This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
My 2021 Pacifica Hybrid with 19.2K miles threw a "Service Charging System" and Check Engine Light error while I was driving at 65mph on the highway on Christmas Eve in 8 degree weather. The minivan stopped accelerating and the transmission began flashing between P and D. We were forced to stop the vehicle on the highway shoulder, leaving us (2 parents, 2 kids 7 & 11) stranded on the highway. The vehicle then shut off and we were unable to turn on heating or accessories other than headlights and hazards. We were rescued by state troopers given that no tow trucks were available on Christmas Eve. The local dealer claims that the issue was related to the battery, but that doesn't make sense given the car was driving at highway speeds at the time and the alternator should keep the battery charged. I have seen a lot of owners with Service Charging System errors on this forum and believe Chrysler should have some knowledge as to a permanent solution. Without better understanding the root cause of the issue, it's hard for us to feel safe with a battery replacement, since that seems to be address symptom given that a car running highway speeds would keep the batteries charged through the belt and alternator system. My wife is fairly terrified of driving this car at highway speeds without some assurances it won't shut down and I get the sense that the dealer wants to wash its hands of this situation. I have a Chrysler warranty number for this repair, but have not received assistance yet. Would really appreciate some help!
The engine of our 2021 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid suddenly lost power while driving on the freeway. The display indicated "Put car in park" or something similar--but we were driving 65 miles/hour in heavy traffic! I had to pull over, turn the car off completely for one minute, and restart. After restarting the "check engine" light was on. Later in the drive after we stopped again, the "Check engine" light turned off, so all evidence of the error is gone from the car. However, we received en email from Chrysler's automatic system saying the car had reported an error for "powertrain" and we should schedule our service. It was dangerous to lose power while driving at freeway speeds. I am also confused about why the car's error codes went away. The car is available for inspection. How was your safety or the safety of others put at risk? My family of four was driving in heavy holiday traffic at 65 miles per hour when we lost power. It is dangerous to lose power at such speeds in the middle lanes of the interstate. I turned on the hazard lights and crossed three lanes to an exit. Thankfully we were going downhill and the heavy trucks in the slow lanes let us through. My life and the lives of my family were clearly endangered by this incident. This is the second time the car lost power on the freeway and the fourth time we have had the check engine light turn on. The car has about 26,500 miles. I have taken the car to dealer shops for the last three times the car indicated errors. Last time the car lost power the dealer said they could not replicate the issue. The car has been inspected by the dealer service department 4 times. I will take the car back to the dealer to get inspected again. There were no indications prior to the failure. The car lost power with no warning when we were driving at freeway speeds and we were about 300 miles into a 500 mile drive.
On Tue, 12/20/2022, I was driving on I-94 westbound between Moorland Road and WI Hwy 164 at about 60-70 mph. The car suddenly stalled and I lost all ability to accelerate the vehicle. The brakes and steering wheel still worked fine. The dash was displaying a message: "Service charging system. Shift to P to start." This has happened to my vehicle multiple times before. I was in the right lane and the shoulder was clear. I was able to pull onto the shoulder and come to a controlled stop. I put the vehicle in PARK and shut off the vehicle. After waiting a bit I restarted the car successfully. This happened 1 more time on the same trip (but on Hwy 16 as I was headed out to Waukesha County Technical College.) This is definitely safety issue as there was no way to restart the car in motion. Plus, pulling over to the shoulder on a busy highway, particularly with many trucks going by around 50 - 60 mph made me feel quite scared. I do NOT trust driving the vehicle at speeds above 60 mph anymore. This has happened to me last month. I took it to a dealer after that incident but they could not find anything wrong with the vehicle. This is now the 6th time this has happened to me.
Driving on the freeway, all propulsion suddenly and without warning ceased and the dash declared "service charging system" and the check engine light came on.. My only choice was to coast off to the side of the freeway. My safety was definitely at risk, as I was stuck on the side of the freeway. After several minutes, I was able to turn the car all the way off and turn it back on again. The check engine light was still on. I drove it straight to the dealership, who has it in for service for this error. Prior to this, the van gave no indication that anything was wrong.
Second occurrence of 2021 Pacifica Hybrid stalling while driving. Same error messages with check engine light, Service Charging System, battery light. The recommended software update was done a month ago at a dealership after the first incident. The van worked fine until today when I had to unexpectedly maneuver to the roadside again as it stalled out at 35 mph. I waited several minutes and the van started again but the yellow engine light stayed on. I took it to the dealer where I bought it and it's there now. Yes, my safety was at risk again.
- Trout Valley, IL, USA
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On Sunday, 12/4/2022, I went on a few errands not intending to drive very far on the highway since most of my stops were local. I entered the I-94 west bound from Moorland Rd in Brookfield WI and drove about 1 mile reaching about 65 mph during the busy traffic hours. The car suddenly stalled and I lost all ability to accelerate the vehicle. The brakes and steering wheel still worked fine. The dash was displaying a message: "Service charging system. Shift to P to start." Thankfully, I was in the right lane and the shoulder was clear. I was able to pull onto the shoulder and come to a controlled stop. I put the vehicle in Stop but when I pressed the off button, it would not switch to off and remained in the "run" mode. I tried several times for a few minutes without any success. I waited a minute and then tried again. This time, the vehicle was able to switch to "OFF" mode. I was able to start the car normally without any "System charging system" error coming on. I decided to return home immediately using local roads only. I no longer trust my vehicle on the highway - even if it is only for a short distance on the highway.
On Wed, 11/23/2022, I was driving on I-94 Eastbound headed from Wisconsin to Illinois at about 70 mph. The car suddenly stalled and I lost all ability to accelerate the vehicle. The brakes and steering wheel still worked fine. The dash was displaying a message: "Service charging system. Shift to P to start." Thankfully, I was in the right lane and the shoulder was clear. I was able to pull onto the shoulder and come to a controlled stop. I put the vehicle in PARK and shut off the vehicle. I tried to restart it but was unable to. I then unbuckled my seat belt and opened & closed the driver side door (without getting out). After about a minute I was able to restart the car and continue on my way to Chicago. This happened 2 more times that trip. It also happened 1 time on the way back to Wisconsin for a total of 4 incidents in 1 day trip. This has significant safety implications, esp. when one cannot get to the shoulder (or there is no shoulder) to restart the vehicle. I felt very scared and no longer trust my vehicle on the highway. This has happened to me once before earlier this year. I took it to a dealer after that incident. They said the updated all the software but are not certain if this fixed the root cause. Apparently, it did not. There was no warning light to indicate a problem may be happening. However, now that this has happened, the "check engine" indicator is on and, apparently, needs to be reset. I have not yet taken the vehicle to a dealer for this recent set of 4 incidents.
Van stalled while driving at 45 mph, had to pull over to side of road and get a tow to dealer. No indication of a problem before the stall. Warning lamp showed engine light, charging system warning, shift to park to start but unable to restart van on side of road. High safety risk as this occurred while driving at night. Police eventually parked behind me for safety on the roadside. Van is currently at dealership after being towed there.
I was driving the van on interstate 85 in NC on my way to Charlotte from Raleigh. I was traveling at 70 mph when the van suddenly lost power. I could not accelerate and had to immediately pull over to the shoulder coasting on momentum only. I barely missed being hit by a semi truck as I attempted to get out of the way of traffic. The van remained stalled on the shoulder as I attempted to restart the van. It took 5 tries to get the van off the shoulder and onto an exit where I was able to park the van at a Waffle House parking lot to await a tow truck. Each attempt to restart the van would give me about 30 seconds of power before the van would stall out again. I was traveling with my wife and 4 small children and this was a very harrowing experience and could-??ve have ended in disaster with that semi barreling down on us. The error code on the dash was -??service charging system-?? Chrysler needs to fix the is issue before someone dies in a horrible accident.
Same issue as the existing complaint PE22008 on 10/24/2022, South-bound I-95 in Maryland, driving around 65-70 MPH. The van completely stopped excelling. Luckily I had enough speed/inertia to cross the 2-3 lanes to pull-off onto the shoulder. I put the car in PARK and then turned the car in off and then on again, was able to continue driving afterwards. Dashboard screen read "Service charging system" which seems odd because if it is an issue with Hybrid system, the gas engine should kick-in. This happened again 3 hours later. In both situations, I had my wife and children in the van.
While traveling in the #1 lane at 65mph on the freeway, the engine suddenly lost power and I had to coast to the far right lane amid traffic to enter the emergency stopping area. This has happened 4 times in the last few weeks. The dashboard display says there is a charging system problem. I am able to restart the car after stopping completely and opening the driver's door. This creates a very unsafe situation. I took it to the dealership today and they performed the Z76 recall campaign software update, however, upon driving 10 miles on the freeway, it happened again.
Our 2021 Pacifica Hybrid with less than 21k miles on it lost all propulsion/motive power; this happened while I was driving on a freeway just seconds before going onto an overpass at freeway speeds to change freeways. Driving uphill on an overpass at freeway speeds with our kids in the car was very dangerous (especially during weekday traffic in Orange County) but, fortunately, we coasted to a stop safely. The vehicle's other systems seemed to still be working. For example, the vehicle's dashboard was working. As soon as the vehicle's power ceased, an error light on the dash appeared reading "Service Charging System Error, " and instructed the driver to pull over and put the car in park. The check engine light has been on since the incident. The car was dropped off at the dealership on October 14th. They said that the electrical guy will be available on October 17th to look at the vehicle.
Driving on US-23 and "Service Charging System" warning displayed on dashboard. Car lost power and I had to coast to the side of the freeway. Turned car off but could not turn back on. Transmission would not go out of Park. Tried about 10 times and after about 15 minutes the car turned on and could drive. Check engine light remained on for remainder of the drive home. Planned on visiting dealer in the morning but car turned on and no check engine light. This is the 3rd time the "service charging system" warning has happened, but the first time the car died on the road. Every time the check engine light disappeared the next day. Had codes scanned and permanant code P1A21.
On Saturday 9.3.22, while driving at approximately 40mph, my Chrysler Pacifica lost all power and slowed to a stop (I turned on my hazards immediately and pulled over to the shoulder). Based on the light traffic around me I was able to safety move accross two lanes even without the aid of power steering. Within 60 seconds of me coming to a stop, the Check engine light came on the cluster and an error message saying -??charging system fault-??. After calling for Chrysler roadside assistance, I attempted to restart the vehicle dozens of times unsuccessfully. At approx 60min after the vehicle lost power, it restarted. On Tuesday, 9.5.22 I took the vehicle to the dealer to diagnose & repair. As of today (9.12.22) they have been unable to recreate the event. Even though the error threw a CIL code, the dealer stated the error is now gone and no codes were stored. They have filed a -??STAR-?? case with the manufacturer to determine next steps. I have refused to accept the vehicle back until the problem itself has been diagnosed and a repair is made.
Was driving the vehicle when it completely died. The -??service hybrid electric vehicle system-?? warning came on the dash and could not get it to go into drive again. Completely dead in the water and could not move. I can-??t imagine if I was going down the freeway and this happened. Very lucky to have it on a quiet road. This is a known issue and there are many cases of this happening to others if you check YouTube out or google it. It-??s very scary and someone is gonna end up hurt or killed.
While driving, the car would loose power then check engine light comes on and "service charging system" would pop up. The gas peddle is rendered useless as it doesn't do anything and would have to coast to safety. Dealer would just reset the computer and vehicle is realease. unfortunately, it had happen many times. Safety is a concern, more so on the highway.
The Pacifica has 4 times in the past 9 months has lost power while driving at a high speed on the Interstate. I am still able to steer and guide the car to the shoulder, then wait 2 minutes and the car starts back up and I am able to drive again. I then have the check engine light on, and the code I get is P0A3F. It has been to Chrysler Service 3 times, and they can't repeat the issue, and claim they don't have the man power or expertise to figure it out. Once the car loses power, the messages I get say to "return car to park", "Service Charge System", and the Chrysler Uconnect App says I have a "service fault". This has happened on 11/13/21, 5/8/22, 5/27/22, and this last time... 8/28/22.
Driving on the interstate, the vehicle simply shut down and gave the following error message: "Service Charging System." I was able to pull to the shoulder and get the vehicle started again. There had been no prior warning messages or symptoms of the problem. I took the vehicle in for service, and the dealership ran a diagnostic check and found no issues. A couple weeks later, the same thing happened. I was again able to get to the shoulder without incident. Took the vehicle to a different dealership where they identified the issue as a bad Power Inverter Module. The vehicle is still at the dealership (it has been a full week). While I was able to navigate the situation without injury. This could have been a very dangerous situation in the instance where a shoulder was not available or traffic was significantly heavier. It appears this is a fairly common problem for some of the new Chrysler Pacifica Hybrids, which brings to question why there has not been a recall issues.
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.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Millburn, NJ, USA