YellowDuck

On another thread we were talking about OBD code readers to check codes and cancel engine lights. I bought this one from ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Memoscan-U480-OBDII-Engine-Light-Trouble-Code-Car-Reader-Scanner-/190931723301?pt=Motors_Automotive_Tools&hash=item2c746ae425&vxp=mtr Finally had a chance to use it yesterday. On both our Wrangler and DJ it worked just perfectly. Plugged it into the outlet under the dash and followed the instructions. Looked up the codes in the manual that came with the reader. I was also able to cancel an engine light on the Wrangler (code was for an evap emissions malfunction). Seems like a pretty good deal - this way I can check the codes myself and decide whether or not a trip to the dealer is warranted.

No, I mean the "do it yourself" touchless car wash places where you put money in the machine and spray the car with the high pressure wand thingy. Now, the motorcycle just gets a wet rag and a bucket, no hose ever. Only a barbarian would take a hose to a motorcycle...

Yep. That's one of the reasons I chose white this time around. Don't even need to buff it after pressure washing because you can't see any water marks.

Update at 2.5 months and 6000 km. Car is still perfect - not a single problem and I still love driving it (on the odd day when my wife lets me). Satellite radio rocks. Heated seats and wheel are awesome as it is still -15 C here some mornings (?!?!?). Efficiency is getting a bit better - we are seeing 12.7 L / 100 km over a tankful when there are significant highway miles in the mix, but I am hoping that that will improve further as the weather warms up. Did a bit of light towing with it and that was fine, but thank heavens for the backup camera because I couldn't see the trailer at all out the rear window. But with the camera I could back the trailer into the driveway very nicely thank you very much. The 3.6 is such a nice motor, and I am now used to the slightly busy shifting behavior of the 6-speed. Keyless entry / start has made getting into our other cars seem like an inconvenience. How quickly we get spoiled! We did learn however that the locks don't work if the transponder is in the same pocket with a cell phone. Anyway, just posting to say how pleased we still are with our new car. Will update every 6 months or so, or if any problems arise. Still keen to see how it handles the rough road into the cottage this spring. Cheers!

Hopefully it wasn't one of those particular eight deer we all know by name!

Wow - I am so delighted to hear that this has been finally resolved. It was kind of stressing me out. I have never yet opened the sunroof on ours (winter)...and now I am kind of afraid to try!

wow, that "Retail Worksheet" is hilarious. There is no way the get the "total price" from the numbers above it. It is clearly designed to be as confusing as possible, so the customer will be made to feel stupid and then default to the assumption that the salesperson knows what they are doing. Shame! Plus...$399 "doc fee", plus $361 licence fee? Seriously? And the "desert protection package" is not a fillable field, it is mandatory? Guess what - that is a $1300 dealer fee that is not identified as such. What a bunch of BS. I would *never* do business with a dealer that tries to obfuscate to that extent. Reminds my of a Chrysler / Dodge / Jeep Dealer in Athens GA I tied to do a deal with in 1998. They gave me a price on a Wrangler, and a calculated payment. I asked them what the interest rate was, and they told me. So, I sat there and quickly did the math, and found that the payment was much higher than what it should be given the financed amount, term and rate. I asked the salseperson to explain, and he couldn't. So I sat with the business manager, and he said "Oh, you are calculating it as an APR - that's not how it works". Okay, I said, how does it work? How do you calculate the payment? After about half an hour of asking this question repeatedly, it became clear that the business manager either didn't know, or (more likely) was simply hiding a lie. I told them, "if you can't even show me how you calculated how much money I owe you, I'm not giving you any money at all". I walked. Went to Carmax in Atlanta. Got a fair (and transparent!) deal in no time.

OP is in New Mexico, so not likely.

I just got one off of ebay but I have't used it yet so can't comment on its quality. I think I paid 19.99.

In my opinion you have already given them every reasonable opportunity (and then some) to solve the issue. I don't understand your husband's logic - this has gone way beyond what is reasonable, with multiple trips to the dealer, multiple failed repair attempts, even you driving hundreds of miles to another dealer to try to get the problem resolved. This is a *new car* for which you paid tens of thousands of dollars. For Pete's sake just use the power available to you to force them to correct the problem by buying the car back or providing a fair replacement.

I am also okay on the OEM tires in snow, with AWD. With only FWD I think they would kind of suck. Anyway, next winter we will get snow tires. The AWD is great for getting going, but it doesn't help you stop! All cars have AW braking....

Okay, so I am very new to the Journey and never even thought to look to find out where the battery is. What do you do if you need to jump start the car? Edit: Oops - nevermind - p 530 in the manual....

Thanks Journeyman and bigstr - great info! I figured the steering was electric just based on the feel....

Update at 1200 km. Only been a few weeks but the car has been driven plenty. My wife and I kind of fight a bit about who gets to take it each morning, but that will be resolved soon as her new job will include a pretty fancy company car. One of our main priorities for this car was that it should be comfortable on long trips (at least compared to our Wrangler Unlimited - not a high bar to clear). It certainly is all of that. Just such a nice place to be with the heated leather seats, separate rear entertainment system (with wireless headphones), light coming in the sunroof, sat radio - what a pleasure. It continues to work great in this very wintery winter. Probably 85% of our driving so far has been on roads that are either completely or partially snow-covered. Even with the OEM all-season radials it is just fine. I imagine with proper snow tires it would be a real mountain goat. The electric steering provides practically no feedback, which increases comfort but prevents one from treating it like a performance car. This is a non-issue for me but I could see how an aggressive / sporty driver would be disappointed. Not sure why such a driver would buy a 3-row crossover though.... Personally, I find with all of the electronic driving controls (AWD, traction control, stability control, ABS), in the snow I just point the car where I want it to go, give it moderate throttle and let the computers figure out how to make it happen. A different way to drive for me, but very effective. No problems to report at all. I am finally accustomed to the whole keyless ignition thing. That took a while but I do love it. Fuel economy has been kinda crap. First tankful was terrible but the dealer warned me to expect that. Second tank was better but still nowhere near what I would hope for based on the ratings. I attribute this to some extent to the fact that we are driving on snowy roads most of the time. On one dry highway run the fuel consumption was pretty good (9.2 L / 100 km), so I am hoping that that is indicative of what to expect.

We bought ours after driving my brother-in-law's Fiat Freemont (same car, different engine) in Italy. Safe bet my Dad will never buy one. He *hates* the Journey. "Why they hell would someone buy that when they could just get a real minivan and have way more space?" I guess Dad just doesn't get the "right-sized" CUV concept. I still haven't got up the courage to tell him we bought one! He drives an Odyssey...

Debra, time to invoke your state's Lemon Law. They have to buy your car back at full purchase price, or else replace it. http://www.bbb.org/us/Storage/16/Documents/BBBAutoLine/TN-LLsummary.pdf The only defense might be that they claim the defect is so minor that it does not "substantially impair" the utility of the vehicle, or reduce it's market value. Personally I don't see how that would hold up - who would pay full price for a car that is not water tight in the rain? But just in case, you might like to document the water entering the car in the rain on the interstate - maybe have someone ride with you and video tape it. Keep your cool and just use the consumer protection laws in your state to force them to make it right. You don't need any more anguish over this - just exercise your rights under the law and get the problem fixed. Forget about working with the dealers anymore - three strikes and they are out, that is the law. You don't owe them anything but Chrysler owes you big time.

We are all curious to learn how this turns out...

The way I understand it, it normally functions as FWD, but power can be transmitted to the rear wheels as needed according to the sensors. Lots of electronics and software controlling the whole deal. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/borgwarner-all-wheel-drive-system-featured-in-2009-dodge-journey-57406827.html

Good advice. Been meaning to get one for years. Will do!

Update - We are having an especially wintery winter here in southern Ontario and I have to say that the AWD system on the RT is a real pleasure. The street where we live gets plowed only occasionally and so it is almost always covered in snow underlain with compacted snow / ice. Every now and again just for fun I accelerate hard from a stop (when there are no other cars around) just to see what the Journey will do with the situation. Amazing. Better than our Wrangler in 4WD even (not sure how that is possible). The Journey just digs in and goes. Having that capability automatically available is so nice - eliminates the need for constant decision making on the part of the driver to turn AWD on or off as conditions change, and also eliminates the chance of doing an oopsie and leaving 4WD engaged after you get on the (dry) highway. It's the right kind of AWD system for our needs, whereas the Wrangler is really overkill for us. I had an engine light come on very briefly leaving the parking lot at the ski hill yesterday. It went out on its own after less than a minute, so according to the owner's manual it seems like this is not something I should worry about. Even so, I will likely have them check the code when I get the first oil change done.

Thanks Rolly. ...... Geez, remote start....how cool is that? Understand, I have not bought a truly "new" car since 2001, so this stuff kind of impresses me.

Took delivery of our 2014 RT today. Pretty much loaded - third row seating, sound and nav package, DVD, sunroof, tow kit, all that stuff. Drives very nice and I am surprised at how quickly I am catching on to the dozens of functions on the touch screen. I even got the voice control stuff down right away. At first it is a bit overwhelming but it all works logically and you learn fast. My wife had her phone paired via Bluetooth within seconds of entering the car. Nice. I'll bet we get addicted to the satellite radio and end up subscribing after the free first year expires. Heated steering wheel - the best feature I never knew I wanted. I took it for a bit of a drive (or course) and even spent some time on snow and gravel. Worked very nicely - no idea if the AWD ever kicked in or not. Power adjustable seats are sweet. I love how they designed the power lumbar support mechanism. My only (sort of) disappointment is with the paint. It looks to be good quality, but I noticed that the plastic bumper covers are not a perfect match to the rest of the body - they are half a shade darker. It wasn't noticeable on the lot when the car was still filthy from being transported, but of course they cleaned it up perfectly for delivery and now the difference is pretty apparent. This is the fancy $300 optional "pearl white" colour. It's pretty but if this colour matching is typical I wouldn't recommend it to others. I'll report back now and again as we get some miles on the thing. The real test for me will be this spring when we hit the always wash-board-y road into the cottage. Our Jeep Wrangler didn't deal so well with that - with the solid axles at both ends it would get dancing around pretty good. I expect the Journey to be better with its more car-like suspension. Cheers! YD

Oh, another story from Wellington motors... Back when we had a Jeep TJ that we had bought while living in the US, I had to bring it in to Wellington for an issue with water accumulating on the floor on the passenger side. The first available reception desk in the service bay was occupied by an attractive young female employee. Okay, I am *very* ashamed to admit this, but my initial reaction was "oh blast, I was hoping to speak to a knowledgeable person about this so I can get some idea what they think the problem is, not just fill out the work order and walk away, then wait for them to call me about it later." My bad. I mentioned the problem and she immediately pronounces that it is known issue with that model year of Wrangler - a drain pipe for the AC system is too short and angled up at too steep an angle, so condensed water runs back along the tube and drips down onto the floor. There is a repair kit for it but we need to order it so would you like to leave the car here or just bring it back in tomorrow and we can fix it for you in a few minutes? Awesome. Another blow to sexism....

I'll give a thumbs up to Wellington Motors in Guelph ON. We had an issue with our 2008 Wrangler Unlimited burning oil, just a few months before the warranty expired. As per Chrysler instructions, they had to monitor oil consumption for several months (meaning, I had to keep bringing the car in at regular intervals so they could measure oil use and top it up again). This made me nervous as anything - I figured in the end they would find some way to deny the repair, either because the consumption was within their definition of "normal", or because the car had gone off warranty. They were good about it though - I would make an appointment, and then be in and out of there in about 20 min each time. In the end it all worked out. Apparently it is a known issue and there was a series of the 3.8 motors that got the oil rings in upside down. Once they had the oil consumption data to give to Chrysler they replaced the rings quite quickly, and even gave me a rental over the weekend. The Jeep is now perfect again. I have had similar good experiences with the parts desk at that dealership - just really good, efficient people. Most recently we just purchased a 2014 Journey from them. The salesperson Dominic Pike was stellar - really knew his stuff and was not pushy or cheezy like some salesmen. I hate it when walk I into a showroom and find I know more technical details about the car than the salesperson, and they provide no service other than telling you what they think you want to hear and dreaming up ways to pressure you into a purchase. We came in knowing what the invoice was on the car (carcost.ca), what factory incentives were available, and what a fair price would be. We got a price that we deemed appropriate (i.e. not MSRP but not zero dealer profit either!). No pressure no BS - perfect transaction. Now, we'll just have to see how we like the Journey - I pick it up Thursday.

Hmmm...we just bought a 2014 RT - take delivery Thursday. I wasn't much interested in the sunroof but there was one on the lot with a sunroof that was otherwise configured as we would have spec'd so we bought it. Now I am starting to question my decision. Debra I am really sorry to hear this story and sincerely hope that Chrysler finds a way to make it right. Even if they do it is still unacceptable that you would have to endure this much inconvenience before arriving at a solution. Strongly recommend that you serve them with a lawyers letter if nothing else works. Nothing like threat of legal action to get a dealership's notice.