John/Horace

BITOG bob is the oil guy is good source of oil information. They say 20 weight oil is ok up to 225F ish. Clip pasted below. A vehicle driven in a "normal and benign" way will live on 20 with oil at 200~225 F. A vehicle pushed very hard while towing or hauling heavy loads, or on a track will probably live better on 30, 40 or 50 depending how hot the oil is going to get (250~300+F). Even 5W-20 could be fine on a track too if the vehicle has crazy oil coolers that would always keep the oil at 225 F all day long. It all depends on the expected max oil temperatures on how thin you can safely go. I’m not a big fan of snake oil additives in general, but some people have had luck with them. If you are positive the sound is internal, a sticking valve lifter or timing chain hydraulic tensioner might be helped by an additive. With the number of 2.4 ‘s you have on the road, you know what they should sound like.

I would grab a few sheet metal screws and washers and secure it again. The heat shields are there for a reason. Wife’s Journey 3.6 heat guard started hanging down and rubbing on driveshaft, had to add fasteners last year. There have been grass fires from missing catalytic converter guards. Carpeting and electrical is protected sometimes as well. They are really flimsy and not well secured.

Welcome to the forum. What has a mechanic said it is ? Free advice worth everything you pay for it. Could be quite a few different things. Starting it cold for 10 seconds with surpentine belt removed should eliminate a spinning component like alternator, water pump, a/c idler, pwr steering pump various idler bearings etc on front of engine. Might create a few check engine lights afterwards for no charging etc. Dont run it for too long. After that you move on to internal stuff like timing chain tensioner, valve train components etc. The 2.4 is not exactly a quiet engine in the first place. Cold engines tend to be a bit louder in general.

Great transmission news. The really expensive item you can’t fix your self seems to be ok. Surprised there is no magnet in pan, most pans I have dropped have one. Some people even add a second magnet to help trap filings. Noise should be something on the cheaper end of things. The vibration analysis equip you listed could be used for wheel bearings via the spindle housing or main crank shaft bearings via block measurements.. Spinning shafts like c/v or drive shafts would be measured with an ultrasonic very expensive sensing device. Bearings are bench marked when new then periodically measured for progressive wear over time. Really meant for high end air compressors and other critical components in $ factory equipment. Kinda hard to justify for $125 c/v shafts etc. Source of noise is going to be a little tricky to isolate. https://www.cbmconnect.com/ultrasonic-predictive-maintenance-monitoring-bearing-wear/ https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwizjIigwInwAhWxbG8EHcWkALcYABAFGgJqZg&ohost=www.google.ca&cid=CAASEuRo66NCc52z-b9b15AZXGqKEQ&sig=AOD64_3u5_5AFAIH6wdxBJtDogi0Hg4e6g&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwjQzYGgwInwAhUHWs0KHRhHBKwQ5bgDegQIARBA&adurl= On front wheel drive cars I have isolated c/v or bearing noises by jacking one wheel in the air and running car at medium speed. A little un-nerving but the car will stay put as spider gears slip. The Side generating noise should become obvious. AWD would how ever require removing driveshaft to do this. Sometimes the c/v boots are not leaking grease yet, but the bearings are still at early wear stages and generating noise. You may have to drive longer for the sound to become more pronounced so you can isolate it. It doesn’t seem like a catastrophic failure item.

Post doesn’t say they do. Context. Read 5-6 posts above. Discussion was about Jasper rebuild transmissions and if crate rebuilds were ok versus transmission shops. Cvt is part of the push to crate rebuilds, People also associate weird shifting with cvt’s. So kinda on topic.

Some times the threat of a lawyer is more useful than the reality. A simple piece of paper from a lawyer as a starter might convince them not be jerks. Full lawsuit a lot of hazzle ...with risk of not winning.

"Your Corner Wrench: Making the right connections with connecting pins – New and Used Car Reviews, Comparisons and News | Driving" https://driving.ca/column/corner-wrench/your-corner-wrench-making-the-right-connections-with-connecting-pins/amp

Yes. I'm ignoring AWD shaft for now. Could paint mark connections on it, remove the and drive without it to eliminate that. Unlike c\v shafts. There's a flex coupling on one end, could inspect it.

C/V shafts can have a varying sound that goes away at certain speeds sometimes. There are 3 shafts on Journey. After market not that expensive, even new after market which aren’t quite a good IMO as OEM.

Without weight on a bearing it’s often hard to tell if it’s worn at the early stages. Which is why some better shops use a vibration analysis tool to isolate which bearing is bad without guessing. Later stages often play can be found in hub with tire off the ground, manually. Audio clip not great way to try and diagnose a wheel bearing IMO. The google says..... The classic sounds of a bad wheel bearing are cyclic chirping, squealing and/or growling noise. You can also tell that the sound is related to wheel bearings if it changes in proportion to vehicle speed. The sound can get worse with every turn, or it can disappear momentarily.May 14, 2019

Magnet is either built into the replaceable filter in the pan, or it is a separate ferrite magnet stuck to bottom of pan.

Transaxle on transmission output can be noisy. Has transmission oil been changed as well. How was magnet in the pan. You have reved engine in park to make sure it’s not coming off one of the engine components.?

A Bad Wheel bearing often follows the speed of the vehicle as a droning noise. Usually the faster the speed the louder it gets, doesn’t fade away in my experience. Try checking the front ptu and rear transfer case oil levels. No dip stick on front ptu so you have to drain and fill to get correct level. Very little oil involved, 75w90 used for both. Search forum for oil change instructions.

You really need a schematic and a pin out drawing for ecm to diagnose. I wonder about that driver door harness that got fixed. Sometimes switches like a dome light etc could have an auxiliary contact that sends a signal, power or ground somewhere else. Even though door stuff seems to function ok, could still be broken wire causing the issue. There are quite a few delayed lighting options on the Journey using some kind of timer. Try going into the display options and setting to 0 as many as you can. Just a thought. I hate automotive electrical too; can be very tricky.

It varies depending on the trailer really. Often 15” tires can sit higher than a trailer with 13” tires. Need to have some tonge weight so slight downwards angle needed. Usually 2.5” is the most common drop, but you need to check trailer and car together at hitch and see what works.

All the cvt trans are crate rebuild now. Dealerships just swap out the units with the reman. Specialized tools make it too hard for independents or dealers to take it on.

None I’m sure. I think around 5 yrs is about right. Starts to get really dark after approx 7-8 yrs. Instead of pushing dirty fluid back through abs system you can bleed it out at the caliper, then top up reservoir. Swaps a bit of the fluid.

https://jalopnik.com/meet-margaret-wilcox-the-woman-who-invented-the-car-he-1846657270

Useful and not expensive. Although changing based on colour and time interval works. https://jalopnik.com/cool-tool-this-brake-fluid-tester-can-help-you-keep-yo-1846642461

Insurance can’t find a link...or don’t want to find a link. Proving the link to the accident could be tricky without someone like a mechanic if your corner. Insurance company using cheapest repair shop they can find. The existing problems from the repair make me think they aren’t great at accident repairs and it’s accident related IMO. Insurance probably should have totalled car rather than half ass fixing it. Might have to deal with insurance company staff higher up the food chain. Tough situation, hope it works out.

BCM tricky to shoot with so many connections. If you can swap it out from parts car, with identical options, might save some time. I think the proximity door locks trigger the cluster to light up when they see activity. Are they functioning normally.

Anything is possible...depending on your fortitude. Pull the front plastic bumper cover first and eye ball the metal behind it. How many pound winch and what is the application matters. Custom fabrication of a bracket would be needed for even a 2000 pound winch, which wouldn’t be strong enough to drag the Journey itself out of the rhubarb. Unibody makes winch mounting quite an adventure. My Honda atv winch mount that I made taught me a few things. A close to 5k pound vehicle would be a bigger challenge.

Sometimes the rubber degrades and gets weaker; the extra movement is transferred to the bolt/bushing which is mild steel. The metal bushing wears very quickly and you get squeak/clunk until new rubber assembly is there to properly pick up movement. Or the lube allows extra movement and covers up noise from worn item. Eventually lube won’t work I think.

I’m assuming you mean transmission.Part of the mech electrical unit attached to fluid body inside transmission housing. Four and six speed shown. Plug on tranny exterior will indicate location I think. Can sometimes be changed on some vehicles with transmission in place; so labor not crazy. I've never changed one, hopefully someone else chimes in with more info. https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/dodge,2012,journey,2.4l+l4,1502335,transmission-automatic,shift+solenoid,8476

Thanks for the decent explanation. My wife’s Journey is awd, she had a Santa Fe and a Jeep before that, awd. Our weather makes it tough to disagree with not having it. Little more maint but worth it. Change your rear diff oil on time , it seems to get dirty pretty fast. Drain plug magnet gets furry. The lip seals on the two input c/v shafts have a tendency to fail a little early. In the rust belt areas corrosion eats the metal on the $25 lip seals. Spray with fluid film or other rust proofing might make them last longer. I did after changing both at around 100k miles. Ive driven the awd 200 with the 9 speed tranny and the 3.6 before, peppy ride. Shame they discontinued so fast.