2008 Town & Country impressions

Today we took delivery of a 2008 Chrysler Town & Country for review. While we hope to have a fairly complete review a week from today, we did take a quick test drive and have some preliminary input.

The rear seats look horrific but are actually comfortable. The middle seats’ swivel-ability is absolutely thrilling to kids, but a bit awkward, requiring more force than we would think to get started. Clearance is moderately tight but people will get used to that; getting in and out with the seats facing backward is not impossible but you’d rather a kid do it than your 350 pound Auntie Fannie or Uncle Flabbie. Oh, and a note to the intrepid folks at Chrysler: you might want to add Swivel ‘n’ Go to your owner’s manual index.

The ride is much nicer than the past models and the wind noise is far, far better than in the past, and for that matter, in our opinion, better than in the Sienna. Cornering is not bad but the tires on our model tended to squeal more easily than we’d like. Acceleration is surprisingly quick - but it ought to be, since we have the 4.0 liter. The transmission shifts more quickly and crisply than we remember from the last ride in a six-speed vehicle. Gas mileage has been about 18 mpg so far, on a nearly new vehicle (not yet broken in) with city driving.

Our test car lists for over $36,000, but that includes the ParkSense rear park assistance, rear view camera, side airbags, stability control, ABS, powerliftgate, HID headlights, three power doors, remote start (on the fob), cruise control, three-zone automatic temperature controlled air with filter, MyGIG hard-drive music system, Infinity sound, heated front and middle row seats, fog lights, second-row power windows, eight-way power driver and passenger seats up front, and turn-signal-enhanced mirrors. Our test car also has the swivel seats at $500 with table, and the dual DVD entertainment system running the bill up to $2,020 including satellite TV. The power folding rear seat was only another $600. The end result is a minivan just under $40,000… still well beneath the Cadillac Escalade in price.

I’ve modified this blog entry to account for the fact that I’ve gotten the seats into a comfortable position - while still not my favorite, they no longer qualify for nasty cracks. We will have video soon.

Update: we have pictures and much more detail now at http://allpar.com/reviews/2008/minivans.html