Super scary blog I read today. So glad everyone is alright and no one was hurt
I visited this forum numerous times before purchasing a 2017 Pacifica Limited that was built in July 2017. My wife and I were excited to put our growing family into a safe vehicle with room for everyone to be comfortable. I purchased the car at the end of August and we decided to go on a mini road trip of about 200 miles roundtrip from our home. The car was wonderful except that the sunroof screen failed and would not close. I took it back to the dealer the next day where they proceeded to keep the car a week to get a new switch. I picked up the car on the evening of Sept 13th and was excited to have the car back.
On Sept 14th at around 830am I was on my way to work on highway 101 traveling roughly 65mph in the left most lane. I had the ACC(adaptive cruise control on) when all of a sudden I had a sudden jerk and loss of power with no ability to accelerate, no power steering, and various warning lights flashing. With no left shoulder, I had to try and get to the right shoulder all the while dodging heavy traffic going at a much faster speed than me. I had made it to the second to right lane when I noticed a semi truck barreling down not realizing that I was traveling at a much slower speed than traffic. I looked down and saw I was only traveling 16mph at the time. When the semi realized how slow I was traveling, he slammed on his brakes and laid on the horn. I could see smoke coming out the side of his truck likely from him locking up. I thought for certain that he was going to hit me and prepared for impact. Luckily for me, the truck was able to swerve into the next lane over and I finally made it to the right shoulder with my heart pounding. As I sat there trying to figure out what the heck happened, I couldn't believe this happened to me.
I remember people saying they would turn off their car and then restart it and everything would be back to normal. I tried this but my car would barely turn over and when it finally did, I hobbled to the nearest exit which was about 250ft away. The max speed I could obtain was 16mph and it was so shaky and jerky. No matter how hard I depressed the accelerator, the car would not go faster than 16mph. I finally made it to a side street where I parked the car and phoned for roadside assistance.
The car was towed to the dealer I purchased the car from and they were extremely concerned with what had happened and immediately took my car in and gave me a Jeep Grand Cherokee loaner and apologized. I know it's not the dealers fault that this happened as the car was brand new when I bought it. When I think about how bad the situation could have turned out, I know that I can never get back in this car again and will never put my family in it for fear of this happening again.
I have posted this in the issues, recalls, and defects forum but I wanted to bring awareness of the issue to those who don't frequent that section. Before any of you consider buying this car or putting your family in it, consider what happened to me and demand that Chrysler find a solution to this problem as it seems to be happening to random Pacificas irregardless of build date, geographic location, or mileage. Please see the thread about this in problems forum to see that many people are having this issue and it is not localized to just a few individuals. Please see the attached videos as well.
As of now, I have filed a claim with Chryslercares and I have been in constant contact with the dealership who can't even get the car out of park and cannot figure out what is going on.