It’s the middle of winter here in Calgary but we’ve mostly escaped Arctic conditions so far, with the temperature hovering around freezing on many days. The weather’s biggest challenge to mobility came on December 22nd, when we received about a foot of snow overnight, resulting in the predictable stuck buses, suspended postal deliveries and deserted malls just a few days before Christmas.

It also meant that our Pacifica Hybrid was temporarily immobilized for the first time. Our quiet residential street isn’t routinely plowed and the sheer depth of snow on that first morning was too much for Baymax’s ground clearance, regardless of tires. Our Subaru Impreza just about scrabbled its way out to pick up a poorly scheduled Click-and-Collect order from the supermarket but even the 4x4 diesel truck in the house next door to us was struggling, so I didn’t feel too bad. Buying a car is a series of trade-offs and we knew that deep snow would be one scenario that a FWD minivan might not handle. That doesn’t make it the wrong vehicle for the other 364 days of the year.
 
It’s three months now since I reset the PacHy’s trip computer with the onset of the first cold weather. Since then, it’s averaged 6.7L/100km (35mpg), mostly through short errands around the city, plus a couple of longer runs out to the mountains for skiing. That figure is down on the warm-weather average, as expected, with electric-only range dropping from around 47-50km (29-31 miles) to about 35km (22 miles) as the car copes with additional demands on its power, like keeping us warm, and winter tires with higher rolling resistance.
 
The increase in fuel consumption and decrease in battery range are not ideal but not a disaster, either. I don’t see any other vehicles here in North America that match the Pacifica Hybrid’s capability for the same fuel numbers, and certainly not at this price point, although I’d expect the new Toyota Sienna Hybrid to get close. More on that in a future post.

Thanks to the useful advice on the Canadian Pacifica e-Hybrid Owners Facebook group, we’ve got into the routine of using electricity from the grid to warm the plugged-in car before journeys. All it takes are two presses on the Start button without pushing the brake pedal, or two clicks of the key fob’s remote start button, about 10 minutes before departure.
 
An appropriate app with a warm-up function – as is available for many EVs and some other vehicles – would be a useful addition. The only official app for a 2018 PacHy is the Uconnect one, which doesn’t offer this type of function, although it has some features for Uconnect 5-equipped 2021 hybrids. Please get in touch if you have additional info or suggestions.
 
The warm-up routine does go a long way to minimizing IC engine use on short journeys, witnessed by a drop in overall fuel consumption since we started doing it. Of course, the engine still might need to fire to warm the car and battery up when you return to it after it’s been parked in the cold, as well as for the periodic ‘Fuel and Oil Maintenance Mode’. This latter scenario can be particularly damaging to average fuel use if you don’t undertake a journey long enough for the sequence to complete, as the car will keep on trying to run the cycle on each new journey. It took a longer run to the mountains for our Pacifica to get this out of its system.

Thanks for reading. Stay warm, stay healthy and drive safely!

Fall (autumn) in Calgary is a short season: you sometimes only get a week or two between the leaves changing colour and everything having dropped from the trees, assisted by the unpredictable Southern Albertan wind.

This year we had our first snowfall in late-September and although the temperature quickly climbed back to something respectable, a few days on slippery surfaces with the standard Nexen N’Priz RH7as were enough to remind us that winter tires were going to be an essential upgrade to the Pacifica for us to make it safely through the winter. That’s no slight on the Nexens, just a reflection of the fact that all-season tires aren’t at their best below 7°C (45°F).

According to figures from the latest study by TRAC, the tire industry association in Canada, 59% of Alberta drivers now fit winter tires. That’s up from 45% in 2014 but still lower than I think it should be, given the climate here. There’s no doubt that SUV and truck owners make up a big proportion of the drivers who don’t switch. I appreciate that there is a financial commitment involved but it's also important to remember that 4WD/AWD won’t help you stop in cold weather, regardless of the surface.

I had some Continental VikingContact 7s on order for Baymax but before they arrived, the first job to get the PacHy ready for winter was to fit a set of WeatherTech mats. These are bespoke measured to each vehicle and as a result, fit beautifully. There are individual mats for each of the front seats, plus a larger one that wraps around the two captain’s chairs to catch the melting snow from the kids’ boots. WeatherTech also makes a liner for the cargo space behind the third-row bench, but we keep that folded flat most of the time.

The tires arrived and Baymax headed to OK Tire Northmount, which had ordered in some steel rims to mount them to, along with some TPMS units. The Pacifica Hybrid Limited comes with 18in x 7.5in rims with a 5x127mm bolt pattern and ET51 offset. I couldn’t see a whole lot of replacement options listed online but the guys at Northmount managed to source some. I hesitated on the TPMS sensors – frankly it was a surprise that the car used a direct (valve sensor-based) system rather than an indirect, software-calculated one. But I figured there’s no point having the feature if you don’t use it, especially given that the winter rims will likely stay on the car at least five months of the year.

The work to mount, balance and fit the VikingContact 7s only took an hour and came with the bonus of the usual friendly service from Kyle and his crew at Northmount.

That’s it for this update. The next will focus on how Baymax copes with colder conditions. We’re expecting more use of the V6 and less electric-only running: the question is, how much more? Until next time…

It hasn’t taken long for Baymax to seamlessly slot into family life. The kids like the new-found space and comfort in those big captain’s chairs and we’ve all enjoyed the quietness of mostly all-electric motoring.

Barring the 290km (180-mile) drive home from Edmonton, we barely used any gas at all in the first few weeks of ownership. The furthest we drove on a full charge – on one particularly flat and undemanding route – was 59km. That’s about 3.7km/kWh (2.3 miles/kWh). However, 47-50km was more typical when you factored in hilly terrain or highway driving – around 2.9km/kWh (1.8 miles/kWh).

We averaged a decent 4.4L/100km (53.5mpg US) over our first 1,000km, including that 300km from Edmonton; by the time the weather turned colder in mid-October, the fuel consumption had increased to 5.8L/100km (40.5mpg US). That’s still a respectable figure, but not one I expect to match through the Alberta winter. At this point, I reset the trip meter to start recording a cold-weather average.

Running errands in the city, it took us until the end of October – two months and 1,900km into our ownership – to empty the first tank of gas that came with the car from the dealer. Note to self: only fill the tank completely when a long trip is imminent, so that the fuel doesn’t degrade before it’s used.

Naturally there have been some teething troubles, one of them stemming from the poor service at the selling dealer. They didn’t follow up on a request to apply the outstanding recall (W46 – 12V isolator post connection) so Baymax went to our local Chrysler franchise, Crowfoot Dodge Chrysler, to have the gasket fitted. Couldn’t fault the service: the car was booked in quickly and a socially distanced courtesy shuttle brought us home while the work was being done, and back to pick it up.

The PacHy was back at Crowfoot the following week to have a Uconnect software upgrade installed, which eliminated a known issue with the system periodically requesting an anti-theft code. We’re otherwise impressed with the Uconnect so far. It’s intuitive to use, the display is crystal clear and the sound from that Harman/Kardon stereo upgrade is mega.

At the end of September we said goodbye to Hettie the 2003 Outback, which went to a new owner in the south of the city. She went straight to the shop for a timing belt and head gaskets before going back to work every day. Always good to know that a car is being looked after; thanks for the memories!