tsteves5 Posted July 7, 2023 Report Share Posted July 7, 2023 (edited) My 2011 Journey has the Standard-Duty brakes with the single-piston front calipers and the 302 mm rotors. These brakes are under sized, eat up pads, and have a nasty tendency to warp. My Town and Country has the Heavy-Duty brakes, dual-piston front calipers, larger pads, and 330 mm rotors. These are much more robust, last a long time, and seem to rarely warp. Dodge began offering the HD brakes as an option on the 2012 and later Journeys. I decided to see if I could upgrade my 2011 front SD brakes to HD brakes. It wasn’t difficult. All I needed was a set of dual-piston calipers with brackets, a set of 330 mm rotors, and a set of new pads for those rotors. The existing steel shield needed to be cut slightly to allow for the larger brackets. Everything else bolted right into place and fits within the existing wheel. I did have some issues with the new/rebuilt calipers. It took a couple of sets until I found some that worked correctly. The first set of calipers has frozen slide pins that would not budge. The second set had pistons that wouldn't retract slightly when the brake pedal was lifted. I just thought I would pass along the info if anyone else is frustrated with their SD brakes. Edited July 8, 2023 by tsteves5 John/Horace, 5rebel9, 2late4u and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5rebel9 Posted July 8, 2023 Report Share Posted July 8, 2023 (edited) YES ! I wanted to do this with our 2011 mainstreet, but costs of keeping up 3 DJ's AND a Buick Lucerne are killing me. Just finished putting in rear Monroe struts at $330. and found out that BOTH rear calipers need to be replaced @ $315. with pads. Gonna do those Saturday! And those are Parts with sales tax, NOT labor {that I'm doing} This is on the '11 mainstreet That I'm tempted to KEEP but will have to probably SELL. I also have new front rotors and pads that I've had for some time now to install. Edited July 8, 2023 by 5rebel9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John/Horace Posted July 9, 2023 Report Share Posted July 9, 2023 (edited) The rear calipers have an issue with the parking brake mechanism starting to drag at around 100k miles. They start to not release fully and you can feel them drag when turning rotor by hand. You can tap the locking lever back easily and free up to drive temporarily. But the return spring is not strong enough and they will continue to drag when you start using parking brake again. I even changed one parking brake cable thinking it was causing lever to not return. I’m about to change second set of calipers with this same problem on daughter in laws 2012 (only one dragging but will change both). Both cars are the bigger rotors. Which are better functioning than the under size set up. New rather than reman calipers might be the better option to fix this issue long term. I used reman on the 2014 and had to put bigger springs on caliper return mechanism within a month to stop dragging again. Ok now at year two. Seems to be a Mopar design flaw IMO. Or a maintenance problem caused by living in salt belt. Edited July 9, 2023 by John/Horace Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5rebel9 Posted July 9, 2023 Report Share Posted July 9, 2023 3 hours ago, John/Horace said: The rear calipers have an issue with the parking brake mechanism starting to drag at around 100k miles. They start to not release fully and you can feel them drag when turning rotor by hand. You can tap the locking lever back easily and free up to drive temporarily. But the return spring is not strong enough and they will continue to drag when you start using parking brake again. I even changed one parking brake cable thinking it was causing lever to not return. I’m about to change second set of calipers with this same problem on daughter in laws 2012 (only one dragging but will change both). Both cars are the bigger rotors. Which are better functioning than the under size set up. New rather than reman calipers might be the better option to fix this issue long term. I used reman on the 2014 and had to put bigger springs on caliper return mechanism within a month to stop dragging again. Ok now at year two. Seems to be a Mopar design flaw IMO. Or a maintenance problem caused by living in salt belt. Well yes I had that spring problem on the right rear caliper, BUT the LR was also RUSTED solid piston to caliper body behind the piston seal/dust boot. Western NY is NOT KIND on any vehicle for corrosion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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