Road Test as published in the Sunraysia Daily Auto Guide
20th September 2008
With its blacked out windows and private jet interior, the Grand Voyager is perfectly placed to transport VIPs in privacy and comfort. Once at your destination, a quick flick of a few levers and all rear seats disappear seamlessly below floor level, converting parts of or the entire rear compartment into a completely flat-bed layout, perfect for a secret service or paparazzi stake-out.
All joking aside though, Chrysler has come up with a fairly sophisticated multi-purpose people mover with commercial applications.
There are three models in the Grand Voyager range - LX, Touring and Limited - each simply differentiated by varying degrees of electric or electronic wizardry. Each model is available with a 3.8L V6 or a 2.8L turbo diesel 4 coupled with a 6 speed automatic transmission.
Our test car was a V6 LX. Climate control is zoned 3 ways – for driver, front passenger and the rest. As mentioned above all the glass behind the front doors is heavily tinted. The standard sound system is excellent with 6 speakers, MP3 input and a 20GB hard drive for storing your favourite 2,500 songs. The system is controlled through a centrally mounted 6.5” touch screen, which doubles as the display for the reversing camera. In addition there is an audible and visual rear parking assist system. The stain-resistant cloth seats in the LX don’t provide a lot of lateral support but are surprisingly comfortable. Seat adjustment is manual and unfortunately the leather steering wheel only tilts. It’s not too hard however to find your ideal seating position. Once found though, you soon realise the pedals aren’t anywhere near where you would expect them – they’re offset way to the left, and there’s no left foot rest. In most (RH drive) cars you can use the right hand wall of the foot-well to ‘find’ the accelerator – not so with the GV. This becomes a real problem when you need to brake while using cruise control. It would be easy to hit the wrong pedal. That said, the cruise control system is easy to use – operating via a stalk on the right hand side of the steering wheel and comfortably in finger tip reach when holding the wheel correctly at “¼ to 3”. There’s a heads up display on the dash showing your current transmission selection and ‘manual’ changes can be made, but the sideways sequential selection rather than forward and aft always irritates me as I constantly get it wrong! In any event the actual lever is positioned uncomfortably low for my arms and really discourages manual changes.
The cleverest thing about the GV though, has to be its ability to convert from a 7 seater bus to an absolutely flat floored van in only seconds. The really clever bit is that the seats actually disappear under the floor – this is Chrysler’s Stow ’n Go Seating®. Just one of the benefits of front wheel drive and independent rear suspension! The side benefit of course is, when configured as a 7 seater, there is lots of under floor storage available.
To their credit, Chrysler doesn’t differentiate across the range when it comes to safety features (other manufacturers please take note!) All models have the usual 4 wheel disc ABS brakes with brake assist, ESP and traction control. They also have front and side airbags for driver and front passenger plus side curtains for all three rows - excellent.
We found the GV equally comfortable on the open road as it was around the twisty unsealed roads, as we headed from Anakie to the old gold mining town of Steiglitz in Victoria’s Brisbane Ranges, between Geelong and Ballan. The 3.8 litre V6 in concert with the 6 speed transmission gets the GV moving without fuss. The 6 speeds really do make the changes hard to pick, just as the brochures say. As people movers go the GV acquits itself exceptionally well and has no obvious bad habits. Our test was probably 60/40 country/city driving and we were pleasantly surprised to use just over 13 litres/100km for the entire test.
The base LX we tested is priced at $56,990, the Touring at $62,990 and the Limited at $72,990. The diesel option costs an additional $3,000.
Tested August 2008
Vehicle provided by Chrysler Australia Pty Ltd
