radon360

Okay, to refresh people's memories (it was eight years ago, afterall): The reason I did this was in the advertising and promotion of the 2009 model year Journey, pictures like this were used: Look at all those cans of soda (pop) in there...and ice! I figured this has to be the place to put something that I want to keep cold (or warm) without the hassle of a cooler sliding around in the back. Nope, my first experiment with this came real close to simmering my brown bag lunch, even with an ice pack. It also led to a lot of moisture between the bin and floorpan from condensation, of course this is a big no-no with steel for obvious reasons. Quickly recognizing the lack of insulation and ease of heat movement into this compartment through the floorpan, I set out to find a simple way to make what was implicitly suggested by this picture actually work. Let's say that I got reasonably close with my solution in the OP. It works, but nowhere near as well as some of the nicer coolers out there. If I had actually worked up the ambition to go all the way and add active solid-state cooling to this setup, I probably would have posted a follow-up post showing my work. Let's face it, looking at pictures of applied conformal expanding foam isn't all that exciting, especially when it doesn't make more than a couple incremental gains. Mind you, this isn't the first case where someone in Chrysler marketing has pulled this stunt. One has to look no further than how many bottles or cases of beer a Ram box will hold.

And the best part is, 8 years later, I still own my Journey with about 165k on the clock, no major problems. The can of Great Stuff did a nice job of filling the area between the floor pan and bin, and did make a big difference. Still not as good as a Yeti cooler, though .

In the meantime while you're waiting for the part, you may need to just work a possible air bubble out. Mine made the noise a couple of times after the overfill, but then it went away. Try a couple hard left turns. 8-)

Not only are 19" tires expensive, but they generally suck in the snow regardless of what you put on. On top of this, I'm willing to bet that if you bought 19 inch "winter" tires, you probably would be looking at more money than buying the 16" tires, rims, and pressure sensor units. I just ran a quick cursory search on Kuhmo 255/55/19 and the price I got was $224/tire. Based off of that, if you reshod with 19" snow tires at that price (you know that they would probably be more than $224), you're up to $900 The 16" option seems like a lot, but if the cost happened to be the same as the 19 inch, I'd still go with the 16" for the winter. Better traction, less impacted snow/ice problems in the rims, and the disc brakes probably would see less salt.

It's lost a lot of its purpose with an automatic transmission, yet the proliferation of them on new cars would have you think otherwise. I think it's more of a marketing thing. The tach balances out the instrument cluster, implies the sense of performance...apply any "feel-good" reason you'd like. Overreving the engine really isn't a problem any more. The electronic control for the transmission, coupled with the electronic throttle control (yes, the accelerator pedal is not connected to a throttle cable) basically won't let you do it. Now, if you want to be a little more of a technical zealot, then you can find some use. If you have the 3.5L V6, then you have the six speed with the autostick. Given how quiet the engine noise happens to be in the passenger compartment, the tachometer is almost a necessity for knowing where to shift. Granted, the computer control won't let you do anything seriously bad for the transmission, but it's hard to guess where you want your shift points if you don't have much of anything to go by. Similarly, you can monitor how the transmission is behaving. Things as to when the transmission shifts, or if the torque converter is locked up. "Why care?" you might ask. Well gear hunting and the torque converter unlocking is an indication that transmission maybe working harder than it should, such as when pulling a trailer or very hilly roads. This can lead to excessive heat in the transmission and premature breakdown of transmission fluid, potentially leading to a transmission failure later. If you observe the tach bouncing around a lot under such conditions, you can take actions, such as keeping the transmission out of overdrive to prevent such problems. Yes, your fuel economy may suffer a bit, but better than being left at the side of the road with a broken transmission. So yes, the tachometer really doesn't have much purpose in life any more, but in a few particular technical situations, it can prove to be a handy diagnostic and indication tool of what is going on under the hood.

I wouldn't expect to see it until the 2010 model year. They're withholding it so that it's more of a selling point on the Caravan this year.

Just speculation on my part: I wonder if, in addtion to the engine use algorithm, the oil change indicator also takes into account how many calendar days since the last oil change. This would mean that all of the days after your Journey was "born", including those in transit, sitting on the dealer's lot, etc. all count against the number of days before the oil change indication appears. One would think that the dealer prep instructions would include resetting this counter, but it's something that can be easily skipped and no one knows any better (at least initially). Has anyone gotten only 2500 between their first and second oil change? I ordered my Journey, so it was about as close to being "factory fresh" as possible, and the indicator didn't come on until after 5,600 miles. Still working on finding the formula used for calculation....

Had the dealer overfill the power steering resevoir yesterday when they did the oil change. Had a couple of small chirps on the first half-dozen left hand turns afterwards, but it must have been just purging some bubbles, as I can now turn left as hard as I want and not experience the problem. The dealership was appreciative to learn of the remedy as they had several other new owners complain about the problem as well. Thank you mjm48! ...and some of the guys at Chrysler, too, I presume.

The noise you are hearing is the pawl in the transmission that locks the drivetrain when the gearshift is in park. This is often a normal noise on any automatic transmission. When the vehicle is on a flat surface, there is very little load placed on the pawl, however when on an incline, the pawl is holding the entire weight of the vehicle from rolling downhill. When shifting out of park, you are releasing this pawl and whatever load might be placed on it from the wheels. If you don't want to hear it, here's what you do when parking on an incline: 1. Before shifting into park, depress and hold the brake pedal as you would normally do. 2. Engage the parking brake by pressing down on the parking brake pedal with your left foot. 3. Shift the vehicle into park. 4. Release the service brake and continue your normal shutdown of the vehicle. The process is similar when starting back up. 1. Start the vehicle 2. Depress and hold the service brake pedal. 3. Shift into R, N, or D 4. Disengage the parking brake with your left foot 5. Proceed as you normally would. With this process, the friction-based parking brakes keep the vehicle from rolling instead of the pawl that locks the drivetrain in the transaxle. Since the brakes are holding the vehicle, the pawl doesn't get loaded with the vehicle weight, and doesn't disengage with a lot of force or noise. It's a good idea to use the parking brake occasionally anyway. If it doesn't get used, the cable tends to develop rust and may cause the parking brakes to stick on if they are used after a very long period of non-use.

Chrysler just nailed down this problem, a TSB should be coming out sometime in September which will have the power steering fuild resevoir replaced with one that is a little taller. Apparently the fluid sloshes to one side during left turns, allowing the power steering pump to suck a little bit of air, causing it to cavitate. The quick fix for now is to ask your service advisor to have the fluid resevoir overfilled 4mm above the maximum fill mark.

I wasn't thinking about insulating the outside, but rather between the plastic bin and the metal well on the inside. I'm willing to bet that in the middle of winter, keeping something cold won't be a problem...without ice.

Those of you who are getting sub 3,000 mile oil change indications, what are your driving habits? Do you take a lot of short trips? (5 miles or less) Is most of your driving on city streets? I'd also ask about winter driving, but most of us have not had our Journeys long enough to have them experience sub-zero temperatures. Cold engine temperature driving (whether due to short trips or extremely cold weather) should shorten the interval time. Extremely hot weather may do the same. I'd wish I knew the exact formula and all of the coefficients, but after the constants of the engine design and (presumed) oil properties are used to calculate out an ideal engine oil life, penalty deductions are made for things like engine temperature and operating RPM. Depending on the indicator's design, fuel consumption may be factored into that as well, but again, I don't know the exact formula or coefficients. Some further research tonight may be in order.

As everyone is aware, there's two bins underneath the floor mats for the rear (center row) of seats. Chrysler likes to suggest that these will function nicely for holding a six pack and some ice. Okay, fine. The other day I threw a rather large ice pack in one and my lunch. Well, my lunch managed to remain cool until noon, but in lifting out the tray, there was noticeable condensation on the plastic. The plastic doesn't offer any real insulation value, and the metal section of the floor pan which is plainly exposed on the exterior probably has even less. There is however, a reasonable amount of clearance between the two. What if this space were filled with foam? I've considered two ideas that I might eventually try. The first would be to use styrofoam to surround the plastic tray from the metal floor pan. The other idea would be to get a can of the latex (water-based) expanding foam that is used for sealing and insulating gaps in homes. Either of these should improve the insulating properties of this storage bin. Now, if one wanted to really get carried away, you could install a heat sink with a small fan inside the tray, thermally connected to a Peltier junction (see this image), which would then be thermally connected to the floor pan as the other heat sink. With a connection to the 12 volt line, you'd have yourself a small refrigerated area similar to that of one of those plug-in coolers. Maybe the last idea would only be for those who regularly need cooled storage when the vehicle isn't running, since the "chill zone" is only good when it is. Then again, buying a plug-in cooler might be a simpler solution altogether. B)

WIX part Number: 57899 (3.5L) Purolator part Number: PL24651 (3.5L) Dumb question on my part: Why would you spend more for synthetic oil, then use a FRAM oil filter? Or maybe you were just looking for an aftermarket cross-reference number and not a FRAM filter? FRAM, which once used to be the best, was cost-reduced by Allied Signal (after acquisition) to the point that they became the worst on the market. They've since become part of Honeywell, but considering their primarily retailed at discount stores, I doubt their quality has improved much. This guy seems to have the straight dope on oil filters: http://www.knizefamily.net/minimopar/oilfilters/index.html See his opinions here: http://www.knizefamily.net/minimopar/oilfi...s/opinions.html With the lifetime powertrain warranty from Chrysler and the free oil changes for life from the dealership, you can take a good guess who will be changing the oil in mine. :D

Well, we're ending up in the 20 - 21.5 range with the 3.5L with daily driving. We took a 190 mile trip that was almost exclusively expressway with speeds between 55 and 70 mph (lots of construction zone speed limits). Somehow we ended up with 29 MPG on that trip (that's figuring from pump fills), the computer read 25.6 MPG on that trip. I still think it's an abberation of some sorts, as I haven't been able to get anything close to that under similar conditions.