Pacifica issues?

I'm looking at an '04Pacifica to replace my '97 Intrepid. Are there any
issues with it? Anyone have one that they can offer an opinion on?

I love my intrepid, but after 10 years, its time.

 

Heavy & higher fuel consumption than your Intrepid.

Spare mounted underneath the rear, very cheap for a vehicle being sold
as higher end.
-Checking spare air pressure may require a ground sheet.
-Can a full sized space be carried?

Is your Intrepid running well? If so why trade it.

 

Only issue I have with them is I wish I had one.

 

Good question. It is running well, but my mechanic has put it on a
do-not-resucitate. He said that whatever is wrong with it (and I have
forgotten) may kill it in 10k, or 30k, but when it does, it probably
isn't worth replacing.

With that, my wife is kind of tired of it and wants a car she doesn't
have to worry about breaking if she is driving it. We live fairly
rurally.

I love the car. Its been great for me. 176k, lots of room and power.

 

Does anyone know what tranny the Pacifica uses? I have heard that it
has some mercedes parts in it, but I can't confirm that.

 

I have a '95 Concord, basically the same car, and I'm going to run it
until a major failure occurs. I expect that will be the transmission,
but I've serviced it very well and am only at 130K kms.
Is your "K" "miles" or "kms"?

It's value is only about C$2,500 so nothing lost if it fails. That
$2,500 would barely cover the extended warranty on a new car.
Being of such low value it wouldn't bother me if I had to just tow it to
a junk (recycling) yard. The engine would cover the towing cost.
The most likely cause of failure is a write off if some idiot in an SUV
driving too fast hits me.

It looks and runs very well and nothing Chrysler has pleases me more.
If I had to change quickly the Ford Fusion would be on my short list.

 

My '94 LHS is quickly approaching 300,000 km and the current
transmission is still going strong. The original unit failed shortly
after I had Mr. Lube do their "preventative maintenance" on it, only
to discover (too late) it left their bay with far less transmission
fluid than when it had arrived. Thankfully, although it was no longer
under warranty, Jim Davidson Chrysler replaced it at no charge.
Needless to say, I'm only too happy to sing their praises and when it
came time to buy my 300M Special, there was no question who was going
to get my business.

Cheers,.
Paul

 

Suspension components on the ones I saw were rusted on the new car lot. A
turn off.

 

the belt squeal never goes away and the all wheel drive units make a loud
clunk noise too thin of metal for the case and it binds up if it has one
the car is comforable but has pooror blind spots than most! and it's a
slug,slow
car has more computers than most dealers can fix and replacement parts are
not cheap if it has the nav dash that alone is $1600.00 cluster and is a
common failure
brakes hold up well

 

We are if a similar mind, down to the fusion. But with the engine the
way it is, we only drive it around town. which is fine, but sometimes
we want more mileage than the other car, a '98 JGC with the 318, gets.

I do love the LH series. Too bad they let it die.

Jimbo

 

Why not buy 300C?

Best looking car around and very well build.

47000 mls on odometer and no worries so far.

Rockman

 

Ugly grill and inadequate window space eliminated the 300 for me.

 

I had an 04 with all kinds of issues, i bought it new,had computer issues
galore. Took it to the dealer many times,and decided to trade it in on a 06
wrangler (something that won't have to many computer issues) before the
warranty went out.
i owned many chryslers, but would never recomend a pacifica to anyone.

 

Still a big hassle, having to buy new car under such circumstances. Much
easier to do it in a controlled manner in one's own time.


DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
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Agreed. The Intrepid is still rolling around, and I still love the car,
so this process may take more than a year. ;-)

One thing, we have a ginormous car seat. The Intrepid swallows it
nicely. The Jeep not as much. We had a line
on an '03 Concorde for $12,999, but my wife wanted a slightly smaller
car with better mileage. On the other side of that, she likes the
Pacifica. She doesn't like the 300 (though I do, and the Charger has
grown on me).

So...

We are looking at the Pacifica, a Subaru, and the Fusion. I'm a
Chrysler guy at heart, though, so this is where I like to look.

When I bought the Intrepid (nearly a decade ago) I got on this group
and had a bunch of people give me a list of the positives and negatives
as a whole. I.E. the poster above had a very bad experience, which I
take into account, but he may have just had a lemon. Whereas any LH
owner knows about the transmission issues (and subsequent fixes, use
the right fluid) and water pump issues that were chronic to the
platform.

Is there anything like that with the Pacifica? Chronic problems with
the platform?

 

Hi Jim,

When you say your wife wants something smaller than the Concorde and
with better gas mileage, somehow I can't picture the Pacifica. ;-)

I know little about this vehicle beyond what I've read here. The only
person I know who owned one, bought a first year model and was not
totally happy with it (she traded it in a little over a year ago).
Lots of minor problems and a tendency to stall when making a hard left
turn. I put this down to being an early production model and no doubt
many of these problems would have been worked-out as time went on. I
suspect the other part of the problem was her poor experience with the
local dealer.

I don't know how the Concorde stacks-up to the Pacifica in terms of
outward visibility, but both you and your wife should check for blind
spots (both would have their weaknesses in this regards). If I had to
choose between the two, I'd pick the Concorde, even though I'm not all
that struck on the front end (I think I once described it here as
looking like a "dead fish sucking on a lemon").

Although I'm not an huge fan of the new 300, I've rented one a couple
times on business and compared to my two vehicles, two things strike
you right off the bat: one, the handling on dry pavement is absolutely
superb (don't have any experience with snow) and, secondly, it's
eerily QUIET. The difference in quietness between the current and
previous generations is night an day (my first-generation LHS suffers
from wind noise and tire noise on the 300M Special is unbelievably
loud compared to any other car OR truck I know).

My '94 LHS will be retired in the next year or so and I, too, will
start looking for its replacement shortly. I don't have a clue what
to buy but I prefer it to be another Chrysler. That said, a plug-in
hybrid is what I truly want and whoever comes out of the gate first is
likely to be the winner.

Good luck in your search.

Cheers,
Paul

 

Don't fool yourself into thinking that Subarus are without problems.
They have compromised their designs over the last few years for
performance to the point that they have lots of early parts failures
(clutches, brakes, rear wheel bearings, etc.).

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Electrical issues come to mind with the Subaru.

Ken

--
"Now Phoebe Snow direct can go
from thirty-third to Buffalo.
From Broadway bright the tubes run right
Into the Road of Anthracite"
Erie - Lackawanna

 

The 300 grill is growing on me. I would like one in Inferno Red. What's the
next generation 300 going to look like?

I was at the car show this weekend here in the Meadowlands and Chrysler or
Dodge weren't even a show.

I do like the Cadillac models, Acura TL, Lexus ES350 and the Audi A6.
The one that I think I would purchase would be the new GMC Acadia.

Ken

--
"Now Phoebe Snow direct can go
from thirty-third to Buffalo.
From Broadway bright the tubes run right
Into the Road of Anthracite"
Erie - Lackawanna

 

Bill Putney wrote:

I remember the days when a Subaru *WAS* a rolling problem! But people
tolerated them for the AWD and fun-factor. Today, they seem to be just
another generic Japanese car, with the exception of the WRX. A co worker
just got a new Forester turbo, and it oozes "generic" even with the
turbo. But I don't seem to hear the same gripes about never-ending
maintenance that I used to.