With three LCDs and two mobile TV tuners, the Chrysler Town & Country becomes an extreme entertainment vehicle. A wireless router broadens the infotainment capabilities, but the power train is archaic.
Wayne Cunningham
Wayne Cunningham reviews cars and writes about automotive technology for CNET's Roadshow. Prior to the automotive beat, he covered spyware, Web building technologies, and computer hardware. He began covering technology and the Web in 1994 as an editor of The Net magazine.
Chrysler invented the minivan in the 1980s, and is trying to continue the success of this vehicle type with its 2010 model Town & Country.
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Standing next to the Town & Country, it does not feel overly large, but the inside is cavernous.
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In the Limited trim, the Town & Country gets this 4-liter V-6, an older engine with none of the efficiency technologies being offered by competitors. There are two other engines available for the Town & Country, which come with different trim levels.
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In the Limited trim, the Town & Country has power everything, including side doors and rear window vents.
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Our car came with leather-covered middle row captains chairs and a third row.
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The middle row, Chrysler's Stow 'n Go seats, fold individually into the floor.
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Long suspension travel gives the Town & Country a floaty ride, which damps out rough features in the road.
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Similar to the middle row, the rear seats fold completely flat.
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Although the leather seats are nice, the dashboard is made up of hard plastics and fake wood trim, which all feels kind of cheap.
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Chrysler only puts a few buttons on the front of the steering wheel, but hides volume and channel controls behind the spokes.
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The display at the bottom of the speedometer also shows route guidance information.
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This shifter controls a six-speed automatic transmission, the most modern part of this drivetrain.
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The hard-drive-based navigation system shows maps in 2D or 3D, and includes traffic information.
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We found the destination entry screen sluggish, taking time to accept each input.
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A Bluetooth phone system comes with this infotainment unit, but it is rather basic, and doesn't download a phone's contact list.
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You can save music and images on the car's hard drive.
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Images saved on the hard drive can be used as backgrounds for screens such as this one.
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iPod integration comes with the stereo, and the interface lets you browse the iPod library.
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Sirius Backseat TV is limited to these three channels.
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Figuring out which source goes to which LCD is a little difficult.
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The remote for Flo.TV is wired, which we found a little strange.
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We were able to show a DVD on the front screen, Flo.TV on the middle screen, and Sirius television on the rear screen.
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Flo.TV offers 16 channels, including the major news networks.
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The backup camera is basic, showing no distance or trajectory lines.
