casey sohc

hi i had almost the same problem with my 2009 at 172000km....the engine had a cracked head...that overheated the overflow bottle and broke it...so far i have replaced the overflow bottle because you cant fix it no matter what you use for glue...fiberglass...urethane...silicone...nothing works....anyway i did end up changing the engine. its a known issue these engines much like the G.M. uplander are designed with profits in mind not the customer..and just don't last..as for the starter issue...good luck nobody else has ever fixed one but its not the battery or the starter they are very obvious when they die.... some are the ignition passlock system and the others are the neutral range selector in the transmission..

mine threw the 305 code... i now have changed the engine....it was hooped... for no reason other than hitting 150,000 ish kms i limped it till 173,000 km before it was dumping antifreeze out of the tailpipes

i also have a 1996 dodge ram 2500 diesel long box extra cab 4x4 that has 310000miles (530000 ish km)i tow a 32 foot 5th wheel with it and trust it everywhere last summer we towed from halifax to Quebec city and the truck never skipped a beat...i am loosing faith in the journey, if the mrs didn't like it so much it would have been gone...but as i stated before it rides amazing and is as comfortable as caddy...just dont shut it off...lol

with 170 on it i may be able to trade it for another toyota echo...lol .....now its a matter of figuring out the problem, it is a beautiful car to drive,it handles great,lots of room with 7 seats the 2 kids both of us and the dog have a seat...but what a pain to get information on and work on...the stupid problems and no dealer support when they know the issues..arrgh!i am very much afraid that this is my last north american made family car....i drive a beat to hell 2002 toyota echo to work with 250000km on it and i trust that it will start every time and easy to work on ...plus i paid next to nothing for it.as for trading it in...that would be very dishonest for the next owner..very dishonest. i am looking into the range selector in the transmission now..it could be the issue...but there is almost nothing else to change.

nope!...not the computer the car just had a "no start" my wife called...crap! she turned the key on messed with the gearshifter and it started...here we go again...check the range selector switch.

well the computer..ECM is in and flashed....but i now have a check engine light on.for a low voltage on fuel level #2....wtf is that? apparently the all wheel drive have 2 fuel level indicators..and my new to me ecm is from an awd.. not fwd like ours...time will tell about the starting thing..one good thing the car with new engine and ecm is showing 9.6 l/100 km we have never seen anything better than 11l/100km.. humm maybe there is something good going on...

this engine was at 172000km which is around 110000miles

this is the 3.5 liter v6 and it had issues from the get go..it would knock and make noises sometimes at start up ( not every time,) like it was low on oil...or flat lifters..if you shut it down and started it 3 times the noises went away...i think it suffered from tourettes..it loved oil sometimes ingesting 4-5 liters between changes. but the last straw was the drinking of antifreeze, it broke the coolant bottle,i tried to fix it...nope $89 for a new one then it started overheating and then we purchased another engine that is certified for 3 months unlimited mileage from the auto recyclers.

i found that out myself...our local dealers 3 to choose from cant find thier butts with both hands,and if you cant plug the scanner in they cant fix it...but yes bring it in and check especally if the vin number starts with a 3 that is made in mexico the out of province deaker that i go to are old school and have seen a few mexican ones loose...im not sure if any are made in canada or the states anymore.

yup we tried it all...lock unlock...run around the car with a rubber glove on our heads...nothing works..but if you leave it alone in an hour it starts.i even keep a ratchet with socket to bar the engine over so the starter disengages...nope.

this is a common enough problem for the local dealer to carry 2 in stock...and they don't even carry wipers for the rear in stock.

huh....never thought of that....bwahaahaa.. that was 20 years ago ..it was one of those hold my "beverage" i can get that light out for ya!...the rest was history.

at that time the mazda had a timing chain and the check engine light would come on. and only the dealer could shut them off as far as we could find out it was just a non code and was safe to drive just as annoying as heck.but for a mere $100 they would shut it down...a 1/4" x 12" long drill bit fixed ours when we drilled down through the instrument cluster and into the bulb...no more light.

i like that idea but it wasn't offered when ours was new.

in the 90s mazda did that with the small pickups the check engine was designed to come on at 61k to 69k kms and if you had the extended warranty to 125km it was free to fix if not it was $100 and the light was designed to come on again at 130000km ... i have read up on the starting issues over the last year and most of the issues begin to occur near the end or after the warrenty is ended.. we do not have the option here of a lifetime coverage...the most we could buy was coverage to 100000km.

yup. mine was fixed...i had a noise with acceleration and decceleration it turned out to be half of the front subframe bolts were loose by at least 2 or 3 turns...the car was fairly new when this happened...

my 2009 journey has the same problem....after it hit the 120000km (warranty to 100000km...)mark it started failing to start. the starter would just give a hint or a grunt of a turn of the engine, very intermitantly ...i have had the ignition replaced,....nope... i replaced the starter...nope... i just finished replacing the engine and the new one came with the harness attached (not a jod for the faint of heart..) nope... tomorrow i have an appointment to have a dealer flash the used computer (ECM ) from the journey the engine is out of to see if it cures the issue..it only has 50000km on it, if its fixed then the computers are designed to fail after warrenty..nice.

sorry for the hijack of your post...i have started another..cheers.

here is an update on this....the engine works like it should...now when i installed the new engine the computer would not recognize the throttlebody with the "fly by wire " servo.(the red hourglass with the lightning bolt was lit on the dash) i replaced the intake plenuim(ugly plastic chummy) with my original one and all was right with the world in that respect....we used the car for a few days and wouldn't you know it ...the NO START issue is still there... when the problem happens no servos do any movements under the hood...there is just deadness and the starter grunts the engine over about 10 degrees...nice! i picked up the used ECM from the same auto recycler that the engine came from..infact it is the ecm for the engine i'm using from the same journey...great i plugged it in friday night and the engine started and the "fly by wire " warning light was lit and the engine shut off in 30 seconds with the security light flashing....so im off to the dealer to have the newish ecm flashed tomorrow....i would have thought that a new starter,ignition,used engine and wireing under the hood would have also cured my no start issue but no!..here is the last kick at the cat with the ecm...i sure hope it does it,it does seem like the mileage has something to do with the no start, most i've read about have had around 60K miles (100k KM )and above just off of warranty..hummmm !!! makes you think.....

Hi there i am a newbie here and i just did an engine swap in my journey ...what a pain to do...i was lucky enough to find another 09 journey engine ..i had some issues changing it but nothing too major.there are a few engines that fit and are the same....i was told by the scrap yard that only the journey and sebring were interchangable... i changed ours because it was going through 6 liters of coolant a week, and between 3 to 5 liters of oil between oil changes...i thought we could get more than 172000km out of it...but nope. surprisingly the engine will come out through the top ...and is a complete bugger to change.and for everyone who are having multiple misfires and and poor performance and stumbling aparently these are known for cracking heads and intakes, the exhaust valves are all chalk coloured white from running on coolant.

here is an update on this....the engine works like it should...now when i installed the new engine the computer would not recognize the throttlebody with the "fly by wire " servo.(the red hourglass with the lightning bolt was lit on the dash) i replaced the intake plenuim(ugly plastic chummy) with my original one and all was right with the world in that respect....we used the car for a few days and wouldn't you know it ...the NO START issue is still there... when the problem happens no servos do any movements under the hood...there is just deadness and the starter grunts the engine over about 10 degrees...nice! i picked up the used ECM from the same auto recycler that the engine came from..infact it is the ecm for the engine i'm using from the same journey...great i plugged it in friday night and the engine started and the "fly by wire " warning light was lit and the engine shut off in 30 seconds with the security light flashing....so im off to the dealer to have the newish ecm flashed tomorrow....i would have thought that a new starter,ignition,used engine and wireing under the hood would have also cured my no start issue but no!..here is the last kick at the cat with the ecm...i sure hope it does it,it does seem like the mileage has something to do with the no start, most i've read about have had around 60K miles (100k KM )and above just off of warranty..hummmm !!! makes you think.....

hey i just did an engine swap in my journey ...what a pain to do...i was lucky enough to find another 09 journey engine ..i had some issues changing it but nothing too major.there are a few engines that fit and are the same...but i didn't think the avenger engine was the same..i was told by the scrap yard that only the journey and sebring were interchangable...what was the issue with yours?? i changed ours because it was going through 6 liters of coolant a week, and between 3 to 5 liters of oil between oil changes...i thought we could get more than 172000km out of it...but nope.