2024 Chrysler Pacifica Reviews, Pricing & Specs

The Pacifica is the exception to the rule that cars need to be refreshed or redesigned every few years. While it’s certainly no longer new or different, the Pacifica’s exterior styling still looks contemporary. The Chrysler minivan is also a nice contrast to the design approaches of its rivals.

Smooth exterior styling with a modest grille makes for an excellent alternative to the flashier look of the Toyota Sienna, and unlike the Kia Carnival’s design team, Chrysler didn’t feel the need to dress up the Pacifica like an SUV to make it appealing. Sliding-door tracks hidden above and below the door frame also give the Pacifica a clean look. There’s no need for added styling features to camouflage the door tracks, as in the Honda Odyssey.

For 2024, the Pacifica is available in base Touring, Touring L, Limited, and Pinnacle trim levels. A de-contented version badged the Chrysler Grand Caravan is also available. LED headlights, taillights, fog lights, and daytime running lights are standard on all models. 17-inch wheels are standard in Canada, while 18-inch and 20-inch wheels are available on higher trim levels and with option packages.

An S Appearance Package adds darkened exterior and interior trim while a Road Tripper Package includes crystal exterior trim, all-weather floor mats and cargo liner, and a trailering package. Both include the aforementioned 20-inch wheels. For 2024, Baltic Grey and Red Hot paint options joint the colour palette.

The Pacifica’s interior is as distinctive as its exterior. The dashboard has a minimalist, sculpted look with impressive integration of the controls. Nothing juts out, and the dash doesn’t contort or bulge out to accommodate an air vent or touchscreen. Instead, it gracefully curves around binnacles for the instrument cluster and infotainment touchscreen. The latter is framed by winged vents that remind us of the Chrysler logo, while the rotary shift knob takes up a minimal amount of space.

Our test car was a Chrysler Pacifica Pinnacle, the fanciest version available. That means it arrived decked out with brown Nappa leather upholstery with quilted contrast stitching and white piping, as well as small pillows for the second-row seats. However, much of the rest of the interior looked like it belonged to a lower trim level. The contrast stitching continues onto the dashboard, doors, and centre console, but it mingles with lots of plastic. And while the rotary shifter is a quality touch, none of the other controls looked or felt quite as nice. It’s also easy to mistake the shifter for the volume knob, as they’re both dials.

The standard Pacifica is offered solely with a 3.6-litre V6 engine — producing 287 horsepower and 262 pound-feet of torque — and a nine-speed automatic transmission. Front-wheel drive (FWD) is standard while all-wheel drive (AWD) is available on the Touring L and Limited, and standard on Pinnacle. The Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid (covered in a separate review) is also available with a FWD plug-in hybrid powertrain.

Dubbed the Pentastar, the Pacifica’s V6 is a long-serving engine that’s been used throughout the former Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (now Stellantis) lineup for years in everything from Ram pickup trucks to Jeep SUVs. It’s also a good fit for this minivan, providing enough power for peppy acceleration and leaving enough reserve to enable a maximum towing capacity of 1,632 kilograms (3,600 pounds).

Chassis tuning is appropriate for a minivan, emphasizing comfort and stability over handling sharpness. Once up to speed, the suspension does a good job of damping out any body motion or road imperfections, helping to keep car sickness at bay. However, some weight transfer was noticeable when accelerating and decelerating, causing the Pacifica to flop forward and backward like Chryslers of old.

The Chrysler brand has traditionally been positioned a step above the mainstream, and the Pacifica lives up to that reputation. It’s not quite a luxury minivan — something that’s never really existed in the North American market — but it’s certainly quiet, comfortable, and relatively refined compared to its rivals from Honda, Kia, and Toyota.

Chrysler offers its ingenious Stow ‘n Go seating, in which second-row seats fold flat into the floor, leaving large in-floor storage bins when those seats are in use. However, the packaging of Stow ‘n Go, which requires leaving room in the floor for the seats to, well, stow, means you’ll have to be strategic about option choices.

The Pacifica comes standard with Stow ‘n Go, which dictates second-row bucket seats that, along with the standard 60/40 split-folding third-row bench seat, makes for seven seats. Stow ‘n Go isn’t available with the second-row captain’s chairs that come with Pinnacle trim level. Pinnacle models are also equipped with a standard power-folding third-row seat. A power liftgate is available as well.

Passenger space compares favourably to other minivans. First-row and second-row headroom is nearly identical to the competition, and the Pacifica offers a fraction more third-row headroom than other minivans as well. It’s a similar story with legroom in the first two rows. Rear-seat legroom is a bit less generous than the Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna, but the Pacifica boasts more than 2 centimetres of additional third-row legroom versus the Kia Carnival.

Non-hybrid Pacifica models offer 914 litres of cargo space with all three rows of seats in place, 2,477 litres behind the second row, and 3,978 litres with the second and third rows folded. That’s a fairly cavernous amount of space, but these are minivans we’re talking about. The Honda Odyssey and Kia Carnival offer a few litres more here and there, but the Pacifica can claim a decisive victory over the Toyota Sienna in the cargo-space contest.

A Stow ‘n Vac built-in vacuum cleaner is standard equipment on the Pacifica Pinnacle. Housed in the side of the cargo area, it doesn’t take up much space but its hose has the reach to get to most spots in the second and third rows. We wish the same packaging acumen was applied to the raised centre console, which has a small storage area underneath that keeps items well hidden but is also difficult to access.

The Pacifica comes standard with a 10.1-inch touchscreen running the familiar Uconnect 5 infotainment system, which incorporates wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, Bluetooth, and available SiriusXM with 360L satellite radio compatibility. The instrument cluster has analog gauges with a 7-inch digital display in between. The Pacifica is also available with up to 12 USB-C ports spread across all three rows, as well as built-in navigation and a 19-speaker Harman Kardon audio system.

Uconnect 5 remains one of the better infotainment systems. The on-screen displays are intuitive and sharp-looking. It also generally doesn’t require too much digging into menus and submenus to find what you’re looking for. However, we would have appreciated a shortcut icon or hard button to pull up the view from our Pacifica Pinnacle’s 360-degree camera system. Or, better yet, Chrysler should have programmed the camera view to come up automatically when pulling close to obstacles. The touchscreen’s stylish installation also means there’s no place to rest your hand while using it.

Like its rivals, the Pacifica can be equipped with a rear-seat entertainment system as well. The Uconnect Theatre system includes a pair of 10.1-inch touchscreens attached to the backs of the front seats, wireless headphones, remote controls, a Blu-ray/DVD player, and HDMI inputs. The package also has available Amazon Fire TV connectivity. Parents can limit content their kids are allowed to see, and front-seat occupants can view streamed TV on the main touchscreen when the car is in park.

Chrysler also lets parents keep an eye on their kids with the FamCam, a rear-facing interior camera that shows a view of the rear seats. However, Chrysler doesn’t offer an intercom system like ones available in the Honda Odyssey and Kia Carnival.

The 2024 Chrysler Pacifica was named a 2023 Top Safety Pick by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), missing out on the highest Top Safety Pick+ award due to low scores in updated moderate overlap front and side crash tests and middling ratings for headlights and front crash prevention tech.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gave the 2024 Pacifica a five-star overall safety rating, including five stars in frontal and side crash tests and four starts in rollover crash tests.

Standard safety features include: blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, forward-collision warning, automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, lane-departure warning, adaptive cruise control, and rear park assist. A 360-degree camera system, front park assist, and a parallel/perpendicular park assist system are optional.

Natural Resources Canada fuel economy ratings are 10.6 litres per 100 kilometres combined (12.4 city, 8.4 highway) with FWD and 12.0 L/100 km combined (14.1 city, 9.4 highway) with AWD. Fuel efficiency in line with the FWD-only Honda Odyssey and Kia Carnival, which achieve 10.6 and 10.7 L/100 km combined respectively with V6 engines. The Toyota Sienna achieves fuel efficiency as low as 6.6 L/100 km combined from its four-cylinder hybrid powertrain, but the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid in turn offers up to 51 kilometres of all-electric range for drivers who have a place to plug in.

Chrysler offers a three-year/60,000-kilometre basic warranty and five-year/100,000-kilometre powertrain warranty that’s comparable to most other brands.

Pricing starts at $58,965 for the base Pacifica Touring trim level, which is only available with FWD, including the mandatory destination charge (which may vary slightly depending on the dealer). The Touring L and Limited start at $59,465 and $69,065 with destination, respectively, while the appropriately named Pacifica Pinnacle sits atop the lineup with a $77,965 starting MSRP. AWD is available on the Touring L, Limited, and Pinnacle trims. As of this writing, corporate discounts of up to $7,000 are available on new 2024 models.

The Pacifica is exactly what you should expect from the company that invented the minivan. From its stylish design and pleasant driving dynamics to its easy-to-use tech and clever features, Chrysler’s only model checks all the boxes. And it remains impressively competitive against newer rivals that also have their own appealing attributes. It’s a pretty good time to be shopping for a minivan.

Note: Images show a US model.