After 3 weeks and 2500 km

[firstdodge]

Picked up my 2011 R/T AWD about 2 weeks ago and have put about 2500 km on it. Mostly commuting but one trip of about 1000 kms.

In general I'm quite happy with my Journey so far. I haven't owned a North American vehicle in about 15 years and this is my first Dodge although my parents have bought Chrysler products for as long as I can remember. Purchased it to replace a 12 year old Honda Odyssey that owed me nothing and rarely caused me any grief. I looked at quite a few different vehicle options including Hyundai Veracruz, Honda CRV and Pilot, Mazda CX5 and CX7, Toyota Highlander and 4Runner and Ford Explorer. Ultimately I was tired of driving a minivan but we needed occasional access to a 3rd row seat. The Journey ended up winning on value. It had the most features for the money.

I mentioned I'm quite happy with the Journey so far but there's also a few annoyances and a couple what were they thinking issues.

The good:

- leather interior, look and feel is quite nice, fairly comfortable and pretty quiet

- Ride is pretty good and although the suspension is quite stiff I prefer that to the wallowing pig feel that the Ford Explorer had

- the 8.4 uconnect with bluetooth works well with my blackberry and I like the SDHC slot for my MP3s (It needs a light over the slot so you can find it at night though)

- the Alpine sound system is good enough for me and sounds pretty good as far as I'm concerned

- the extra power outlets are great for people with kids who have ipods, DS's, laptops etc... although the USB port doesn't seem to power my blackberry properly

- the GPS works well enough for me and I've never had one before so I can't really comment on how well it compares

- I like the remote start and the auto heated seats and the range is great

The not so good (its always easier to point these out):

- got the tow prep package. A ripoff in my opinion and why couldn't they make the wiring harness 6 inched longer so it would be generally useful.

- the engine has some decent kick but the transmission doesn't want to downshift with out effort making it hard to maintain highway speeds unless you live in the prairies.

- this is the first car I've owned in 15 years that doesn't have a remote locking gas cover, Given all the other cool items like heated seats and remote start this is a pretty stupid oversight

- the back doors auto lock and then the rear passengers can't get out unless a front passenger unlocks the doors. This has to be a safety issue.

- the voice response works well for the phone and basic radio but doesn't work at all for MP3 navigation.

- who builds a car that only has a single supplier of a single tire for its 19" rims?

- the vehicle speed being stuck in MPH on the EVIC is getting really annoying and the placement of the EVIC pushes the real speedo to the side making it harder to view

- fuel economy is not really economical. So far averaging 13.5 liters per 100km or 18 MPG(US) which is long long way from the 24 MPG City on the Dodge site. The only time it dropped below 13 L/100 km was while driving 1000 km of highway. My city driving is about 50% highway so I'm pretty disappointed so far. I owned a BMW X5 with a 4.4 liter V8 that consumed a similar amount of fuel. This has got to improve.

- I've had a couple of instances where the voice response system seems to have hung and stopped working. If I turn the car off and let it sit for 5 minutes or so and restart the system seems to reboot and start working again.

- the homelink garage opener has no range. In fact if I back into my driveway the signal can't get through the length of the car unless I'm within a couple of feet of the garage.

I'll be going in for my fist service soon and I'll have to see what the dealer has to say about my issues.

[2011mainmango]

do you ever use the autostick to downshift yourself instead of letting the car do it, so are you happy with your journey or not, because there do seem to be a lot of problems for you.

and congrats on the vehicle, it is a very nice. car.

[drb227]

I am loving my Journey so far. Have had it for 5 weeks and have just over 2000 kms on it. I have the Crew with the Flexible Seating and the Navigation and Sound Group 1.

In regards to some of your "not so good" points:

- Agree about the transmission being slow to downshift. It is clearly programmed for fuel efficiency over all else and I think they've taken it too far. When on the highway and going uphill with the cruise on, it will sometimes drop 15kms from the set speed before downshifting. This is nuts. Only way to stop this is to put it in manual mode and shift down to 5th for any long hills. They really need to adjust the transmission programming to make this work better.

- In regards to the back doors not auto-unlocking, I prefer it this way. With my kids in the back, I wouldn't want them being able to open the rear doors unless we have specifically unlocked them by opening either of the front doors or pressing the unlock button. My Caliber worked the same way and so does my wife's Ford Fusion. This is an important safety feature. The owner's manual actually makes mention of a setting called "Auto Door Lock" under the "Doors and Locks" menu, which would give the option to stop the doors from automatically locking in the first place but that option is not present in the Settings menu on my Journey.

- There has been discussion in several threads on this board about the voice command not working at all to control music playback. Very frustrating! Chrysler needs to fix this pronto!

- I am not looking forward to the day if/when I get a flat tire and need to find a replacement for the 19" tires!!

- Agree about the EVIC defaulting to MPH. It should be using the Metric/US setting from the Uconnect menu to determine what the default setting should be for the speed display.

- I'm getting about 12-12.5L/100kms of mostly around town driving. Let's hope that the fuel mileage increases once the engine gets broken in.

- My Homelink has decent range. I can open the garage door from about 30 feet away, same as it was for my Caliber with Homelink.

No vehicle is perfect. They all have their flaws or quirks. I'm quite happy with the Journey overall and will be happier when Chrysler fixes some of the issues that can be fixed with firmware updates.

[2011mainmango]

about fuel mileage guys, the engine does need to get broken in, and also depends in what type of climate you live in. an engine that is constantly cold and needs to warm up consumes way more than an engine let's say in florida. it's just how it is, you will start seeing better gas mileage as everything in your drivetrain will adapt to its working conditions everyday.

[firstdodge]

Yes I'm happy with my Journey. As I said its easier to point out the bad points than the good points and I agree that all cars have their little nuances.

My R/T doesn't have the Door Lock setting for disabling the autolock either. My Kids are older and this is the first car we've had to deal with the autolock. I was able to have it turned off in our previous cars so I hope it will be something the dealer can change. Even so my previous cars allowed locked rear doors to be opened as long as the child safety lock was off. The Journey has child safety locks too but they seem redundant given you can't open the doors at all once they're locked no matter what the setting.

The audio player has several software issues related to MP3s that it would be nice to fix. The file name instead of the song title is displayed. The album cover art isn't always displayed. Sometimes the Artist name is truncated. Hopefully this will all get corrected with a software patch assuming Chrysler/Dodge is actually working on one. Ultimately though they still play and sound great.