2021 Chrysler Pacifica

My wife and I were driving on HWY 101 at 11pm at night while camping, were headed to the ER as I had just cut my hand with a hachet. While driving, all of a sudden an error light on the dash appeared reading "Service Charging System," the accelerator no longer delivered power, and the car began quickly slowing down. Luckily, I was able to move to the shoulder and stop the van. The Pacifica remained on with all systems working (radio, lights, etc), but the car accelerator would not deliver power. The car would not fully turn off after pressing the ingintion button. Opening and closing the driver side door allowed for the van to be turned off and then back on, it started again and was driveable. We were able to drive the car to the ER and back to the campsite. The problem has not yet re-occurred. It has not been seen by the dealer center yet, but has an appointment scheduled. Driving at night in the mountains with a vehicle that loses all power while traveling at highway speeds is extremely dangerous and disturbing.

While driving at 70mph on the interstate, the vehicle completely lost power. The check engine light turned on, the message "Service Charging System" came up, and the gear knob blinked. We had to pull over on the side of the interstate. When we pushed the "off/on/acc" button, it would appear that it turned off, but it would go back into on status, but still wouldn't allow you to shift into drive. (You could turn the knob, but it wouldn't do anything). Finally, we had to remove the keys from the car to turn it off. Once we were able to do that, it did turn back on and allowed us to go back into gear as normal. We were able to drive a few miles, and then it did it again. We had the vehicle towed. Chrysler had to put a whole new transmission due to a hybrid part within the transmission that failed. Concerned that this happened with the transmission that only had 17k miles on it. Chrysler still cannot answer if they have fixed the issue with the transmissions they are currently building. When you are driving in construction season on the interstate and your vehicle completely powers off, it could make for a deathly accident. This isn't something you should have to worry about with a car only a year old. I found a US Department of transportation investigation where 40 others have reported the same issue. ODI Investigation : PE 22-008

I was driving about 45mph and my Pacifica hit 0 miles on the electric miles on the hybrid system (I had over half a tank of gas). At that same time as I was pushing on the gas pedal to accelerate the van and nothing was happening, the acceleration wasn't working. I put the pedal all the way to the ground and nothing happened and I drifted to a stop. I was luckily not on a freeway, however was on the side of a very busy road in the dark with cars flying closely by with 1 of my kids in the car freaking out. It was so dangerous and scary. After the van sat idle for about 10 minutes and got a little hybrid charge I was able to accelerate a little to get my car around the corner and pulled to a safer spot off the road before it coasted to a stop again. Roadside assistance towed the van to my dealership. The dealership had my van for 11 days this time. When they turned it on the next morning it wasn't working still. They got it into a service bay and the next time they went to move it it started working on it's own. No service lights ever turned on and they couldn't figure out what caused the issue. They had Chrysler Engineers involved in the process and after 11 days gave me the vehicle back stating that all they did was 6 software updates and they couldn't find anything else to fix since it started working again on it's own. The van has never accelerated the same since. Now 2 months later I have a service light on for my Powerterrain and am so worried about losing acceleration again while driving my kids or something. It's so dangerous and they don't know what's causing the issue and I feel like the van is just a ticking timebomb for an accident with as many service issues as I've had with it. So many issues to name, but the loss of motive power was so dangerous. My van wasn't even a year old yet when that happened and it had 14,000 miles on it.

The vehicle is a PHEV. The system that malfunctioned is related to the vehicle charging system. The vehicle seems to think it is plugged into the wall when it is actually not plugged in. It is a safety issue because the vehicle will not move -- my family could have been stranded. Planning to tow the vehicle to a dealership to have diagnosed within one week or so. The vehicle has not been inspected by anyone yet. There were no warnings prior to the failure. Currently there is a check engine light on as well as an image of a plug/cable indicating that the vehicle thinks it is plugged into an electrical outlet (which it is not).

While driving in the freeway this morning the check engine light and service charging system came on. Shortly thereafter the car lost all power and I was able to coast to a stop on the shoulder of the freeway. Fortunately I was in the carpool lane and near the shoulder and would not have been able to get over otherwise putting myself and others in a very dangerous situation on the freeway. Once stopped, the steering wheel locked as well as the wheels and the car lost all function. Although there are no formal recalls, there are forums dedicated to this problem: https://www.pacificaforums.com/threads/service-charging-system-error.41145/ The dealer is currently advising but the threads in those forums suggests FCA does not have a fix in place. The car becomes dangerous to drive as this happens out of nowhere with limited to no warning.

Driving around 40 MPH when car alert came on to Shift into P and lost all forward drive. Needed to pull onto a side street since car would not accelerate. Car said service charging system and would not recover. Could not turn car off but A/C system stopped working. The transmission light were flashing from P to R to D but would not engage. Had to be towed to dealer to await troubleshooting.

I was driving in the fast lane of the freeway when the vehicle stalled, losing all engine power, and the following warnings lit up on my dash: - service charging system - shift to P to start - the shifter knob light was blinking Due to large amounts of fast-moving traffic and my rapidly decelerating speed, I was unable to safely cross 4 lanes of traffic to the right-hand side, so I was forced to pull over on the left shoulder of the freeway directly next to the fast lane and right after a blind curve. It was an incredibly dangerous place to be stalled. I could have been hit at any moment by cars going 65-80mph, which would have caused a massive multi-car accident due to the nature of the blind curve. I shifted the car into park and turned the vehicle completely off. Waited a couple minutes and turned it back on. The check engine light remained illuminated but my ability to accelerate resumed when I briefly tested it. I was able to pull back onto the freeway and continue my commute with no further issues. I initiated a STAR case with Chrysler and the van was brought to the dealership for troubleshooting. One incident prior to stall: engine began idling really rough when accelerating from a stop ~15mph, and the check engine light came on. I pulled over and shut off the van. I turned it back on and the engine sounded normal again. The check engine light went off after 24 hours and no other issues, so I didn’t bring it in. This happened 2-4 weeks prior to the freeway stall. P0A43-00 Drive Motor "A" Position Sensor Circuit Intermittent was the error code. The dealership could not replicate the stalling problem and tried to give the van back. I refused due to safety concerns and got my Chrysler case manager involved. They tested the transmission fluid and found it to be contaminated (metal fragments?). The transmission was ultimately replaced which took about 1 month. I don’t know if they kept the faulty part.

While driving on hybrid system (battery at 0%) and braking toward a stop sign , the car went into neutral and would not power the wheels. A message appeared to service hybrid charging system. all gauges wen to zero (start position) . The car was pulled over and it would not go back to to any gear. I was only 2 miles from my house and was able to get tools to disconnect the 12V battery in hopes for system recovery. After disconnecting the 12V battery the system recovered and I was able to get back home to setup a service appointment. The entertainment system did not recover correctly and required a software reboot with all settings reset. The previous week the battery charge indicator was behaving strangely as it would start with 36 miles of range and after 2 miles of very slow driving it wold drop to 26 miles. After a few more miles it would drop to 21 miles and stay at that for a long time.