Five Reasons Why the Chrysler Pacifica Is So Family-Friendly

You live in Charlotte, and your family is growing; your needs for good transportation are increasing, and you have a fixed budget to work with. What makes for a good family-friendly vehicle that can scale with your family’s size and still feel like you can get everything you need from it regarding comfort, convenience, and performance features for daily driving and maybe even long-range road trips and vacations? Well, a good solution is actually the Chrysler Pacifica, which has managed to maintain a very strong appeal for families of all sizes and has a ton of great family-friendly features across its trim offerings for Charlotte drivers.

At Lake Norman Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, we offer a fantastic selection of Pacifica models that will appeal to a wide range of families and lifestyles. Whether you’re dropping the kids off at school or going on a weekend getaway with the family, the Pacifica is designed with you and your family in mind. Let’s take a look at some of our favorite family-friendly features, and when you’re ready to get behind the wheel for a test drive, we welcome you to come down and visit our team here at Norman CDJR, your premier Chrysler dealer near Charlotte.

#1 – An Intuitive Infotainment System

Keeping young kids quiet and occupied can be a full-time job all on its own. If you have one child, it’s work enough, but once that number starts multiplying, travel can become even more cumbersome. Thankfully, many newer vehicles come with infotainment suites that multiple passengers can access throughout the cabin. The Chrysler Pacifica is one of those vehicles that actually prioritizes its infotainment, not just for the driver and front passenger but for the rear seat occupants as well, which is what makes it such a great vehicle for growing families.

Up front, you have an impressive 10.1-inch HD touchscreen you can access; if you have kids in the rear seats, you can have two optional 10-inch HD touchscreens on the seatbacks of the captain chairs, with Amazon Fire TV support, Prime Video access, and even the ability to play games. This enables the kids to stay occupied, watching their favorite cartoons, shows, or movies on the way to school or on the way back from soccer practice.

But it’s not just about the media access, such as SiriusXM Satellite Radio, media playlists, apps, wireless Apple CarPlay support, or Android Auto integration; it’s also about the parental controls you can utilize as well. You can monitor what your kids are accessing, as well as set restrictions and control what they view or engage with. Plus, you have the added support of the rear cabin camera system, which enables parents to view and monitor their kids across multiple rows. With the built-in Alexa support for voice commands, you can control vehicular functions or give commands using your voice, from camera monitoring and climate control to lighting and audio volume. The Pacifica has a lot of controls, accessibility, and versatility when it comes to the infotainment suite for keeping occupants occupied during the drive as well as controlling what’s available for viewing during the drive.

#2 – Tech Conveniences

Working in conjunction with the infotainment suite is a series of other tech conveniences that make the Pacifica very family-friendly, especially for families who stay busy, are constantly on the road, or are looking for a great vehicle that removes the inconvenience of travel. The Pacifica’s tech conveniences are varied and especially useful for families, such as the power liftgate, which you can access to reach the rear cargo area without having to use your hands. This makes it easy to open up the vehicle’s cargo area before you reach it, which is great if you just went grocery shopping and want the vehicle ready to load up the groceries before you get there.

Another useful tech convenience is the power sliding side doors. This allows you to get into and out of the Pacifica on either side using remote power activation. The benefit of this for families is that if you have a child in your arms or you’re leaving the store and want the vehicle prepped for the kids to climb in without having to open the doors manually, you can use the power sliding doors to open up the Pacifica and have access to the rear passenger seats ready for you. Plus, features like automatic climate control can make the ride a lot more comfortable and convenient without having to constantly tweak the settings for each row.

Added tech conveniences such as the remote accessibility also make the Pacifica fantastic for those who don’t want to have to go through checklists to start up or secure the vehicle. You have remote power locks and remote start, so if you want the vehicle started up and the temperature prepared beforehand, cooling the vehicle down during those hot Charlotte days or warmed up during those cool Charlotte mornings, you can do so. Additionally, the remote start makes it easy to get the vehicle ready to pull out of the driveway or parking lot, as opposed to having to go through the typical start-up procedures. It’s an added convenience that reduces the time you spend going through the typical logistics of maintaining a vehicle’s operation.

#3 – Three-Rows of Cargo Capacity

The three-row Pacifica enables you to configure the vehicle to seat between seven and eight passengers. If you have a family and you don’t have plans on growing the family beyond the current size, you might appreciate the seven-seater Pacifica, where you can seat up to four people across the first two rows with two sets of captain chairs, and a split-row bench in the third row that seats three. Alternatively, you can go with two split benches in the second and third rows and two captain chairs up front. The Pacifica is also available in trim grades that come with available leather upholstery, so if comfort and luxury appeal are important, then that’s something that adds to the long-term comfort of the vehicle.

Power driver and front passenger seats are also another added benefit of the Pacifica, along with driver memory settings. This makes it so that you can customize the settings of the vehicle based on your preferences or another fellow driver. Setting up the seats per the driver so you can automatically have the driver seat and lumbar support positioned exactly the way you want is super helpful and a major time saver. There is even second-row captain chair lumbar support that is available, which adds to the comfort levels for other passengers, especially if you have growing kids or teens who value comfort during travels.

Plus, with the fold and movable seating featuring the patented Stow ‘n Go functionality, you can easily modify or remove the seats to accommodate the kind of carrying capacity you need. Across the three rows, you can store quite a bit of cargo in the Pacifica, including up to 32.3 cu.ft. of cargo capacity behind the third row, up to 87.5 cu.ft. of cargo behind the second row with the third-row folded, and up to 140.5 cu.ft. of cargo with the second and third row folded down. This gives you a lot of space whether you’re taking the whole family to a Panthers game or if you and your special someone are spending time alone going camping and you need the extra cargo capacity for all of your gear; the Pacifica’s modular cargo volume can fit all sorts of family travel situations.

#4 – Plug-In Hybrid Option for Major Fuel Savings

When you think about family-friendly features, you probably don’t think about plug-in hybrid powertrains as being on that list, but they should be considered because they play a huge role in terms of travel range, frequency of fill-ups, and costs of driving the vehicle. Raising a family can be very expensive, and while there are ways to make the most of it in Charlotte, any way to cut down on expenses is still a huge benefit for growing families, and a hybrid Pacifica can help with that. The plug-in capabilities means you don’t always have to rely on filling up the fuel tank at a gas pump; instead you can just plug the vehicle into an appropriate charging station.

With the hybrid Pacifica, you can expect to achieve up to 82 MPGe. So you have a lot of fuel savings to be had with the 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 that is paired up with a 16.2 kWh battery pack and electric motor. This gives you a lot of extra functionality and performance out of the Pacifica in terms of range and fuel economy. As a result, you spend fewer trips going to the gas pump, fewer dollars to fill up the tank, and you’re getting more range out of the vehicle. It’s overall a great way to make commuting and daily driving more cost effective and fuel efficient for families, and who doesn’t want that?

Plus, Charlotte offers more than 700 charging stations throughout the city, with Level 2 and Level 3 charging for plug-in hybrids and dedicated EVs. So you’re not short on having the option to keep the Pacifica charged when you do go out. And with DC Fast Charging or Level 3 charging being available at 100 or so charging stations, it gives you an opportunity to quickly top off a charge in just minutes. That makes it very convenient both for saving money on fuel economy and getting more range out of a family-sized vehicle. It’s a big win-win situation for growing families, and could be seen as a big selling point for why shoppers might consider visiting a Chrysler dealer near Charlotte for a family vehicle like the Pacifica.

#5 – Driver Assists for Full Active Safety

Comfort, tech, and convenience are fantastic features that all help make a family vehicle feel complete and like you’re getting good worth out of your investment. However, another important aspect of ensuring the family vehicle scales well is safety. Whether you’re traveling within the inner city of Charlotte or making trips along the highway, you want to make sure that you have a lot of safety for yourself and your family. The Pacifica does a good job of having a lot of features in place for families of all sizes.

The three-row side-curtains and multiple airbags ensure that no matter what happens, everyone across each row will be protected to a significant degree by the vehicle’s built-in safety systems. Plus, you have active assists like Forward Collision Warning and alerts to prevent collisions or accidents involving pedestrians. You have a Blind Spot Monitoring System as well for when you have vehicles just outside of your view, and alerts to ensure you don’t mistakenly collide with someone. The alerts are fantastic ways to keep you from becoming distracted on the road. Another good way to prevent distractions is the Siri Eyes Free support, with alerts and features that allow you to get to your destination without taking your eyes off the road.

The Siri Eyes Free technology works along with the Uconnect 5 integrated navigation support so that you can find common destinations, plot routes to specific points of interest, or get directions and GPS support for where you plan to go. Doing all this with hands-free support means you can spend more time focusing on the road and what’s ahead of you rather than messing with dials and screens. Plus, you have added assists like ParkSense Rear Park Assist so that if you don’t feel entirely comfortable manually parking the Pacifica, it can automatically assist you in parking the vehicle. This makes it easy for getting into and out of school or grocery store parking lots, all while making daily errands and driving so much more streamlined, safe, and stress-free.