How to use the Stow 'N Go seats on the 2021 Chrysler Pacifica

Are Chrysler's Stow 'N Go seats really such a great thing? Seriously, I'm asking. Do owners of the Chrysler Pacifica, as well as the Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country before it, actually use the innovative functionality that see the second-row captain's chairs fold away into the floor? Frankly, I've always had my doubts. Car reviewers have long sung Stow 'N Go's praises, impressed with the ability to quickly turn the minivan from people carrier to work van. You'll frequently read mentions of needing to move sheets of plywood or treadmills or their kids' entire dorm room. Doing so is without question far easier when you can quickly make the second-row seats disappear as opposed to giving yourself a hernia lifting the things out and storing them in the garage – if removing them is even possible at all. Except here's the thing. We car reviewers have borrowed that van for the purpose of moving whatever it is we needed to move. Maybe the van in question is a long-term test vehicle like our old Pacifica Hybrid, maybe it's the more typical weeklong test loan. Either way, this is not a typical use case. The van is being considered more for its cargo-carrying abilities than its people-carrying abilities, and I just don't think that's representative of the typical minivan owner. Autoblog obsessively covers the auto industry. We are a trusted source of auto research, information, and automotive issues. Get more Autoblog Read: http://www.autoblog.comLike: http://on.fb.me/13uhpVbFollow: http://twitter.com/therealautoblog

Video Transcript

CHRIS MCGRAW: Hey, guys. Sr. Producer Chris McGraw here. Most people when they think of camping vehicles, they think of SUVs, like Land Cruisers, or Lexus GX, or Jeep Wrangler, stuff that you can overland in. But for the majority of people, camping is just getting to a campsite and sleeping there and then hiking off to somewhere else. It doesn't really involve off roading all that much.

Here, we are in a Chrysler Pacifica S. And I just want to show you how easy it is to turn this vehicle into a camping vehicle. So let me hop in the back and show you just how easy it is to transform this seven seater into a two seater with a ton of space.

All right. So first things first-- I move the both the passenger seat and the driver's seat all the way out. You press this button. And what that does is it will push the seats in front up, so that way you can still [INAUDIBLE] the middle row. Second, I'm gonna lift this knob here and bring this up. There is a white [INAUDIBLE] tab here. Just pull that, and it'll fold the seat all the way down. Oop. And then you fold this out. Boom. Clicks in. Do that to the other side, too.

Now that we've taken care of the middle row, we're gonna take here the back row, which is even easier, thanks to some power seat options. So let's head around to the back. All right. Now that we're in the back, we're gonna make sure that this headrest is down all the way, which already is. You can push it down just by using that. Pull this tab. Put that headrest down. Pull this tab. Same thing.

And then we go over here. So we have a few options. We can just hit "stow." And then these seats will actually just go down by themselves. And what was like a handy place for groceries, now becomes where the seats end up. And so there we go.

With all the seats down, we have a pretty flat area to lay an air mattress or sleeping pad. Throw some sleeping bags down. And it is incredibly easy to lay in here and get some Z's. As long as you're not doing any sort of crazy off roading, this is more than enough to sleep in. I've slept in a few different minivans.

This one is incredibly nice, just because of all the lie flat going on. There are some anchors and hard plastic there, so it's not something that I would land without an air mattress or a sleeping pad, just so I'm not feeling that on my back all night. But it is pretty flat, and you don't have to take out any seats.