generaltso

I see in your pictures that they've finally started using the grill logo with the red stripes. Looks great!

The info they sent you is correct. Your DJ does not have the Sales Code for DRLs, and is therefore not equipped with them. What they neglected to tell you is that your DJ can easily be equipped with them by simply adding the Sales Code to your VIN. The dealer has this capability with their DealerConnect software.

Thanks! It looks like the sides of the console are held on with clips, and can be reomoved by pulling them straight up. But I'm not sure how the back and hinged armrest portion come off.

That's exactly my point. I assume that's why the Uconnect system has a menu option to turn them on and off. I know you can't usually please everyone, but in this case having the DRLs enabled on every DJ from the factory actually would please everyone. Those who like them could leave them on and those who don't like them could just turn them off through the Uconnect menu. It seems like a weird decision to take that option away from the customer by overriding the user option in the menu and keeping them disabled on most DJs out of the factory. There must be a reason for that decision, I just can't figure out what it would be.

Thanks Chris. Your info is much appreciated, as always. Any idea why Chrysler made the decision to have DRLs disabled in the first place? Seems like a weird decision considering they are one of the few vehicle manufacturers that actually allow an owner to turn them on and off at will. For the life of me, I can't think of a reason why that would make sense.

Just tell them that there are many other Journey owners in this forum that were able to have them enabled. Tell them specifically that they need to add the sales code for DRLs to your VIN through DealerConnect and flash the computer in the car.

Sorry, I don't know the answer to that since it's a completely different system in 09 and 10 model years.

I could be wrong, but I don't think it's possible to add the OEM Garmin Nav without replacing the head unit.

Sounds like quite an annoying bug.

They're full of crap. the DRLs having nothing to do with AUTO headlights. Wouldn't that also mean that DRLs wouldn't work in Canada without AUTO lights? That's obviously not the case since they're required. The AVP is actually one of the two trim levels in which DRLs are officially offered as an option. Just tell the dealer to look at the 2012 DJ Feature Availability sheet.

Really? The 4.3 doesn't support using an iPhone as a music source through USB? Works fine with the 8.4.

There is no itemized price for it on my sticker because it's standard on the Crew (and R/T). Chrysler must consider it to be worth a $1000 premium since they gave a $1000 discount when it wasn't available.

You should get the rebate that existed when you placed the order OR the rebate that exists when the car comes in....whichever is better. That's how it worked at my dealer.

The 8.4 is available in the US as well. It became available for builds as of 11/1/11.

I don't think any dealer would refuse to take your money in advance, but you don't actually buy the car until it comes in.

That would turn the headlights on, which is not the same as the DRLs. It would also dim the instrument cluster lights.

That just means the engine can support it. Not that it's implemented in the Journey.

Yeah, rust on the parts of the rotors that don't direclty contact the pads is normal. Any rust on the suface of the rotors usually comes right off as soon as you drive the car.

The dealer couldn't find anything wrong with the braking system, but they replaced the front rotors and pads since they couldn't explain the scoring. We'll see if it happens again.

I guess it depends who you ask. The EPA rating is 24 highway, so I wouldn't expect to see 30. Though I wouldn't complain if I did

I stopped by the dealer and had them take a look. They agreed that it's not normal to see that kind of scoring on the rotors after only 2000 miles, so they made an appointment for me to bring it in Friday. We'll see what they come up with.

The traffic feature that's built into the Nav is a little weird. There's no such thing as traffic where I live, so I haven't seen the feature function until I took a 300 mile road trip this past weekend. About an hour into the trip, the Nav showed a traffic delay of 47 minutes and audibly said "Severe Traffic Ahead - recalculating". I tapped the traffic icon to see what it was talking about. Sure enough, it said there was traffic on my route in Boston. Okay, but I was still 150 miles from Boston! There was traffic in Boston because it was rush hour, but I knew that the traffic would be clear by the time I got there in 2 and a half hours. Every 10 minutes, the Nav kept repeating "Severe Traffic Ahead - recalculating". It got annoying, so I turned off everything I could find that had anything to do with traffic. Even with everything turned off, it still kept alerting me to the traffic that was still very far away. As expected, the traffic completely cleared long before I got to Boston. It would seem that there's no way to turn off the traffic alerting. I'm guessing that's a bug since there is an option to turn it off.....it just doesn't actually seem to work. To be useful, it really needs to give you the ability to enter a distance at which you want to be warned if there's traffic. Warning you when there's ANY traffic ANYWHERE on your route isn't helpful. If I had traffic avoidance turned on, it may have taken me way out of my way to avoid it, only to find out it cleared up long before I would have gotten to it. Has anyone else used the traffic feature? Are you seeing the same behavior?

I had my first road trip in the Journey this past weekend, taking my son to Battleship Cove, which is about 300 miles each way. The trip was all highway, and I averaged 23 mpg. That's a lot better than the 15 mpg I've been averaging around town. It was a very comfortable ride for everyone. Chrysler doesn't offer Sirius Backseat TV as an option anymore, so I had an aftermarket tuner installed. Letting the kids watch live TV the whole way was much better than arguing over movies and dealing with swapping discs.

I'll stop by the dealer today and see what they say about it. At the very least, I guess it would be good to have them make a note of it in case I do end up with brake problems down the road.

Do you think the dealer will do anything if there aren't any problematic symptoms?