, 287 hp, 262 lb-ftTRANSMISSIONS:9-speed automatic, continuously variable automaticCURB WEIGHT (C/D EST):4400–5000 lbFUEL ECONOMY:EPA combined/city/highway driving (nonhybrid): 22/18/28 mpg
EPA combined gas+electricity (hybrid): 84 MPGe
2017 10Best Trucks and SUVs: Return to Overview
The Competition
As this year marks the inaugural 10Best Trucks and SUVs competition, we couldn't follow our usual 10Best procedure of limiting the invitees to the previous year's winners plus vehicles that are new or significantly updated. Therefore, we also invited some competitors based on our previous experiences, including (but not limited to) comparison-test results. As with 10Best Cars, a competing vehicle must have a base price of less than $80,000 and be on sale by January 31, 2017. Unlike 10Best Cars, our Trucks and SUVs awards are given out by category. Next year, we will invite the returning winners, new and/or significantly updated models, and the models that were unavailable for evaluation this year.
For the van segment we invited the following:
Chrysler Pacifica
Ford Transit
Ford Transit Connect
Honda Odyssey*
Mercedes-Benz Metris
Toyota Sienna
*Unavailable for testing
