2021 Chrysler Pacifica

The car has stalled MULTIPLE times starting on 2/17/23. It's happened on highways and local roads and as soon as it happens the car loses all power and the ability to accelerate. In the case where there is no shoulder, you are stuck on the road until you can get it to start again. In order to start it, you have to hit the ignition button a few times, open the door, close it and wait about a minute before starting it again. It has caused a LOT of danger to my family and has been at the shop multiple times. We are now being told it needs a new transmission with no timeline as to when we'll get the car back. We were denied a loaner and are now stuck with 4 kids and no car.

The 03A recall has now been performed on our vehicle, and we are not sure if we will pick it up to drive again or not. We are not sure if we trust it. Hybrid system faults have happened three times, this is the best of my memory. April 2022 I had noticed the battery wasn't really being used driving regular routes & made a service appointment. Before the appt we saw a Hybrid System Fault. The dealership in (Town Y) could see the fault, but thought it was a false alarm. They did the prescribed fix for the false alarm, but the fault was still there so they did a repair of some kind. Sept 2022, pulling out from home &at the bottom of the driveway it gave a hybrid system failure or alert, put itself in turtle mode. I pulled back into the garage and parked. Next day I drove 9-10 miles from home to dealership in turtle mode. As I was pulling up to the (state highway) & Main St intersection (was on an incline), the car went from turtle mode to park, lights and alerts were flashing, and it was quite scary. I couldn't get the out of park into neutral to move to the side of the road. I couldn't turn it in or off, it was in a weird kind of limbo or perpetual computer restarting kind of mode. After 15-30 minutes, the wipers started to go on their own volition. The car seemed to have a mind of its own. Had to get towed, 12V battery replacement, radio replacement. Jan 2023, I was driving to school for pickup, <8 miles, neighborhood & highway. Hybrid system fault happened while I was driving on the highway, 4-4.5 miles from home. The alerts were popping up and warning me to pull over now, I did that as fast and safely as I could. The car then seemed stuck in park, I hit the button and opened the door to really turn it off. After a few minutes tried turning it on again. It did turn on. There were still some warnings on the screen I think, but I drove to the dealership.

On 3/27/2023, while driving 75mph down the PA turnpike, our 2021 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid lost power unexpectedly. Fortunately, my wife and kids were not in the car, as it was frightening to have the engine shutoff while driving in the left lane of a narrow highway that had a small shoulder. I was in the left lane of a 2 lane highway, I placed my turn signal on to try and coast into the right lane and then over to the right shoulder. I still had power steering, but the engine had entirely shut off. When I got onto the small shoulder, I placed my 4-way flashers on. I read the digital read-out on my gauge cluster, it said "Service Charging System" and the check engine light came on. I wasn't sure what this meant so I Googled it. It turned out that a lot of Pacifica Hybrid owners had been having this exact problem. I was able to start the van and slowly drive it the 60 miles back to my house. I called the Chrysler dealership to setup an appointment to have the van inspected. It took them a week to diagnose that it was the van's hybrid heater that was locking prematurely. The part order was a 3-4 week wait. After a month went by and no word from the dealer, I called and was told it would be another week before the part came in. April 19th was when the dealership was able to replace the hybrid heater on my Pacifica. I went out of town for work on April 21st, and returned today, the 24th. The Pacifica hadn't been used since leaving the dealership. The dealership technician also told me the problem I had was due to a software update. Today, the 24th, I took the van out and was driving to pick my kids up when the van digital display said "Stop Safely, Vehicle Will Shut Off Soon". The check engine light came back on along with many other display cautions. I pulled off the side of the busy highway, turned the car off and again, Google'd this new problem. After attempting to restart the van numerous times, I was eventually able to start it and again, limp it back home.

My vehicle unpredictably loses power and the engine cuts out. This requires me to pull over immediately, turn the car fully off, and back on. After several attempts, the error will clear to allow me to restart my engine and continue on. This has happened multiple times while I am on the freeway and has forced me to pull over very quickly in busy traffic. The vehicle is unsafe to drive. This is in relation to Recall 03A for which there is currently no fix. The fix that Chrysler is offering is to provide an alert on the dash that loss of power is imminent. I have brought my vehicle in multiple times for service and there does not appear to be any solution in sight.

While driving the check engine light and red turtle illuminated with the message "Stop Safely car will shut off soon". Vehicle lost all acceleration and I had to coast to the shoulder. Vehicle would not go faster than 10 mph and I was stranded on the highway until being towed to the dealer. This was after the vehicle had done this two other times before. The other two times it was a different error message, but vehicle lost power. Once was before the loss of power recall and twice has been after. Vehicle is currently getting a new transmission.

While driving above referenced vehicle, I was driving southbound on Hwy 515 when i noticed a vehicle driving northbound began to lose control, so i slowed down and then began to watch the vehicle cross the median and headed straight for me. I pushed the pedal to the floor to accelerate to get out of his way but the vehicle did not respond, i pushed the pedal again on several occasions and the vehicle just bucked and did not accelerate. Unfortunately the vehicle hit me right in the door at a high rate of speed. Unbeknownst to me this vehicle had been in the shop on several occasions for this exact problem: This can all be verified due to the fact i had a Chrysler service manager on the phone as this horrific experience unfolded

On Wed, April 5th, 2023 at approximately 10:15 pm I was returning home from a class in my 2021 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid. I was on local roads and had just transitioned from EV mode to gas mode (having used up all of my battery after about 30 miles of driving) when the car flashed the attached warning sign and I had very little power provided by my accelerator. Note that something similar to this has happened 5x before. All of these incidents had been at highway speeds (70+ mph) with one at about 40 mph. All had complete shutdown of power in the accelerator. In the current case I was able to still have a bit of power left and pulled over to the side of the road. Fortunately, it was late and there weren't too many other cars out so I didn't have as many safety concerns as I had in the past when I stalled on the highway. After I pulled the car over I stopped the car, turned the car off via the ignition button, unbuckled my seat belt and opened my door. Then I restarted my car and the error message attached had disappeared and I was able to return home. Note that I had had the dealer apply Recall 03A a week earlier and this seemed to be what was supposed to happen under that Recall which is NOT identified as a complete fix. Still, it is very disconcerting to lose full power. In my case, I was thankful to not have gotten into an accident.

Currently, there is a recall of this vehicle that results in a loss of automotive power. This only occurs when driving in the highway going 70mph. This first occurred to us about a month ago. The recall was announced a little earlier to when we were experiencing the issue, but there was no fix available until about a couple weeks after we had this issue. The software fix was completed last Friday. The following day, during a 20 mile drive, the car again loss automotive power twice. The only difference after the recall is that the message on the screen changes as the car starts to shut down. As this only occurs during highway speeds, we were required to change multiple lanes across speeding traffic while the vehicle was slowing down, in order to get to the emergency lane. And this was occurring while the car was slowing down on its when because of the lost of power. After this incident, we drove slower at about 50+ mph, thinking we can avoid the sudden loss of power, but unfortunately it occurred again. Thankfully in both incidents, there were no crashes. Turning off the car completely for about 30 seconds would allow the vehicle to run normal again. The vehicle is back to the dealership and after a week, diagnostics haven't been done yet. Despite reporting the danger of this recall above, the dealership is offering to have us take it home over the weekend. This car is simply too dangerous to drive in highways until there is a real fix.

The engine stopped abruptly on an interstate. We were required to slow from 75 mph and pull off on the side of the road immediately. The transmission changed to what felt like first gear before we were adequately slowed down, grinding and making a lot of noise. This happened on 3 separate occasions before the dealership could figure out the problem. If we had been in a situation where we couldn’t have pulled off the road immediately, it would have been much more dangerous. The engine stops and will not let you accelerate. The dealership is now replacing the transmission and I am hopeful that will work. I believe it is related to the most recent recall, but the “fix” is not a safe fix and a true fix needs to be figured out immediately to prevent injuries or loss of lives on the road. The first time it happened, it happened suddenly and without warning. After “fixing” the recall, it gives you maybe 5 seconds of warning before the van loses power and you cannot accelerate. A notification pops up on the dash that says something like “you will soon lose power, please pull over slowly”

Vehicle suddenly looses all power and a message pops up on the dash to pull over. This happens intermittently and is terrifying when you are on the road and suddenly only have brakes and steering. Chrysler knows of the issue but doesn't have a fix for it. Someone is going to end up getting killed and they should be forced to stop selling all pacifica hybrid's (new and used) until there is a real solution for this problem.