Neto

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.

We have a 2009 Journey w/ the 2.4 4 banger in it. 16" wheels. We have never had any issues with it, other than replacing the battery last winter (yeah, a real pain). For all that everyone else complains about the brakes, they are perfectly adequate for this vehicle, in our area & for our driving habits. But our is also just now pushing 70 k miles. I wish I had an extra set of 16" steel wheels for winter tires, but with the added cost of the air pressure monitors, I doubt if I will do it anymore now. (I have checked at area wrecking yards, and none of them have any used wheels for this vehicle anyway.)

Has anyone had the corner of their tag that has the sticker on it cut off? I haven't but have heard of it. (Apparently theives cut it off & fix it on their own tag, so that theirs appears to have been registered.) Ohio also does have the plate number printed on the sticker, but it is so small that a person would have to be right down there to read it. I have sometimes gone the whole year w/o putting the sticker on the tag, just keeping it in the glove box, but I don't know what an officer would say, if I were stopped for not having it on the tag.

I personally prefer steel over aluminum here in the salt belt, because the salt brine gets in between the aluminum & the steel hub, and creates a reaction between the two metals. A mechanic told me that he often has to heat the studs to get the lugs off. I sometimes have to kick the living daylights out of the tire before I can knock it loose.

Well, if anyone has any extra 16" steel rims that "look bad" to them, I like them fine, and would like to have an extra set. Am I correct in my understanding that only the '09 came with the 16s, or did the low end model continue to use the 16s in the following years?

I have been looking for a second set of 16" steel wheels for our 2009. I compiled this list (internet information) of vehicles lised as 5 lug 5 inch or 127mm High Positive Offset. But the sources did not indicate wheel size, center hole diameter, or width. 2009 – 2014 Dodge Journey (Only 2009 used 16" wheels, right?) 2008 - 2014 Dodge Grand Caravan 2011 – 2014 Dodge Durango 2006 – 2014 Jeep Commander 2000 – 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee 2007 – 2014 Jeep Wrangler 2004 – 2009 Chrysler Pacifica 2008 - 2013 Chrysler Town & Country Can anyone here verify this information, or provide the missing information? Thanks for any assistance.

Our first issue 2009 has the 16" wheels, and personally I would never purposely choose to change to anything bigger. I know that some say that these older ones with the smaller brakes don't stop well, but our brakes are great - we have never had any problems with that. Also, I just really dislike the looks of a car with huge wheels. It's alright on a truck (& I'm not talking about pickups, either), but not on a car.

I have always checked the oil on my vehicles with the engine cold, so I didn't know I needed to read the manual to find out that they do it differently now. My first car, a 62 Chrysler, was a 6 quart system, and it would always throw off or burn off the first quart in the first few hundred miles after an oil change. Then it would go about 1500 miles before it dropped to the bottom of the operating fill range. (It had over 100,000 miles on it, so it burned a bit of oil.) Our Journey (09) is the 4 banger, and the oil filter is open side up on that engine. I found another filter that is a bit larger, but has the same base size, and I run that on it. so it takes a bit more oil when I do the change than what the manual says.

Thanks for your help, guys. The info on it being the 5th gen minivans got me started in the right direction. Here is a helpful site with all of the bolt pattern & offset info: http://www.discountedwheelwarehouse.com/Dodge___Vehicle_Bolt_Pattern_Reference.cfm

OK. The 2008 - 2014 T & C are the 5th generation minvans. According to what I found on the Chrysler minivan fan site, the center bore is 71.5 mm. But the post I found there says that the offset may vary from 35 - 45 mm. I don't know how to verify that, or how to find out what the offset is on my Journey wheels. Is all of this info stamped on the wheel some place? (I'm sort of an old-timer, from back when all MoPar wheels interchanged freely, back before FWD and all of this positive offset stuff.) Or can I find this info in the user's guide? (Anyone else feel that it's hard to find anything useful in there?)

(First, sorry about double posting this. It didn't seem to be going, and I clicked it again.) Starting with which generation of the Caravan / Town & Country? I have the wheels from our 2nd gen (1993), but they are 15". I also have a 3rd gen (2000), and while it has 16" x 6" wheels (same size as our Journey), the bolt pattern is smaller. (They interchange with the 2nd gen wheels, so the same bolt pattern.) I thought that I had read here at some time that people were using wheels off of one of the Jeeps, but I don't recall which, and can't find it again.

What other vehicles share the same wheel size and bolt pattern as the Journey? (I'm looking for extra 16" steel wheels for a 2009.)

We bought our Journey in Florida, so it just had original type street tires on it. Last winter we put snow tires on the front, and left the rears. It was fine, and we never had any of the problems people here are talking about. But of course we drive sanely, anyway. (I lived in Minnesota for 4 winters, and drove a RWD car with just normal street itres, and a bit on the bald side. Poor man College days. There were some times when I couldn't get up the hill on the drive way, but I got along fine, by driving carefully.) Last Spring we put on 4 new tires, so we'll need to put the snows back on in a month or so. I was hoping to find some good used steel wheels for sale, so I could keep the snow tires mounted, and just swap them out myself, but haven't found any closeby. What other vehicles share the same wheels, anyway?

If I were you, before I'd pay someone $200.00, I'd look into putting an additional battery back there someplace, charge it from the outlet (while the car is running), and run the fans off of that.

Motor Age also has articles on this subject. (http://www.searchautoparts.com/motorage) Search for parasitic electrical drain, or parasitic battery drain. Also, it is possible that it is not necessarily a system failure, but some system that is not being shut down. I have read that if left set very long, even the auto lock monitoring system will drain the battery (the circuit that is waiting for you to hit the button on the key fob - Mine's a base model that doesn't have it, & now I'm glad). Maybe other things like the A/C, windshield wipers? I don't know how those are handled by the computer. What people are saying is that anything that keeps the computer awake will do it. The days of "When it's off it's off" are apparently past.

I read an interesting article in the June Motor Age magazine last night, and it reminded me of this thread. I searched on-line for the article, and it's at: http://www.searchautoparts.com/motorage/electrical/troubleshooting-parasitic-electrical-drains I don't personally have most of the test equipment the author mentions, but it gives an idea of the possible sources for the drain, and how the various systems on these cars can drain a battery when the vehicle isn't used every day. I'm wondering now if that isn't what happened with our Journey, even if the battery was actually quite old. It just didn't make sense that after it happened the first time, during the coldest part of the winter here in Ohio, I was able to just charge it again, and it didn't happen again until again this summer. (I did recharge it the second time, and it seemed to be fine after that, the same as the first time. But after I saw how old the battery probably was, I just figured I'd rather do in now, while it's warm, than to have to do it beside the road, possibly next winter. I still haven't taken the old battery in for the core refund, because now it seems to hold a charge OK.) I do have the habit of turning everything off in the car when I shut it off, but I ocassionally forget to, and my wife has already asked me what does it matter. Well, it used to be just so that there was not that extra drain when you're starting it up the next time, but it sounds like now it is important for other reasons as well. It could well be that leaving the A/C or heater, fan blowers, wipers, etc. on when the car is shut down may have been the cause of the battery drain problems. It all gives me the blues with the idea of trying to keep up a car like this as it ages. I sometimes wish for the pre-computer age cars.

The years mentioned above are 2011 - 2014. Does that mean to say that the older models are not affected by this? Our 09's battery went dead during the winter, but was fine then until a few weeks ago (after a slow charge). Considering where the battery is located, and the difficulty of changing it, I didn't want to mess with it in the cold winter months. So now when it happened again, I put in a new battery. The old one said Daimler-Chrysler on it - does that mean that it was the original, from the factory? If so, it gave very goos service, as the manufacture date on our 09 is 01-2008. That means the battery lasted more than 6 years.

I picked up a good used Saris model 1047P Guardian in a used-goods store for $10.00. It is probably not the model or design that Saris would have matched with the Journey, but it works fine. I don't have a hitch on our Journey, but if I did, I would adapt this rack to one that would swing around to the right side of the vehicle. There would be an arm extending from the hitch a bit over half way to the right side, with a hinge at that end, and a pin someplace along the middle to hold it in place while driving. (Maybe the arm would have to go over farther than I think, or have other pivot points - I've never tried to mock this up.) My objective would be to be able to swing the bike(s) over to the side so that I could have direct access to the trunk when the hatch lid is up. It seems to me that the type that has you lay the bike down still really restricts access to the trunk area. (I have never had one, or even seen anyone lay one down, so it's just my impression.)