cruisinbill

Well, after an unexpectedly short time with our 2013 Journey R/T AWD, we had to say goodbye to it a couple of months ago. It had served us well, taken my spouse and I to and from work, hauled our two granddaughters to numerous functions and sports activities, and taken us on trips over three Canadian provinces. This year, it hauled hundreds of items to our new condo [and a lot of recyclables, and junk to our local depot before we moved].
 
Sadly, we had been experiencing shuddering and grinding noises since 2020. Despite a front-end repair under our extended warranty and another front-end inspection and work this past May, the problems continued. A diagnosis in June was that the electronic clutch control system had to be completely replaced, about $5,000 including labour [this is an assembly, not parts]. On a 9-year-old vehicle with about 60,000 km, my spouse and I debated what to do, and decided it had to go. After researching various makes and models, we traded it on a 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. We were not looking for a Jeep but the model approximated what we wanted in an SUV.
 
I miss the Journey’s interior room [7-seater]; our new Grand Cherokee is a five-seater. I miss the underfloor and under passenger seat storage. I miss the wide-opening rear doors and the standard roof rack. I don’t miss the Journey’s AWD system; it was the source of a number of in-warranty repairs over the years and it just shuddered when going through snow or backing up a grade [this should have been a red flag to what occurred as described above]. I don’t miss its electrical issues (three batteries in the last 5 years, necessitating removing the left front wheel and wheel well cover each time to get the batteries replaced – I never understood why FCA could not find a place in the engine compartment to place the battery). It was also short on convenience items, safety features, had an old Uconnect interface with a terrible Garmin-based NAV system (more inaccurate than not, even after updating the software), and FCA never manufactured it with a power liftgate; the latter was important as my spouse is short and found it very difficult to pull the Journey’s hatch down to close. We don’t have regrets buying it, just keeping it as long as we did.
 
I appreciate the time as a member of this forum and the numerous posts regarding owners’ experiences. This will obviously be my last post and I will eventually cancel my membership. Good luck to everyone and I hope that you continue to enjoy your “journey with your Journey.”

Well, after an unexpectedly short time with our 2013 Journey R/T AWD, we had to say goodbye to it a couple of months ago. It had served us well, taken my spouse and I to and from work, hauled our two granddaughters to numerous functions and sports activities, and taken us on trips over three Canadian provinces. This year, it hauled hundreds of items to our new condo [and a lot of recyclables, and junk to our local depot before we moved].
 
Sadly, we had been experiencing shuddering and grinding noises since 2020. Despite a front-end repair under our extended warranty and another front-end inspection and work this past May, the problems continued. A diagnosis in June was that the electronic clutch control system had to be completely replaced, about $5,000 including labour [this is an assembly, not parts]. On a 9-year-old vehicle with about 60,000 km, my spouse and I debated what to do, and decided it had to go. After researching various makes and models, we traded it on a 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. We were not looking for a Jeep but the model approximated what we wanted in an SUV.
 
I miss the Journey’s interior room [7-seater]; our new Grand Cherokee is a five-seater. I miss the underfloor and under passenger seat storage. I miss the wide-opening rear doors and the standard roof rack. I don’t miss the Journey’s AWD system; it was the source of a number of in-warranty repairs over the years and it just shuddered when going through snow or backing up a grade [this should have been a red flag to what occurred as described above]. I don’t miss its electrical issues (three batteries in the last 5 years, necessitating removing the left front wheel and wheel well cover each time to get the batteries replaced – I never understood why FCA could not find a place in the engine compartment to place the battery). It was also short on convenience items, safety features, had an old Uconnect interface with a terrible Garmin-based NAV system (more inaccurate than not, even after updating the software), and FCA never manufactured it with a power liftgate; the latter was important as my spouse is short and found it very difficult to pull the Journey’s hatch down to close. We don’t have regrets buying it, just keeping it as long as we did.
 
I appreciate the time as a member of this forum and the numerous posts regarding owners’ experiences. This will obviously be my last post and I will eventually cancel my membership. Good luck to everyone and I hope that you continue to enjoy your “journey with your Journey.”

Well, after an unexpectedly short time with our 2013 Journey R/T AWD, we had to say goodbye to it a couple of months ago. It had served us well, taken my spouse and I to and from work, hauled our two granddaughters to numerous functions and sports activities, and taken us on trips over three Canadian provinces. This year, it hauled hundreds of items to our new condo [and a lot of recyclables, and junk to our local depot before we moved].
 
Sadly, we had been experiencing shuddering and grinding noises since 2020. Despite a front-end repair under our extended warranty and another front-end inspection and work this past May, the problems continued. A diagnosis in June was that the electronic clutch control system had to be completely replaced, about $5,000 including labour [this is an assembly, not parts]. On a 9-year-old vehicle with about 60,000 km, my spouse and I debated what to do, and decided it had to go. After researching various makes and models, we traded it on a 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. We were not looking for a Jeep but the model approximated what we wanted in an SUV.
 
I miss the Journey’s interior room [7-seater]; our new Grand Cherokee is a five-seater. I miss the underfloor and under passenger seat storage. I miss the wide-opening rear doors and the standard roof rack. I don’t miss the Journey’s AWD system; it was the source of a number of in-warranty repairs over the years and it just shuddered when going through snow or backing up a grade [this should have been a red flag to what occurred as described above]. I don’t miss its electrical issues (three batteries in the last 5 years, necessitating removing the left front wheel and wheel well cover each time to get the batteries replaced – I never understood why FCA could not find a place in the engine compartment to place the battery). It was also short on convenience items, safety features, had an old Uconnect interface with a terrible Garmin-based NAV system (more inaccurate than not, even after updating the software), and FCA never manufactured it with a power liftgate; the latter was important as my spouse is short and found it very difficult to pull the Journey’s hatch down to close. We don’t have regrets buying it, just keeping it as long as we did.
 
I appreciate the time as a member of this forum and the numerous posts regarding owners’ experiences. This will obviously be my last post and I will eventually cancel my membership. Good luck to everyone and I hope that you continue to enjoy your “journey with your Journey.”

Well, after an unexpectedly short time with our 2013 Journey R/T AWD, we had to say goodbye to it a couple of months ago. It had served us well, taken my spouse and I to and from work, hauled our two granddaughters to numerous functions and sports activities, and taken us on trips over three Canadian provinces. This year, it hauled hundreds of items to our new condo [and a lot of recyclables, and junk to our local depot before we moved].
 
Sadly, we had been experiencing shuddering and grinding noises since 2020. Despite a front-end repair under our extended warranty and another front-end inspection and work this past May, the problems continued. A diagnosis in June was that the electronic clutch control system had to be completely replaced, about $5,000 including labour [this is an assembly, not parts]. On a 9-year-old vehicle with about 60,000 km, my spouse and I debated what to do, and decided it had to go. After researching various makes and models, we traded it on a 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. We were not looking for a Jeep but the model approximated what we wanted in an SUV.
 
I miss the Journey’s interior room [7-seater]; our new Grand Cherokee is a five-seater. I miss the underfloor and under passenger seat storage. I miss the wide-opening rear doors and the standard roof rack. I don’t miss the Journey’s AWD system; it was the source of a number of in-warranty repairs over the years and it just shuddered when going through snow or backing up a grade [this should have been a red flag to what occurred as described above]. I don’t miss its electrical issues (three batteries in the last 5 years, necessitating removing the left front wheel and wheel well cover each time to get the batteries replaced – I never understood why FCA could not find a place in the engine compartment to place the battery). It was also short on convenience items, safety features, had an old Uconnect interface with a terrible Garmin-based NAV system (more inaccurate than not, even after updating the software), and FCA never manufactured it with a power liftgate; the latter was important as my spouse is short and found it very difficult to pull the Journey’s hatch down to close. We don’t have regrets buying it, just keeping it as long as we did.
 
I appreciate the time as a member of this forum and the numerous posts regarding owners’ experiences. This will obviously be my last post and I will eventually cancel my membership. Good luck to everyone and I hope that you continue to enjoy your “journey with your Journey.”

Well, after an unexpectedly short time with our 2013 Journey R/T AWD, we had to say goodbye to it a couple of months ago. It had served us well, taken my spouse and I to and from work, hauled our two granddaughters to numerous functions and sports activities, and taken us on trips over three Canadian provinces. This year, it hauled hundreds of items to our new condo [and a lot of recyclables, and junk to our local depot before we moved].
 
Sadly, we had been experiencing shuddering and grinding noises since 2020. Despite a front-end repair under our extended warranty and another front-end inspection and work this past May, the problems continued. A diagnosis in June was that the electronic clutch control system had to be completely replaced, about $5,000 including labour [this is an assembly, not parts]. On a 9-year-old vehicle with about 60,000 km, my spouse and I debated what to do, and decided it had to go. After researching various makes and models, we traded it on a 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. We were not looking for a Jeep but the model approximated what we wanted in an SUV.
 
I miss the Journey’s interior room [7-seater]; our new Grand Cherokee is a five-seater. I miss the underfloor and under passenger seat storage. I miss the wide-opening rear doors and the standard roof rack. I don’t miss the Journey’s AWD system; it was the source of a number of in-warranty repairs over the years and it just shuddered when going through snow or backing up a grade [this should have been a red flag to what occurred as described above]. I don’t miss its electrical issues (three batteries in the last 5 years, necessitating removing the left front wheel and wheel well cover each time to get the batteries replaced – I never understood why FCA could not find a place in the engine compartment to place the battery). It was also short on convenience items, safety features, had an old Uconnect interface with a terrible Garmin-based NAV system (more inaccurate than not, even after updating the software), and FCA never manufactured it with a power liftgate; the latter was important as my spouse is short and found it very difficult to pull the Journey’s hatch down to close. We don’t have regrets buying it, just keeping it as long as we did.
 
I appreciate the time as a member of this forum and the numerous posts regarding owners’ experiences. This will obviously be my last post and I will eventually cancel my membership. Good luck to everyone and I hope that you continue to enjoy your “journey with your Journey.”

This is a 5-year report on our 2013 Dodge Journey R/T. My spouse and I thought we would share some stats as well as our experience so far with this vehicle. We use CarCare, a Windows-based vehicle management system, to track our operating costs.
 
Kilometres driven:                                         35,378 [21,983 miles]
Average fuel economy:                                15.65 l/km [18 mpg – Imperial gallon]
Furthest distance travelled [one trip]:      2,128 km
Best fuel economy:                                       9.4 l/km [c.30 mpg - not sure how this happened but we were surprised on that 2,128 km trip]
Total fuel cost:                                               $5,526.10
Total maintenance cost:                              $2,360.38 [e.g. oil, oil/air/cabin air filters, peace of mind inspections, wheel alignment, wipers, winter/summer tire changes, washes, and one non-insurance body repair ($866)]
 
Background
 
We purchased this vehicle while we were both employed, as a more comfortable and dependable means of getting to and from work, for the running around that invariably is done with grandchildren to various events, and for long trips to see relatives in our neighbouring province. It was a huge difference from the Dodge Caliber SRT-4 we drove previously. I was laid off seven months after the purchase, however, my spouse continued to work until 2016. Since 2017, we have been using the Journey in a home-based business.
 
Warranty Repairs
 
8.4N Uconnect NAV/radio/CD system. Either the disc player or the NAV system stopped working. The system was replaced twice. This involved resetting all the favourites on the radio (AM, FM, SiriusXM), re-pairing smart phones and in one case obtaining a new SiriusXM ID. On another occasion, the NAV system volume had to be adjusted as we could hardly hear it when the radio was playing.
 
Rear viscous coupler.
Passenger side temperature door actuator.
Left rear upper control arm.
Belt idler
 
Recalls
 
There were three recalls: power steering hose and fluid cooler, steering wheel wiring, and antilock brake system control module. FCA did not always notify us right away and we often learned about them through CARFAX, or the Government of Canada Recalls and Safety Alerts smart phone app. Eventually letters did come from FCA.
 
Misses
 
Wonky 6-speed transmission; it seems to have a mind of its own, up and down shifting.
Liftgate: it is heavy for my 5’2” spouse to operate and is challenging to open and close in very cold weather. We cannot understand how a vehicle of this size does not have a power option.  
A back-up camera (mounted near the licence plate) that constantly becomes covered with road film; we understand FCA moved the lens to the upper part of the liftgate after our model year.
A rear window wiper that does not clear in a 180-degree arc.
Fuel economy – we believe this model, even with AWD, should have produced better results. We know that speed, acceleration, temperature, vehicle condition, etc. are all factors and we do live in a cold climate for one-half of the year, affecting consumption. A transmission with a higher number of speeds would have been nice, however, we note that the Journey is still only offered with a 6-speed.
Garmin NAV system. This system has proven to be disappointing (aside from the warranty replacements), despite two map updates (through a company called HERE as Garmin does not provide the updates directly; it costs about $230 CAD for each update). The Garmin system often cannot find streets, guides us to the wrong address saying we have arrived or mislabels streets and highways. An example of the latter is one trip we took on Highway 17 (part of our national Trans-Canada Highway system) in northwestern Ontario only to see GARMIN show it as an “unimproved road.” There are parts of our city that just ‘disappear’ into nothing as there is no map data for it despite these areas having been built out several years ago. We have advised Garmin’s cartography department of these issues. As we mentioned above, we use our Journey for business and need to find clients’ addresses, so we do rely on the NAV system.
The voice command system seems to have a mind of its own. It’s hit and miss getting it to access what we want it to do. We turn off the blower motor, make sure the windows are rolled up and speak in a clear voice, using the commands we read in the cheat sheet document we downloaded from FCA. We have far better results with our smartphones [Google Maps, WAZE], but this does not help us with this vehicle’s systems. Not the end of the world, just frustrating.
 
Wish List
 
Other than the Park Assist and rear-view camera functions, the Journey has no safety monitoring systems that we are aware of [ e.g. lane departure warning, adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitoring, automatic braking, etc.]. We knew these did not exist for our model year; we are just surprised that they are not offered on current models (if we have misread the specs on Dodge’s website, please let us know).
 
FCA really needs to get with its competition and offer a power liftgate. If the Caravan, Durango and Pacifica have it standard or as an option, why not on this model, especially as it’s been around for eleven years?
 
This vehicle needs an increase in the transmission gears. Mated to the reliable 3.6 litre, we believe it would improve fuel economy and up and down shifting.
 
Overall Impressions
 
As we were preparing this report, Driving.ca posted an article on the top ten vehicles with the largest decline in sales. I was surprised to learn that the Dodge Journey is ranked #2 on the list with Canadian sales of only 5,013, a decline of 52% since 2008. According to Driving.ca:
 
Canadian demand for the Journey peaked seven years ago
It is based on the long-defunct Dodge Avenger sedan (news to me)
By 2017, demand was only half of what it was four years ago (when we bought ours)
The Dodge brand is down 26 per cent this year.
 
Our Journey has proven to be very dependable and probably the best automobile for comfort and reliability we have had in 45+ years of automobile ownership. That said, my spouse does have some difficulty [osteoarthritis] getting into the vehicle and wants to reconsider this type of vehicle when we replace it, likely in a couple of years.
 
We’ve driven Chrysler vehicles for the last 25 years. My spouse’s comments notwithstanding, the jury is still out on whether we would replace it with a newer model or look at another manufacturer. The information from Driving.ca leads us to believe this vehicle will be phased out by the time we are in the market again.

I have posted my impressions of my '13 Journey R/T on this forum previously, the last one a year ago.
For the period Oct/13-Sep/15, I have logged just under 14,000 kms for an average of 16.94 L/100 km (17 mpg [imperial gallon]). Most of the driving has been city at speeds from 30-100 km/h and a few trips of 200-450 km. The best fuel economy I achieved was 10 L/100 km at 100km/h average for a trip I took last month. The worst has been in our bitterly cold winter last year at over 20 L/100 km. Still not impressed.
I had no real issues with the Journey in the first year of ownership other than disappointing fuel economy. I tired to address this with the selling dealer but got nowhere. We are no longer customers of the selling dealer and have followed our sales rep to another dealership (not just for the fuel problem, but a whole host of customer relations issues).
In the last 12 months, I have had to replace the Uconnect system twice (under warranty); a major pain as the whole system has to be replaced and then completely reprogrammed, including waiting on hold with Sirius to get the new serial numbers registered. The first time it was a malfunctioning disc player and the second time the navigation system completely shut down. Fingers crossed, it has been working over the summer and fall.
I would add my concerns about the crappy Kuomo factory tires, the worst I have ever had on any vehicle. They just do not handle well in turns, well, they just do not handle well at all. I have just installed my Michelin Xice 3's for winter driving and what a difference. Smooth and quiet, even on our potholed and rolling streets.
We actually tried hauling 6 persons in this 7-seater (thankfully it was a relatively short trip). The only person who was comfortable in the rear was our 6-year-old granddaughter. We usually just leave these seats folded for the cargo room.
Overall, we are satisfied with the Journey and look forward to more road trips next year when my spouse retires.

I have posted my impressions of my '13 Journey R/T on this forum previously, the last one a year ago.
For the period Oct/13-Sep/15, I have logged just under 14,000 kms for an average of 16.94 L/100 km (17 mpg [imperial gallon]). Most of the driving has been city at speeds from 30-100 km/h and a few trips of 200-450 km. The best fuel economy I achieved was 10 L/100 km at 100km/h average for a trip I took last month. The worst has been in our bitterly cold winter last year at over 20 L/100 km. Still not impressed.
I had no real issues with the Journey in the first year of ownership other than disappointing fuel economy. I tired to address this with the selling dealer but got nowhere. We are no longer customers of the selling dealer and have followed our sales rep to another dealership (not just for the fuel problem, but a whole host of customer relations issues).
In the last 12 months, I have had to replace the Uconnect system twice (under warranty); a major pain as the whole system has to be replaced and then completely reprogrammed, including waiting on hold with Sirius to get the new serial numbers registered. The first time it was a malfunctioning disc player and the second time the navigation system completely shut down. Fingers crossed, it has been working over the summer and fall.
I would add my concerns about the crappy Kuomo factory tires, the worst I have ever had on any vehicle. They just do not handle well in turns, well, they just do not handle well at all. I have just installed my Michelin Xice 3's for winter driving and what a difference. Smooth and quiet, even on our potholed and rolling streets.
We actually tried hauling 6 persons in this 7-seater (thankfully it was a relatively short trip). The only person who was comfortable in the rear was our 6-year-old granddaughter. We usually just leave these seats folded for the cargo room.
Overall, we are satisfied with the Journey and look forward to more road trips next year when my spouse retires.

I have posted my impressions of my '13 Journey R/T on this forum previously, the last one a year ago.
For the period Oct/13-Sep/15, I have logged just under 14,000 kms for an average of 16.94 L/100 km (17 mpg [imperial gallon]). Most of the driving has been city at speeds from 30-100 km/h and a few trips of 200-450 km. The best fuel economy I achieved was 10 L/100 km at 100km/h average for a trip I took last month. The worst has been in our bitterly cold winter last year at over 20 L/100 km. Still not impressed.
I had no real issues with the Journey in the first year of ownership other than disappointing fuel economy. I tired to address this with the selling dealer but got nowhere. We are no longer customers of the selling dealer and have followed our sales rep to another dealership (not just for the fuel problem, but a whole host of customer relations issues).
In the last 12 months, I have had to replace the Uconnect system twice (under warranty); a major pain as the whole system has to be replaced and then completely reprogrammed, including waiting on hold with Sirius to get the new serial numbers registered. The first time it was a malfunctioning disc player and the second time the navigation system completely shut down. Fingers crossed, it has been working over the summer and fall.
I would add my concerns about the crappy Kuomo factory tires, the worst I have ever had on any vehicle. They just do not handle well in turns, well, they just do not handle well at all. I have just installed my Michelin Xice 3's for winter driving and what a difference. Smooth and quiet, even on our potholed and rolling streets.
We actually tried hauling 6 persons in this 7-seater (thankfully it was a relatively short trip). The only person who was comfortable in the rear was our 6-year-old granddaughter. We usually just leave these seats folded for the cargo room.
Overall, we are satisfied with the Journey and look forward to more road trips next year when my spouse retires.

I have posted my impressions of my '13 Journey R/T on this forum previously, the last one a year ago.
For the period Oct/13-Sep/15, I have logged just under 14,000 kms for an average of 16.94 L/100 km (17 mpg [imperial gallon]). Most of the driving has been city at speeds from 30-100 km/h and a few trips of 200-450 km. The best fuel economy I achieved was 10 L/100 km at 100km/h average for a trip I took last month. The worst has been in our bitterly cold winter last year at over 20 L/100 km. Still not impressed.
I had no real issues with the Journey in the first year of ownership other than disappointing fuel economy. I tired to address this with the selling dealer but got nowhere. We are no longer customers of the selling dealer and have followed our sales rep to another dealership (not just for the fuel problem, but a whole host of customer relations issues).
In the last 12 months, I have had to replace the Uconnect system twice (under warranty); a major pain as the whole system has to be replaced and then completely reprogrammed, including waiting on hold with Sirius to get the new serial numbers registered. The first time it was a malfunctioning disc player and the second time the navigation system completely shut down. Fingers crossed, it has been working over the summer and fall.
I would add my concerns about the crappy Kuomo factory tires, the worst I have ever had on any vehicle. They just do not handle well in turns, well, they just do not handle well at all. I have just installed my Michelin Xice 3's for winter driving and what a difference. Smooth and quiet, even on our potholed and rolling streets.
We actually tried hauling 6 persons in this 7-seater (thankfully it was a relatively short trip). The only person who was comfortable in the rear was our 6-year-old granddaughter. We usually just leave these seats folded for the cargo room.
Overall, we are satisfied with the Journey and look forward to more road trips next year when my spouse retires.

I have posted my impressions of my '13 Journey R/T on this forum previously, the last one a year ago.
For the period Oct/13-Sep/15, I have logged just under 14,000 kms for an average of 16.94 L/100 km (17 mpg [imperial gallon]). Most of the driving has been city at speeds from 30-100 km/h and a few trips of 200-450 km. The best fuel economy I achieved was 10 L/100 km at 100km/h average for a trip I took last month. The worst has been in our bitterly cold winter last year at over 20 L/100 km. Still not impressed.
I had no real issues with the Journey in the first year of ownership other than disappointing fuel economy. I tired to address this with the selling dealer but got nowhere. We are no longer customers of the selling dealer and have followed our sales rep to another dealership (not just for the fuel problem, but a whole host of customer relations issues).
In the last 12 months, I have had to replace the Uconnect system twice (under warranty); a major pain as the whole system has to be replaced and then completely reprogrammed, including waiting on hold with Sirius to get the new serial numbers registered. The first time it was a malfunctioning disc player and the second time the navigation system completely shut down. Fingers crossed, it has been working over the summer and fall.
I would add my concerns about the crappy Kuomo factory tires, the worst I have ever had on any vehicle. They just do not handle well in turns, well, they just do not handle well at all. I have just installed my Michelin Xice 3's for winter driving and what a difference. Smooth and quiet, even on our potholed and rolling streets.
We actually tried hauling 6 persons in this 7-seater (thankfully it was a relatively short trip). The only person who was comfortable in the rear was our 6-year-old granddaughter. We usually just leave these seats folded for the cargo room.
Overall, we are satisfied with the Journey and look forward to more road trips next year when my spouse retires.

Since the fall of 2014, I have had my nav/radio system replaced twice. The first time, the disc player stopped working, and I was told they could not repair it [much to the disappointment of our 6 year old granddaughter who watches movies on the rear video screen]. So I waited weeks to get a replacement unit. Then, last spring, the nav system stopped working. Same drill, into the dealership "sorry we can't fix it, we have to order another unit." so more waiting. Everything seems to work fine now and it got a good workout on a recent 450 km trip north of where I live. However, I have no idea if the two replacement units were new or refurbished. It never occurred to me to ask.

It's rare for us to carry more than four persons in our R/T (including driver) but we have had occasions to carry six: four adults, and our granddaughters, ages 17 and 6. The 6 year old has no problem scampering into her booster seat in the rear row and the 17 year old can get in without any problem (how I envy youth!). When we have had to shoehorn (and I mean that literally) adults into the rear, it's a major effort; the seating is cramped and headroom isn't great. I find it claustrophobic (I don't even like sitting in the rear seats in my dealership's Caravan shuttle van, even with captain's chairs in the centre row). We purchased this vehicle with other higher priority options and the third row seating came as standard equipment on the R/T. We always drive with the rear seats folded.

Welcome to the forum. Like you, we have owned a number of Chrysler vehicles and, like you, we outgrew our Caliber SRT when we started hauling grandchildren around. We've been quite pleased with our DJ R/T so far, and, as rolly, says, it is just fine for winter.

I've been a Journey owner for about two months with just over 1400 km driven, about 90% city/10% highway. My worst fuel economy has been about 20 litres /100 km and best just under 14. It's been damn cold here so warming up the vehicle a little longer than usual is probably driving the numbers up.
I love the room, soft-touch interior, engine power (nice sound and responsive), controls, heated seats/steering wheel, the backup assist warning system/rear view camera, the remote start, the AWD on our snow-covered streets, and generally the 8.4N system.
I have similar concerns to other forum members about the upshifting of the transmission. It's just all over the place and the colder the weather, the worse it gets. I am not impressed with the front and rear wipers; they just do not do the job when there is snow on the glass. I am also not impressed with the placement of the backup camera - it gets dirty too quickly - it should be mounted higher on the lift gate. This vehicle also has the passive entry system which is good, however, I put it in with concerns as there have been media reports recently that thieves are using some kind of cheap scanner which opens the vehicle in a few seconds. Although it is unlikely the vehicle can be started, it means making sure that there is nothing personally identifiable left in the Journey .
Some things I am wondering about:
- the manual makes reference to power-folding side mirrors but, even with many option packages on this vehicle, I could not see anywhere where they were offered. At the least the manual ones are heated which they were not on my '08 Caliber SRT4. Does anyone have them on their '13 Journey?
Some things I wish were offered:
- power rear lift gate - that would really help my spouse with her arthritic shoulders.
- power passenger seat - my spouse finds it difficult to adjust it manually when she is the passenger
- a rear tonneau cover, in spite of having the 7-passenger option. We don't use these seats so it would be nice to be able to cover items in the rear cargo area.
- a better cabin lighting system, especially for illuminating the black floor. .
All in all, we're very pleased with the vehicle and look forward to many years of service.

I've been a Journey owner for about two months with just over 1400 km driven, about 90% city/10% highway. My worst fuel economy has been about 20 litres /100 km and best just under 14. It's been damn cold here so warming up the vehicle a little longer than usual is probably driving the numbers up.
I love the room, soft-touch interior, engine power (nice sound and responsive), controls, heated seats/steering wheel, the backup assist warning system/rear view camera, the remote start, the AWD on our snow-covered streets, and generally the 8.4N system.
I have similar concerns to other forum members about the upshifting of the transmission. It's just all over the place and the colder the weather, the worse it gets. I am not impressed with the front and rear wipers; they just do not do the job when there is snow on the glass. I am also not impressed with the placement of the backup camera - it gets dirty too quickly - it should be mounted higher on the lift gate. This vehicle also has the passive entry system which is good, however, I put it in with concerns as there have been media reports recently that thieves are using some kind of cheap scanner which opens the vehicle in a few seconds. Although it is unlikely the vehicle can be started, it means making sure that there is nothing personally identifiable left in the Journey .
Some things I am wondering about:
- the manual makes reference to power-folding side mirrors but, even with many option packages on this vehicle, I could not see anywhere where they were offered. At the least the manual ones are heated which they were not on my '08 Caliber SRT4. Does anyone have them on their '13 Journey?
Some things I wish were offered:
- power rear lift gate - that would really help my spouse with her arthritic shoulders.
- power passenger seat - my spouse finds it difficult to adjust it manually when she is the passenger
- a rear tonneau cover, in spite of having the 7-passenger option. We don't use these seats so it would be nice to be able to cover items in the rear cargo area.
- a better cabin lighting system, especially for illuminating the black floor. .
All in all, we're very pleased with the vehicle and look forward to many years of service.