Neto

In the years since I got my first car (1976, at age 20, almost 21) I have never once taken a car in to get the oil changed. I like to evaluate the oil myself, its color, viscosity, any grit or shavings, etc., and to let it have enough time to drain out as completely as possible. I won't argue one brand over another, but always use the same brand consistently. (I also use the largest filter I can find that will fit the engine. Again, I won't argue about it, but it's what I do.)

In general I would be pretty leery of a modern uni-body car that had been wrecked, because there can be all kinds of hidden tears & stress in the metal that might compromise its normal & proper performance in another accident. (Older uni-bodies were more like integrated chassis - the body itself was not so much of the actual structure of the body as a whole. Now even the windshield is considered structural.) But all that said, this one appears to have been damaged only behind the rear axle, so it might not have any of these problems. So if the doors operate correctly on the right side, maybe there is no damage to the main body structure. But as already said, I would also think that it should be regarded as a long-term purchase, possibly to be driven until it is totally spent (because of limited resale value due to the salvage title).

We have a 2009 with the 2.4 4 banger in it (since December 2010), and while yes it is under-powered in comparison to the V6s, it has been a good engine. It is a base model with no third row seating, which helps weight-wise. We do only have 70 some thousand miles on it, and it is regularly maintained. (Our previous MoPar family cars were a 93 T & C w/ the 3.3, a 2000 T & C with the 3.8, and my current work vehicle is the 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan w/ the 4.0. So yes, I know the difference.)

I guess I will if I have to, but didn't want to use two different sizes of tires. Do the 17 inch ones have a shorter sidewall, to prevent throwing the odometer & speed off?

I'm still searching for a second set of 16" steel wheels for our 2009 Journey, and found the following information on a site called GetAllParts DOT com. Is this a correct list? I would have thought that 16" wheels would be all over the place, considering how many people think that the smaller brakes used on the early Journeys were insufficient. (We have had this vehicle since December 2010, and have never found the braking to be subpar.) I can find new ones for sale, but no used ones at reasonable prices. Vehicle Fitment This part fits the following vehicles: 2008 Chrysler Town and Country 2009 Chrysler Town and Country 2010 Chrysler Town and Country 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan 2012 Dodge Grand Caravan 2009 Dodge Journey 2010 Dodge Journey

I ran all weather treads on all of my cars from about 78 on (before that, I had just regular summer treads, and that was in Minnesota) until my wife found out about Blizzacks, when our oldest child started driving (around 2003). I still have them on my work car, but last winter will probably be the last time she lets me get by with it.

Either they have an extra car, or she got her spokes figured out. Here & gone.

On my 46 Plymouth the access is from the top. People used to complain about the mess it made when you pulled the filter element out of the canister. One of my Uncles had one that used a roll of TP as the filter. But back then an oil filter was an option, and if they did have one, it was a bypass filter, like on my Plymouth. (It would be inteesting to know how much of the oil goes through the bypass valve on the modern engines, and if & how much that changes as the miles since last filter change mounts.)

Our 2009 still has the more common filter type. When did they change to the canister? (I know that way back pretty well all oil filters were the canister type, but that's been a good long while, something only the older folks will remember.)

We used to disconnect the battery after a jump start to check for battery vs alternator at fault, but I've been told that you shouldn't do this with the newer electronic systems. What's the real scoop on this? Will it damage the electrical system to disconnect the battery while the car is running? (I assume that even if the battery is dead, running the car with a dead battery would still allow the battery to absorb the charge, even though it is not holding it. That is, disconnecting the battery may produce different results than just running a car with a dead one.)

Sorry, I was thinking of the single part type, the kind that are used on the bumper skin. Now that you mention the two-part deal, I remember that mine had philips heads on the center part, but they didn't hold anymore (kinda' stripped out), so I went to the hardware & got stainless screws just a bit larger. But I may still be thinking of some of the parts on a different vehicle, because I recently installed a factory hitch on my 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan, and you have to remove the rear skin to do the job. The Journey I worked on longer ago, when I replaced the battery. But not sure now which one I'm remembering.

They usually destroy themselves in the removal process, at least in my experience. Our hardware store (Do It Best brand) has them in stock.

I hadn't thought to check the time interval between when I reset the notification, and when it comes on again. I had assumed that it was the many starts & short runs that was making it come on at such a low point mileage wise. Maybe it is just timing out at 6 months.

Ours seldom even gets up to 3,000, but it's my wife's car, we live right in this small town, and she does a lot of short trips. We only put 6-7k or so on in an entire year. (It's a 2009, built in early 2008, and it's still under 68,000 miles.)

We live in East central Ohio, but south of the Snow Belt. So we don't see the heavy snows here that people just 50 miles or so north of us do, but we have a lot of hills, and my business responsibilties take me over a lot of narrow back roads that are really just dirt roads with a bit of gravel on top, and some are rather steep. (The county roads are pretty well maintained, but the township roads are often not, and they are probably the last to be graded after a snow. It does vary a great deal from one township to the next - some have a lot more funds to work with than others.) I am looing for a more general response - I'm not actually talking about our Journey, but another bigger vehicle. (My wife insists on snow tires for the Journey.) What I'm trying to get a feel for is whether people think that tire chains would be a workable substitute for the much more expensive option of getting full snow tires. (Currently running mud & snow treads on my work vehicle. That is all I ever used in the past, but the first snow of the winter was a really wet snow on top of ice, and this vehicle, which is new to me, seemed at first to be rather helpless on snow.) I'll just drop this here, because I don't want to aggravate anyone by talking about other vehicles. I suppose now that I should have posted this thread in the Off Topic section.

I should have said that I was looking for personal impressions, not "information". I've seen them used years ago, but thought of them as more or less a thing of the past. It started as a curiosity first, so I did research on the technicalities before I posted here. Maybe this is not even the right forum to ask a question of this type. I already know that you are not supposed to drive over 30 MPH with them on, possibly it's even illegal in some states. There are probably also legal limitations for their use seasonally in some states or areas, as there are for studded tires. Thee are also a lot more different types out there now than there were back in the 60's, when I saw them in use.

Has anyone here used tire chains/cables for traction aids? (I have never had any, but am considering it, just looking for information at this point.)

My Grandpa on my dad's side was a Ford guy, and although he had his first car in his 20's already, he only ever had four cars his whole life. (He died at 68, in January 1973.) His list: Ford Model T (a 25, I think) 37 Ford 49 Ford 61 Ford Oh, he did also have a 52 Dodge 3/4 ton PU on the farm. And one Ford tractor. (He farmed with horses until the late 40's or so.) My other grandfather's list was long & varied, but included a 39 Ford coupe that he had put a 49 Mercury V8 in, and had painted Fire-Engine Red. That's the car he had when my Dad met my mom's family for the first time. It would do 75 in 2nd gear. He would have been in his late 50's or early 60's by then. That car (body only) was still there on the farm when I was kid, but it was being used as a chicken coop.

1962 Chrysler Newport 361 ci 1972 Dodge Coronet 318 * 1946 Plymouth Special Deluxe (never drove it yet - still partially restored) * 1949 Plymouth Special Deluxe (first series 49 - P15 model, parts car) 1980 Datsun (wife's car when we got married) 1984 VW Voyage (Brazilian alcohol model, like American VW Fox) 1993 Chrysler Town & Country (family car, later used by my son) 1998 Dodge Neon (car for my daughter) 1998 Chevy S-10 (work vehicle) 2000 Chrysler Town & Country (later as work car) * 2009 Dodge Journey (current family car) * 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan (current work vehicle) * vehicles I/we still have

Leather is a natural product, so there are going to be differences in the rate of wear in different pieces of leather in the seats, and even in different areas of the same piece of leather. It varies in pliability & strength as well, depending where on the animal hide it came from. Errors or differences in the tanning process can also sometimes create different results. (I do like leather seats, because it is not as hot as vinyl in the summer, and not as cold in the winter. Or maybe I should say that the temperature adjusts more quickly. Sure, there will be some wear, but I also think that it is easier to care for than cloth - doesn't stain, etc. Both of our previous minivans had leather, but now we have a Journey & a Grand Caravan, both with cloth seats.)

Are the valve stems the old style, or are they the type that monitor the air pressure?

The 2009 Journey is my first ever car with rear disk brakes. I tried to press the cylinder back in with a large C-clamp, but I saw that it was not going back in, so fortunately I stopped before I ruined anything. I was able to rent an air tool from a local shop for a reasonable fee, but I will buy my own before I tackle it again. But that time I had it all apart already, and couldn't wait for a tool to arrive. But anyway, I figured all of the regular grease monkeys on here already knew it, but this guy is someone who, from what I understood from the original post, is someone who is wanting to learn, and I figured it didn't hurt to mention it, because no one else had.

One heads up on the rear brakes (one I didn't know about until I did mine last year, the first time I ever did rear disk brake repair): You will need to rent, buy, borrow, or steal a special tool to rotate the piston as you force it back into the bore so that you can slip the reloaded calipers over the rotors with the new pads installed. Of course this would not apply if you are replacing the calipers as well.

Yes, I didn't say that it is anything exactly new-fangled, just "extra electronic stuff". What I meant is extras that are not necessary to the operation of the vehicle. I got my first car at 22, and it was 15 years old, the old family car that I had learned to drive on. (I was in college, lived in the dorm on campus, and didn't need a vehicle before that.) My next car was only about 6 years old when I got it, and the last car I bought until after I was married, and living in Brazil for some years (as a missionary). The mission had vehicles we could use when out near the city, and the rest of the time we were back in the jungle where there were no roads at all. That was a Brazilian VW Voyage, an 84 model, and it must have been around 13 to 15 years old when we got it. It was a standard transmission with manual everything. (And an alcohol burner.) We got our first minivan, a 1993 Chrysler T & C on our last state-side furlough in 2000, and drove it until 2010. It was stored for two years during our last short term overseas, and became a 2nd vehicle in 2007 when we got the 2000 T & C which is now on it's last legs due to rust out. That one was my work vehicle until a few weeks ago, having been replaced as the family car by the 2009 Journey in 2010. The 2000 had lots of what I'm calling "extras" - like heated seats and remote door locks (Neither of which I like, or ever used. The heated seats make me feel like I had an accident, and the remote key fob is just extra bulk in my pocket), and some other things that the 93 T & C already had. I also still have (although not yet road worthy) the 46 Plymouth I bought in 1980. So in a way, for me everything that came after the 60s or 70s is actually pretty much "new-fangled", to use your word. But the vehicle I just got for my work vehicle has even more of this extra stuff than the Journey, because our Journey is a base model, and doesn't even have cruise. (I got a high-mileage 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan from outside the "salt belt". It doesn't even have a key you can use in the ignition, so now I'm totally stuck with carrying that huge remote in my pocket.)

Our 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan has 17" wheels, but I do think it is the same bolt pattern. The 2nd & 3rd generation minivans have a smaller bolt pattern. (2nd gen was15", 3rd gen was 16". We had both of these models previously.) So are you saying that the newer Journeys do not use the same bolt pattern as for the 2009? (I thought they were all the same. Or are you just referring to the wheel size?) I wondered how much hassle a missing pressure monitor would cause. I don't like all of that extra electronic stuff myself - my first car was a '62 Chrysler Newport, and I'm used to being responsible for things like tire pressure, oil changes, rolling the windows up & down, etc. I guess they've been out for some years already, but I hadn't even heard that there was such a thing as tire pressure monitors before we got this 09 Journey in December of 2010.