OhareFred

No argument there, but you would get a lot more helop if you would ask for asistance instead of joining to make two complaining posts. I don't mind helping people who ask for help.

All Journeys starting with the 2011 model have the keyless entry and start system.
It is not for the dealer to explain the entire vehicle, including troubleshooting techniques to the buyer but rather just to show them the highlights. The buyer is directed to read the manual in order to get acquainted with the fine details of how things are operated, what maintenance to perform, what the various values are for such things like tire pressure and what to do when something out of the ordinary happens . . . . you'd think that this would be obvious, especially considering that a vehicle is the most, or second most expensive acquisition of their lives for the vast majority of owners,
When I ran the tech support group for a high tech manufacturer the most-often-reported problem was realated to RTFM - Read The F*cking Manual - calls from people too lazy to read their manuals. I could have reduced my call centre staffing by 60 or so people based on that alone - the load dropped significantly when we started taking credit card authorisations at the start of a call and explained that the call would be free of charge if the issue wasn't covered in the manual, but that it would be billable based on time expended if it was. Cisco does that too these days.

Glad to hear you are ok. The smoke/smoldering you saw was the fine powder they use when packing the air bag. You smelled the activator, which uses,basically, a small explosion to inflate the bags. It all happens so fast, and between the smell and dust many people think the air bags was on fire. It sounds like they worked like they are supposed to.
Again, glad to hear everyone was ok!

My wife asks me that a lot....

Could it be a motor mount?

You can always change the fluids early, no harm to anything but your pocket book. On my 09 with 60,000 miles, this fall I changed trans fluid, and coolant. I change the oil every 5,000 with Mobil 1. I never tow, but live in the city, in Chicago where temps can be -20 to 105! I'd rather change early than be on the side of the road! Owners manual are kinda like guidelines, stating the max. time and miles, imo. Good luck!

I know that my answer here isn't going to be a popular one but I was never fully happy with my Journey. When I purchased it I was in a hurry and I didn't do my research on them. I purchased it in June of 2013 and at that time I didn't even know that the newer ones had a much better motor and the interior was MUCH BETTER than the 2010. After a while I didn't like the way it shifted and it didn't have enough power for me. Also I have 2 teenaged kids and one 12 year old so I found that its a little tight for us. Im not saying that its a bad vehicle by any means but its just not for me. I LOVE the way they look though. I hope no ones takes this as me bashing on Journeys cause thats not what I'm trying to do at all. Who knows maybe in 2018 after the turbo model has been out for a couple years and one of my kids have gone on their own, I might get a new one but for now I have to stick with my new Acadia.

Yup, 32,000 miles for 2.4L and 96,000 miles for 3.6L. I've attached the 2011 owners manual.and spark plug replacement guide for 4 cylinder 2.4L if needed.
2011-Journey-OM-6th.pdf
Spark plugs removal DJ 2.4.pdf
Spark plugs installation DJ 2.4.pdf

I must be the only one that when I buy a used vehicle without an owners manual, the very first thing I do is buy one for it. How else are you going to know how to properly maintain your vehicle or how the various features are supposed to operate, etc? Oh wait, thats what forums are for, right?? Lol

I pay not attention to my oil change light. It comes on at EXACTLY 2,500 miles no matter what. Highway, city, it doesn't matter. I use Mobil 1 and change it every 5,000 I just reset it at 2,500 and when it come back on I know it's at 5grand. Also use my second trip odom to keep track. In my opinion the oil change reminder in the 09 is there to make the dealer $.

To take advantage of the built I anti-sway control, does your DJ need to be equipped with the factory trailer tow package (wireing, heavy duty cooler)??

I don't think anyone accused you of being underhanded... And even if you were getting a "kickback", who cares? I'd rather save a buck and have someone earn a living doing the work to save me the money anyway, and I'm sure others feel the same way. No need to let the fuzzies go! Welcome and thank you for bringing this wonderful deal to the forum (even though it's too late for me)!

Bramfrank makes a very valid point about aftermarket service contracts. I was on the fence about elaborating the cons of aftermarket warranties since you have already purchased it, but if you have a cancellation clause that does not fiscally hurt you then you might consider doing so.
Aftermarket service contracts (often, but not necessarily always) make the owner and the shop jump through many hoops in order to get a claim paid. The contracts are often worded with all kinds of terms which, if not followed to the letter, allow them to sidestep payment to the owner or the shop. It is for those very reasons why my shop will not accept any aftermarket warranties, nor do we sell anything but the Chrysler Service Contracts.
The factory Service Contract is very straightforward. All repairs correspond to an eight digit Labor Operation Number (LOP). There is no guesswork - if a customer's vehicle needs a repair, we simply type the LOP number into the customer's Service Contract. If the LOP is covered by the plan, we get paid no questions asked, and the customer is only responsible for the deductible as stated on their plan. No adjuster to call, no records to show, nothing is open to interpretation by a third party adjuster, often sent to the repair shop by the aftermarket warranty company to verify the shop's claim. Plus, as bramfrank states, all OEM parts are used and the contract is good at ANY Chrysler Group dealer, anywhere. Often times the aftermarket warranty companies will specify their own parts rather than OEM or worse, will pay only for a used part! The store I used to work for years ago sold these aftermarket warranties, and often times we had to leave the car on the lift for days, waiting for an adjuster to come to verify our claim. The customer was left with a disabled car at our shop and the contract company would not pay for a rental while you waited for them to authorize payment. This never happens with a Chrysler plan.
I purchased a Lifetime Maximum Care Contract of our Journey even though I work for a dealer and pay cost for parts. These cars have some very expensive electronics in them, not to mention the engine and tranny. I'm still driving my last new car - a 2000 300M with 286,000 miles on it. Our Journey may very well follow suit, especially if it will only cost me $100.00 to put a motor or a tranny in it, not to mention replacement of that nice 8.4" touchscreen which is bound to go bad after a few years. Plus, should anything ever happen to me, my wife will never have to worry about a repair bill exceeding $100.00 for as long as she owns the car. Something to think about.

Oh, I hear ya Journey_SeXT! I've know plenty of neighbors who were the "keep the ball because it's on my property". I'm lucky now, my neighbors are great and living in the city, pretty close. Like you said, Fear thy neighbor!"

Fear thy neighbor. Ohare, when I posted this I wasn't aware of how loud their squeal really was I thought it was just some crabby neighbor who likes to cause trouble....there are plenty of those around too.

Not sure about where you live, but here we tend to try and be good neighbours. I wouldn't be impressed if I was getting woken up early every morning either. I may be sick of it but I can still understand it. The answer to this problem is Dodge figuring their issue out, not me telling my neighbour to go renovate his house.
I can hear it in my basement on the other side of the house from the driveway. It isn't exactly quiet and definitely isn't a problem with house insulation or poor windows.

Soooo, it IS haunted!! .

Decoration. Really, that's all, no function at all other than making the engine look nice...

The resistors and a relay perform a completely different task...
Resistors provide resistance (hence the name), fooling the vehicle into thinking that there is a halogen bulb being used. Remember, modern vehicles blink faster to indicate that you have a bulb out and since LEDs do not have a filament they do not show the same amount of resistance as a halogen filament type bulb. This is why you add a resistor.
A relay harness provides power to your HIDs (in this case) directly from the battery. They use the OEM bulb harness to close the circuit and provide 12 volts to your bulb directly from the battery. When the lights are turned off, the relay is open and no power is provided.
The reason your bulbs are strobing could be one of two things... First, it could be the vehicle thinking that there is a bulb out. There would be a bulb out indicator on the dash in this case, and the fix would be use of a resistor. More likely what is happening is that the ballast is seeing a fluctuation in power supply because Dodge vehicles use pulse width modulation (PWM) which does not provide a steady 12 volt source of power. Essentially, the power source fluctuates up and down. When there is not enough power to feed the ballast, it flickers.
It is possible that the harness you linked could fix the flickering of your lights, assuming that it doesn't require a full 12 volt signal to activate the relay. If it requires a full 12 volts to activate the relay, then you would need to get a relay with a capacitor built in. This performs the same function as a standard relay harness, but the capacitor holds a charge so that when the PWM provides a power source below 12 volts, the capacitor releases extra power to make up for the loss. When the PWM goes back to a full 12 volts, the capacitor charges and the cycle repeats. Think of it as a small battery that smooth the peaks and dips out of the factory signal.
Hope that help.

Anything over 5000k is pointless, really 4300K is the ideal temperature for putting light down the road in my opinion.
Not to mention, unless you are retrofitting your headlights with a proper lens and cut-off you are just wasting money.
Aftermarket HIDs are more disruptive to other drivers than they are helpful to you.
Look at any vehicle with stock HIDs and you will see they are behind a lens and have a proper cut-off so as not to blind oncoming traffic.
Not to mention very few stock HID systems exceed 4300K.
8000k is just for looks, It puts out far less lumens than 4300K or even our stock Halogens.......
Go here is you want to learn how to build a proper HID light for our Vehicles.
http://www.hidplanet.com
Copied the follwoing from: http://www.audizine.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-352911.html
Here is some good info to help people decide on what to look for before they buy a HID kit.

Some important information I came from this site (http://www.delonixradar.com.au/hid-xenon/colour-chart.php) and this site (http://www.cobaltss.net/forums/showthread.php?t=94774)

"Colour temperature ('K') vs brightness...It is a common misconception that higher colour temperatures (K’s) produce brighter lights. This is not true. The colour temperature only determines the colour but not the brightness of the HID light. The Colour Temperature is simply a scale represented by the Kelvin Temperature Chart (hence the abbreviation “K” or “K’s”) as decpited above that measures the colour of the light output. Typically, the higher the colour temperature, the closer you get to achieving bluish to purplish light colours."

and

"The higher the Kelvin, the less light output you get (lumens).
With that said, anything over 6000K is basically a waste.
So, what is the best bulb? IMO the 4300K is the best, as it has the highest light output. The problem, though, is that they have a yellow-ish tinge to them that some people find un-attractive. In that case, 5000-6000k is a better choice for you..... as they have a more blue look to them."


Here is a good chart
http://www.877hidxenon.com/images/hid_color_chart3_fi8v.jpg


Some other good info from this site (http://www.cobaltss.net/forums/showthread.php?t=94774)

And a comparison of Kelvin to lumens;
Standard OEM halogen 55W 9006(HB4) = 1100lm (lumens)

4300k D2S Philips = 3200lm (lumens)
4300k D2R Philips = 2800lm (lumens)
4300k D2S Philips = 2400lm (lumens) actually 5800k
4300k D2R Philips = 2000lm (lumens) actually 5800k
4800k D4S/R (brand) = 3800 (lumens) ** brightest in the market
5800k D4S/R (brand) = 3300 (lumens)
7000k D2S other = 1790lm (lumens) *(other bulb brand)
7000k D2R other = 1390lm (lumens) *(other bulb brand)
8000k D2S other = 1180lm (lumens) *(other bulb brand)
8000k D2R other = 780lm (lumens) *(other bulb brand)

Higher than 8000k, the light output significantly drops off, causing the light to be almost useless.

One should point out that although light output drops off after 8000k, the fact that the light is in the blue-purple spectrum, it still puts a major strain on the eyes of others.

More useful information

And finally, for anyone searching for information on HID's or lighting in general, here are some important terms to know:
(Thanks to HIDPlanet)
Watt- Measure of electrical power (w)
Volt- Measure of electrical charge (v)
Kelvin- Measure of color temperature (K)
Lumen- Measure of light brightness (lu)
Capsule- technically correct term for a HID "bulb".
Candela- Measure of light intensity (cd)
Ampere- Measure of electrical current
Cut-off- A distinctive line of light produced by the shield in a headlight that blocks light above a certain height in order to prevent blinding of other motorists.
Beam Pattern- The pattern of light that is projected onto the ground which includes angle of lateral dispersion, width and depth of illumination.
Capsule- Another term for an HID bulb. Some refer to HID bulbs as gas discharge capsules.
Optics- The lighting control assembly structured around the bulb, which effects the dispersion of light and it's characteristics to a great degree.
HID (High Intensity Discharge)= Gas Discharge
Halogen= Incandescence

The guides are added by the radio, so no.
My backup camera kit is enroute - paid US$258 and will do the install myself, but given a comment in topic about the pins in the connector being occupied (those pins are the composite video input to the radio), I wonder if perhaps Dodge has started including the camera connections in the basic harness . . . .
If so I would not need the wiring harness that comes with the full kit . . . . I could have gotten the OEM camera assembly as a stand alone part for less than $100 . . . . . .
It will be a few weeks before I attempt the installation - I will report back when I know more.

Just took possession of my DJ an hour ago. Selling dealer finally arranged transport from Hays, KS today. Hays, KS dealer determined the previous mechanic at the selling dealer didn't ground a wire correctly after installing the new starter, which caused the alternator to burn out and several fuses to blow. Selling dealer was griping to me about how much money they were losing on the sale; do it nice or do it twice. They paid for the transport, paid the dealer in Hays, KS to fix their mistake, plus they're reimbursing me for towing, hotel, and rental.
Now, I get to start enjoying it!

While I tend to agree about flushing a tranny with 100k plus miles between flushes, I don't agree that you shouldn't flush based simply on miles. If the tranny was serviced at the correct intervals then a flush as 300k miles should be fine. It is when you don't do it all and then do it the first time with high miles where it should be a concern. Also, not all "flushes" are under pressure. Many places "flush" the fluids by using the pump in the transmission... This creates no more pressure than if you were driving down the road shifting through the gears...
My 2 cents.

I have a 09 R/T and if it was me, I'd go with the 12 because 1: 09 was first year and had its issues(brakes, wire looms,power steering pumps/hoses/res). 2: the lifetime power train warranty on the 09 is original owner only 3: newer is worth more down the line. I have FWD but would take the AWD if I had the choice. All that being said, choose whichever you like best!

Everyone can relax. One of the dumbest answers to this whole thing much like I feared. The 2014 DJ's oil filter is slightly different and has a 1 character difference than the rest. So once I swapped out the oil filter all returned to normal and I was able to use a Global setting on a reader to clear the code.