Chrysler Town & Country review _ Consumer Reports

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enChrysler basically invented the minivan category back in the 1980s and for decades they ruled the market but more recently competitors from Toyota and Honda have surpassed them after bankruptcy restructuring and financial involvement from Fiat Chrysler was able to redo a lot of their models including their minivans we purchased his Town and Country Touring to see how they did let's take a look there are some big changes to the Town and Country as well as the Dodge Caravan the biggest is the new 3.6 L V6 it's a smooth and refined engine and it has competitive power but as far as fuel economy goes it isn't as competitive the six-speed automatic transmission is tuned to maximize fuel economy by holding on to gears longer but that means that the downshifts are a bit slower and you really have to push down the Gas Pedal to accelerate another big change is in Ry and handling the updated minivans are more composed now and they don't float down the road and the suspension does a pretty good job of smoothing out the bumps and the van's really quiet inside they don't have the road noise that plagues their competitors handling is sound but it isn't that agile even by minivan standards the steering effort has a nice heft to it but it's still a bit vague and cornering grip is so so particularly as speed builds visibility is pretty good thanks to Big Windows all around the van the Town and Country also has a standard backup camera cross traffic alert and blind Zone detection the cross traffic system warns you of cars passing behind you as you back out of a space and all three of them work pretty well it's easy to get inside the cabin through these large doors and once inside you'll see that the interior's been spruced up a bit there's glittery chrome trim on the dash and contrasting stitching on the seat and doors but this glove box lid it fits pretty poorly and the center console shaky the controls are mostly simple and straightforward but the uplevel radio is a bit of a frustration you have to flip through screen pages for manual tuning or presets and it only shows four presets at a time one nice touch is the gar navigation system it has a familiar interface that's mostly easy to use but you can't program it by voice like other Factory navigation systems minivans are usually about hauling the family and the optional DVD entertainment system has two screens and you can watch serious satellite TV on a few networks there's plenty of room up front and unlike some other minivans there's a good deal of left foot space in addition the wide seats are firmly padded and supportive you can't say the same about the second and third row seats most Chrysler Vans will come equipped with the Stow Ando seats but they're thinly padded low to the floor and have limited thigh support they're designed that way so they can easily fold into the floor this way you don't have to wrestle seats out to maximize cargo room and when they're raised there's a great big storage space underneath the third row has enough space for adults but the seats are very low and there's not a lot of leg room like the second row they fold into the floor when not in use fold all the seats down and you get a lot of cargo space and a flat load floor even with the seats up there's plenty of luggage room behind the third row in this deep well so quor definitely improve their mini vans they have a comfortable ride and a quiet well equipped interior but the van that once dominated the category still Trails the best in the classChrysler basically invented the minivan category back in the 1980s and for decades they ruled the market but more recently competitors from Toyota and Honda have surpassed them after bankruptcy restructuring and financial involvement from Fiat Chrysler was able to redo a lot of their models including their minivans we purchased his Town and Country Touring to see how they did let's take a look there are some big changes to the Town and Country as well as the Dodge Caravan the biggest is the new 3.6 L V6 it's a smooth and refined engine and it has competitive power but as far as fuel economy goes it isn't as competitive the six-speed automatic transmission is tuned to maximize fuel economy by holding on to gears longer but that means that the downshifts are a bit slower and you really have to push down the Gas Pedal to accelerate another big change is in Ry and handling the updated minivans are more composed now and they don't float down the road and the suspension does a pretty good job of smoothing out the bumps and the van's really quiet inside they don't have the road noise that plagues their competitors handling is sound but it isn't that agile even by minivan standards the steering effort has a nice heft to it but it's still a bit vague and cornering grip is so so particularly as speed builds visibility is pretty good thanks to Big Windows all around the van the Town and Country also has a standard backup camera cross traffic alert and blind Zone detection the cross traffic system warns you of cars passing behind you as you back out of a space and all three of them work pretty well it's easy to get inside the cabin through these large doors and once inside you'll see that the interior's been spruced up a bit there's glittery chrome trim on the dash and contrasting stitching on the seat and doors but this glove box lid it fits pretty poorly and the center console shaky the controls are mostly simple and straightforward but the uplevel radio is a bit of a frustration you have to flip through screen pages for manual tuning or presets and it only shows four presets at a time one nice touch is the gar navigation system it has a familiar interface that's mostly easy to use but you can't program it by voice like other Factory navigation systems minivans are usually about hauling the family and the optional DVD entertainment system has two screens and you can watch serious satellite TV on a few networks there's plenty of room up front and unlike some other minivans there's a good deal of left foot space in addition the wide seats are firmly padded and supportive you can't say the same about the second and third row seats most Chrysler Vans will come equipped with the Stow Ando seats but they're thinly padded low to the floor and have limited thigh support they're designed that way so they can easily fold into the floor this way you don't have to wrestle seats out to maximize cargo room and when they're raised there's a great big storage space underneath the third row has enough space for adults but the seats are very low and there's not a lot of leg room like the second row they fold into the floor when not in use fold all the seats down and you get a lot of cargo space and a flat load floor even with the seats up there's plenty of luggage room behind the third row in this deep well so quor definitely improve their mini vans they have a comfortable ride and a quiet well equipped interior but the van that once dominated the category still Trails the best in the class\n"