2018 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid long-term wrap up: You will be missed

[MUSIC] Has it really been a year already? We've had this Chrysler Pacifica hybrid for a full 365 and we can't believe that it's already time to hand the keys back over. This plugin gas electric minivan has been a faithful and very useful friend to us over the last four seasons That said, there have been some hiccups along the way, ones that we didn't experience last year with our gas only Pacifica limited. As we've stated in some of our past write ups and videos, almost nothing is better at acting like a family minded Swiss Army Knife than a good minivan. And that's exactly what this Pacific a hybrid is. One moment, it's in its element as a family The next, it's doing a surprisingly descent impression of a pickup truck. Thanks to its ability to hold four by eight sheets of plywood. Our Chrysler did stints as a whisper quiet EV yet it also approved to be an accommodating estate sale carrier and an ideal video production vehicle. Back in December, Michigan's bad weather meant that our Pacifica was reserved almost exclusively for family hauling and errand running During that time, we put just over 1000 miles on it, and we didn't even fill up the tank. That's right an entire month happened without visiting a gas station. This PHEV battery pack is estimated at 32 miles of electric only range. But cold weather does take its toll on performance. Even so, if you live within ten miles of work and you've got to plug at home or the office, you're golden. You don't even need a level two charger since the battery isn't that big. It can just charge over night. So what didn't we love? Well, we intentionally took a risk by ordering a light alloy colored cabin to see how it'd hold up to a year of hard use. After 12 months, we can confidently say that if you plan to stuff your Pacific with kids and dirty baseball uniforms, spill a few sodas, or just have everything pod by grubby camera man hands Well, you're going to want to consider darker interior options. Despite trying we just couldn't keep certain parts of this van clean, especially frequent touch points like the steering wheel. Secondly, while this minivan can be so quiet that some of my colleagues actually walked away and forgot it was running until the horn honked as a reminder. [SOUND] This hybrid isn't always that serene. There have been a number of seemingly random intermittent powertrain noises that have come and gone especially when the battery's depleted. Sometimes those noise sound like a fan or a motor generator recharging the pack. Sometimes, they're relatively quiet. While other times, they're so annoyingly loud that you'll think something is wrong. Since these sounds can feel random in both frequency and volume, they're not always reproducible, even if you take them in for services. Ask us how we know. We noticed these loud noises mostly during winter, when the van was running to keep editors and gear warm during shoots. We've read that a substantial number of Pacifica hybrid owners have experienced similar episodes, so this doesn't appear to just be us. Last year's gas only Chrysler Pacifica was also a full boat limited model coming in at around $48,000. It featured a smorgasbord of safety tech including lane departure warning, adaptive cruise Park sense and so on. Plus some nice cabin features like stone go seats, a power folding third row and a built in vacuum that we used a ton. To be honest, the end of our year with the Pacific hybrid really snuck up on us and we're not altogether ready to hand over the keys just yet. In the end, we're really glad that someone has finally made a plug in hybrid minivan. If you're driving needs are both local and pretty consistent, you can avoid spending substantial amounts of time and money at the gas station by running largely on electrons. We can totally see the benefits of the Pacifica's added hybrid efficiency and quiet running in electric mode. Having said that, we admit we're still thrown off by some of the off putting Dr. Dre noises that this thing has made many times between that issue and the fact that you have to lose stolen go and the vacuum in order to go green. And well, we probably end up with a gas only Pacifica. That said, both models have many reasons to recommend them. And we'll remember this hybrid, almost as fondly as we did the gas only version, that came before it. Goodbye old friend, you will be missed. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]