The IT Nerd

The technology in the Chrysler Pacifica is simply mind blowing. It covers safety, entertainment, and it will even answer the age old question “are we there yet?”

No, seriously. It really does that as you’ll see in a bit. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me start with the safety technology and work from there. One of the really cool safety features is this Surround-View camera system  which gives you a 360 degree view of what is around you:

There a five cameras in the Pacifica. Two in the front, one in the rear, and one in each rear view mirror. Those cameras along with some fancy software allow you to get this view. This view makes it really easy to park the Pacifica and you can change the views from front to back as well. Take it from me, you have to check this option box as you will find this really useful.

Another safety feature is the KeySense system. The goal of this system is to put limits on speed, audio volume, SiriusXM satellite radio channel selections and more, as well as activating safety and security settings for additional drivers. That way, your teenagers drive safer. All of these preferences can be easily assigned to the programmable key fob through the Uconnect touchscreen.

Besides the ability to detect a possible collision and brake for you if you don’t take action, the Pacifica has the ability to park itself. By that I mean parallel parking and perpendicular parking. I tried both and I have to say that once you trust that the this system isn’t going to hit the Audi next to you, you’ll find that it works and it works well.

A really cool feature is adaptive cruise control system that is capable of crawling through traffic for you. I tried this on the 401 during rush hour and  it moved forward and came to a complete stop on its own for the most part. If it stayed stopped for more than a couple of seconds, it would beep and make me take full control of the Pacifica.

Now lets get to the entertainment. I will start with the fact that the Pacifica that I am driving this week comes with a Harmon Kardon sound system with 760 watts of power and 20 speakers. If you’re into audio, you’ll love this system and it sounded great regardless of where I was sitting. Backing up this system is the always great UConnect system which you interact with via a 8.4″ in touchscreen which attracted fingerprints like crazy. But having said that, using the system was dead easy. Paring my phone was trivial and interacting with it either from the touchscreen or from the steering was dead easy. The user interface has also been refined to look better and make the operation of the system easier. It also comes with Siri Eyes Free which allows iPhone users to use Siri to send text messages and the like. Though to use it, you need to keep the voice command button on the steering pressed at all times which can be awkward if you’re turning the wheel at the time you’re using Siri Eyes Free. I point that out because I have seen other implementations of Siri Eyes Free that don’t require that. Now, the only real pet peeve that I have is the fact that you need UConnect to drive items like the heating for the steering wheel or the controls for the heated and cooled seats. There should really be redundant buttons for that sort of thing. But having said that, there is one really cool thing that this iteration of UConnect does. It comes with UConnect theater. If you’re in the second row, you can watch a Blu Ray movie on one of the 10″ screens that are mounted on the headrests of the front seats. You also have USB and HDMI connectivity as well so you can use your own devices and media. Plus on top of that, there’s a pair of wireless headphones and a pair of remote controls to allow second row passengers to control their entertainment experience and listen privately. Finally, this system comes with a bunch of apps including the “Are We There Yet?” app, which shows the distance remaining and estimated arrival time to a destination. That alone makes this feature worth it for parents as they will never have to answer that question again.

This is easily one of the most tech laden vehicles that I have driven. If you like your technology, the Chrysler Pacifica is for you. Tomorrow I will wrap up this review and give you my final thoughts.

This entry was posted on September 24, 2016 at 8:55 am and is filed under Products with tags Chrysler. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.