My husband bought me a brand new 2012 Journey Crew in April of 2012. I shopped for the thing for a while, I had a Chrysler Pacifica that I traded in, I loved the third row of seats for extra kids, wished they still made the Pacifica but the Journey was the comparable car. We bought the forever bumper to bumper warranty, thank God! I've had it for 22 months and it's been in the shop for 69 days so far. Let me begin at the beginning:
1. I wanted a tow package, they said that was an option that was offered, no problem. they forgot to mention that the hitch is ugly and hangs down in the back with the plug in bolted off to the left side looking ugly. And the that cost me 1400 to have put in after a six month wait because it was on backorder.
2. I noticed the cabin heating/cooling system was not adequate for the interior. Driving at night when it's cold, I have to have the defrost blasting the front window to keep the fog off, and that means I get no air on me or the rest of the people in the vehicle either. And it has to be on the hottest setting to blow hot air, if I drop the temp when I start sweating, it goes cold. All or nothing I guess. Dealership says that the tri zone heating should be fine, but when I go to the dealership it's daytime and not nighttime cold. I guess I need to go somewhere cold to have this verified.
3. I had an android when I bought the car, the phone interface worked great. Got an Iphone 5 and all of a sudden my handsfree won't work unless I initiate the call from my phone. Not so handsfree. Dealership doesn't have any answer for that.
4. Clock gains a minute a week. Luckily it gains and not loses, I just have to remember to reset my clock once a month.
NOW ON TO THE SERIOUS STUFF
5. the shifter shroud began to get stuck on shifting, I like to use the manual shifter, it wouldn't let me shift. I've had the little pieces replaced three times, the whole console replaced once, and now they tell me I shift too fast. I do not. I once couldn't get it to shift out of park no matter how slowly and gently I pulled or how violently I tried to shift it either. Had to shut off the car ad start again.
6. at Thanksgiving, I heard loud grinding in the brakes, took it to another shop because dealership didn't have time last minute on Wednesday to look at it, they said the master cylinder was out. I got a rental to go out of town for the last holiday before my cousin went into the ARMY, they gave me a base model Journey. Guess what that thing had way better shifting (it actually downshifted going up a hill!) and the heater worked! Back to the brakes though, turns out it was the booster not the master that was out. Whatever, took a week to get fixed.
7. Top end of the motor blew up, I noticed it was "missing" and the check engine light came on so I took it in, they had to rebuild the whole top end, service guy said it's been happening a lot with that motor at about 18000 miles and that Dodge should just do a recall.
8. Kumho tires suck! They were bald at 12,000 miles, cost $1200 to rep
