CCCacher

Now I'm a little concerned about ordering tires and rims a month or two before I intend to start using them. Maybe someone can confirm that it is the front calipers that are the problem or is it front and back? I'll have to check with Costco to see what their policy is on this. Hopefully they would take the time to dry fit the rims before mounting the tires. I'll follow up with Costco and let you know what I find out.

If the tire gets too wide then there is less weight on each square inch of road contact and that means less grip. I'm sure with the small differences between the size of tires that we are limited to it doesn't really make much difference. I can just remember having my 81 Camaro with 245's on 15" rims (wide tires for 20 years ago) and they were great for cornering in the summer but absolutely sucked in the winter.

Narrow tires are better for the winter as the cut throught the snow easier and while the contact patch is smaller you get more pounds per square inch on that patch so better traction. (yes, even though I am Canadian, kg per square cm doesn't sound right) http://www.motortrend.com/womt/112_9903_tire_myths_and_reality/viewall.html

Got a quote from Costco today for winters. 17" oem rims $48, way cheaper than anywhere else I've been. Bridgestone Blizzak WS70 215/65R17 $172+6(enviro fee)-17.50 ($70 discount/set of 4) installed so basically less than $1000 taxes in installed and balanced. Yes it is for 215/65R17, the shop person said that they were within spec and narrower is better for the winter. Probably will go with costco but might get the 225's instead. Have until Oct 8 to get them as $70 off set ends then.

The new 2013 Santa fe uses 235/55-19's. The new for Escape Titanium has 235/ 45HR19.0's. Chev Equinox can be optioned with P235/55R19. Even keeping it in the family, many of the Chargers have 19". All of these are high volume main stream vehicles. I'm not too worried about 19" tires not being in demand in the future.

Yes, that is my concern with ordering on-line, what if they don't fit. Costco apparently gets cheaper rims but you need to be there they day they come in as they go fast. I might check next time I'm there. I'll also check Walmart to see what they charge. Last time I got my rims at CT and brought them to Walmart where I got the tires, they didn't have anymore 17" rims. I got a quote from a place in Kanata but they were pricing some off-brand imported POS that got bad reviews on-line. As for the TPS, I'm temped to go without. I'm not sure what the price is but I didn't get them on my last set of winters and just put up with the TPS warning for the winter. The trick there is to store the tires away from your vehicle (not in your garage) otherwise it will sense them then complain every time you drive away. I always swap tires late and switch back early so it is only a few months of a warning. I'm not sure how much the journey will complain, on my Impala I just had to push a button to acknowledge the alert when I started

Same here, looking for 17's for the winter. I have the same queston about 17's on the bigger brakes. Might stop by the dealer some time and see if I can find some newer Journey's with factory 17's on the lot to see how much clearence there is. CanadianTire apparently has their new Nordic's on sale in the next week or two for about $150/tire (buy 3, get 4th free) for the 17's, they charge $80-90 for the steel rims though +$15/tire for balancing. Might go with this unless I can find a better deal somewhere else....or at least a better price on the rims. Let me know what you decide on, I'd be very interested.

The standard incandescent bulbs in the tail gate were really bugging me. Every other interior light was LED but for some reason Dodge cheaped out on the tail gate lights. I found the name of these lights ??"festoon"?? ??"canbus"?? on the forums. I found 4 SMD ones cheap on Amazon.com (not on .ca) and was about to order them but they wanted $21 shipping for $4 worth of lights. I turned to Ebay and found 8 SMD ones shipped to Canada for less than $10. I would say that the 8 SMD ones are about right, could have gotten 4 or 16+ but I'm happy with the 8's. Installation was easy. Lens pops off with a flat screw driver, lights pop out of the clips (careful, they get hot quickly), had to squeeze the clips together a little before snapping in the LED's. Big difference in the light, looks much better now. PART INFO: 42mm 8 SMD 5050 LED Pure White Canbus Festoon Dome Roof Light Lamp Bulb 12V - x2

I remember reading somewhere (and I'll see if I can track it down) that the AWD system directs power to different wheels as needed during acceleration and certain other driving maneuvers to increase performance and handling so I think that this would partially explain the FWD/AWD suspension differences. Just the fundamental difference between FWD and AWD would require some suspention tweeks that the marketing department probably got ahold of and changed 'stiffer' or 'harsher' suspension to "performance" suspension.

Sounds like you need the doors like the ones in star trek, they can apparently read your mind to tell if you are really going to walk through or if you are just walking around the room. I can just see some kid getting locked in the back seat when the driver gets out and walks a few feet away. This has lawsuit written all over it. I usually end up pushing the tailgate button as I walk by to lock the doors if I've forgotten to use the handle button. ETA: I do wish you could change the settings that keep the rear doors locked until the front doors are opened. I'm afraid that sometime someone will pull my rear door handle off trying to get out before I open my door.

Yes, normally when I am backing up I check around and use the mirrors in addition to the camera. What was cool from the weekend was when I was backing up down some single lane road allowances for a bit of a distance was that I was able to drive with the camera, I wasn't too concerned with anything being around me. It is a nice feature, my friends thought it was pretty cool.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. With all due respect to the previous model year owners, the brakes and disks on my '12 look huge. I was hoping to drop down to 17s for the winter but I don't know if they would fit. I do have 17s from my Impala that I am going to sell but I might "try one on" first to see if it clears the caliper, unfortunately they are no where near the tire size I need. One would assume that they would fit since most of the Journeys sold are probably equiped with 17s and the CVP's (AVP's) have 16s. Let me know what you end up getting. I was thinking of the Pearl Red or Black originally but once I saw the dark grey I really liked it. White and silver were not on my list and while that copper colour looked interesting in the book but it was way to orange once I saw it on the vehicle. Storm Grey has been pretty good for looking clean as well, hides a bit of the dirt before looking like it needs a wash. I wasn't planning on getting the third row but it was hard to find one with out it and for the times when the kids want to bring a few friends along we figured it would be worth it. It has worked out pretty good the few times that I've used them so far. No complaints about the space (not that I would want to put adults back there). They did a good job on the easy access to them, probably all of that minivan experience showing through. Leg room hasn't been a problem at all, it is way better than the Uplander that we used to have.

Sounds like we have similar vehicles and for about the same amount of time. I have an: 2012 R/T Rallye (decromed R/T basically) Colour: Storm Grey Options: Trailer tow prep,Navigation,Sunroof, 3rd row, DVD entertainment system (free upgrade from the dealer), black roof rails (have to add these back on, Rallye package deletes them) Current Odometer reading: ~4200km's over two months My impression so far is has been very good. I like the styling, I've had the front windows tinted to match the back and I just installed an AVS bug deflector; I found some of the new CUV's getting a little too "swoopie" if you know what I mean. I like the more boxy look of the Journey better. We recently completed a road trip from Ottawa to Wonderland in Toronto and got the gas milage to under 10l/100km which was pretty good considering I was holding about 130km/h (if you are doing less than 120 in Toronto on the 401 you are a hazzard). The driving experience at that speed was great, didn't feel loose and wasn't noisy at all in the cabin. The kids like the DVD system, makes for a quieter and less stressful travelling experience for everyone. Interestingly enough, they are using the entertainment system more to listen to music that watching movies. I like the fact that each set of head phones can be set to listen to a different output from the radio. Usually the younger one is listing to Radio Disney (Sat radio) and the other listens to the local POP FM station. This leave us with the songs on the SD card over the speakers. It would be cool if you could listen to different stations at the same time but I understand that each device only has one tuner. Considering I got this upgrade for "free" it has been a bonus for sure. I've had no problems with radio, great sound, lots of bass, easy to switch songs and sources. No Gremlins for me. Last weekend I finally got a chance to take the Journey off-roading, this being one of the reasons I switched from a car to an CUV. And when I say off roading, I wasn't rock crawling over the mountains but the old hydro road/trail I went down and the unmaintained road allowances were no problem at all. There was no way I would have taken a car down them but the Journey easily followed the Outback that I was out with as our local Geocaching club made it way around some back roads in the area. Certainly saved us some long walks. The club members were impressed with the vehicle and I had loaded some geocache locations in to the nav system as POI's so it made navigating around the unfamiliar roads easy. The backup camera certainly made it easy to back up for long distances as there were times there was no room to turn around. I've become quite good at driving backwards just using the camera. I will agree that the air conditioning works great, the back seat passengers appreciate the ceiling vents and I find the system starts to cool immediately. My Impala A/C was known for being underpowered and took a while to even start to get cool and had a hard time keeping up during the hottest days. The Journey's A/C along with the climate control is far above what I was used to. I like the LED lights both inside and out, having lights under the door when you open it and the exterior corner lights is a nice touch. What I was disappointed with (note to DodgeCACares) is that the interior tail gate light appears to be regular bulbs (I stand to be corrected). The light they give off is certainly a different hue than the other LED lights and I find it quite annoying (I don't know why). I am certainly going to look in to replacing them with LED bulbs. My only disappointment so far the 'lazy' transmission. While I appreciate that is trying to keep the gas milage down it is certainly reluctant to downshift under anything but heavy coaxing. Even just driving down the 401 I had to pedal down a few times when going up some moderate hills just to keep the speed up. I could easily bleed off 10-20km/h going up a hill even with adding moderate gas peddle, I'd have to push down 'excessively' to get it to drop down a gear or two in order to keep my speed up. Even with the cruse control it would bleed off a fair bit of speed before forcing a downshift. Hopefully the transmission software upgrade that has been mentioned for the 2012's will address this. I'm still getting used to the autostick. I've had a few WOT fails recently where I've been in too high of a gear when slowing down for red light about to turn green. I've tried dropped it in to manual mode so I could punch the gas and then realized that I was in way too high of a gear to have anything but an embarrasing show happen. I will say that either the transmission is getting used to my style of driving or I am getting used to transmission, probably a little of both, as it seems a little more responsive than when I first got it. I can't say I've noticed the drone at 60-70 but I'll listen for it. Generally I've been very happy with my purchase so far (even though my experience with the dealship was far from ideal, I think my negative customer survey resulted in my issues being the subject of their weekly sales team meeting). I'm looking forward to seeing how it handles in the winter, I'll have to invest in some snow tires this fall.

Just curious, no one seems to have asked the obvious question, why didn't you just get vehicles with those options already included?

Thanks for the quick reply. I usually hit the time limit before the milage limit anyways. It would be nice to know though especially if you were going on a road trip and had to make a stop along the way just to change the oil.

I'm waiting for the opposite to happen. I'm getting used to putting the keys in a different pocket than normal so I figure one day I'll leave them in there and wash them. I think there is a different thread about this happening, where some people were wondering how you could wash your keys but if you get used to not having to take them out then I can easily see leaving them in the house or in your pants. I guess women might have the advantage here since most have purses and usually have there keys in there. I've managed to wash my wallet a couple of times but I don't think my wife has ever accidently washed her purse.

Is there some where that shows how much oil life is left? On my Chev I could see the % left and it warned at 5% I believe.

I find it interesting the differences between the Canadian and American packages. Your Journey looks exactly like mine which is a Canadian 2012 R/T Rallye. I paid an extra $500 to have the Rallye package which removes the chrome and roof rack from the standard R/T and adds the VR function and a carbon rim colour plus it cost an extra $200 to have the black roof rack added back on (the Rallye package removes it). Where as the american R/T looks like it comes decromed and you have to pay to add it on. I guess we should have gotten togeather and I could have traded you all my chrome pieces for your body colour pieces and we both could have saved a few $$$. Or in summary, I, the Canadian, should have bought and American R/T and you, the American, should have bought a Canadian R/T!

I feel qualified to give my opinion on this. I traded a 2006 Impala SS for a 2012 Journey R/T Rallye. You can't really compare the performance, the journey is not a performance SUV. My Impala was fast off the line and cornered pretty good, the journey off the line isn't overly impressive but has pretty good pull at speed to pass. I guess the low end torque isn't that good but improves when the RPM's are around 3-4K, the transmission is also a little lazy but that is a common complaint. The steering ratio isn't as good either, I find I have to turn the wheel more to get the same turning circle (I go through a tight traffic circle every morning and it requires more steering in the journey). I'm not finding I'm saving much in gas either but I've only gone through a few tanks of gas so far and I'm pushing the journey a little more. That said, I'm really enjoying the journey. It has way more technology that my Impala, much better air conditioning and fits the family better. I like the looks and the 19" rims are great. It still has pretty good performance all things considered. I find the ride nicer, don't need to worry about bumps as much. The extra space inside is great, really roomy. A car was not meeting the needs of my hobbies, I needed something with some ground clearance and more room so the journey was a good choice. If you are looking for a SUV with performance power, you are probably not going to find it domestically. Given an unlimited budget I would have looked at a BMW X3 or X5 but for the price point I am happy so far.

I've noticed the same thing except that if I scroll down to the bottom of the page the picture is there but heavily grey'd out and hard to see.