John/Horace

I have been looking after daughter in laws 2012 Journey 2.4 for about 6 yrs now. She bought it new using uncles FCA employee discount. I have driven it for a half hour a few times, yeah sluggish and fuel economy only a little better than 3.6. But good reliable transportation. And easier to work on than 3.6 by far. Use copper spark plugs if you want ; but platinum seems to work fine with no side affects. And copper no longer available cheap. CPS sensor, electronic throttle body and cooling system (both thermostats and plastic heating manifold with gaskets) were all done, common not expensive fixes. Recalls put a new cat and rack pressure line on. Hers has just over 100k miles, tranny and engine and a/c all work fine. With crazy new car prices, lower cost functional used cars are still going to be in short supply. Affecting price imo.

Yeah my Ram has the oil life monitor, Journey has a change oil warning that pops up randomly. Seems like around 7,500 miles. I keep log book with all maint and milage listed in glove box anyway. But there isn’t any program to turn on I think. Would need to add a new program to the speedo cluster. Not just enable a default function. Journey seemed like some forgotten vehicle they never updated because they were going to discontinue it. The old mitz world engine 2.4 never went to newer Tigershark 2.4, fortunely Underpowered but never an unreliable oil burner like Tigershark. In 2016 when updated 3.6 went into Ram/chargers/Jeeps etc, Journey never got it either. Last year didn’t even have 3.6.

Thermostat codes don’t prevent starting as far as I know. Not starting means turns over but doesn’t catch, correct. CPS sensor is a wear item that usually sets a code, but not always. Will crank without starting. Not expensive, around $35 for dealer part. Easy to change, one elect plug and one 10 mm bolt. First check engine compression to make sure over heating didn’t damage anything, should be around 150-165 psi.

Used cars are still pricy because of short supply. If your van buddy can do the safety seems like all the bases covered. Nothing wrong with making a few bucks.

Lots of shifters have an interlock switch that uses 12 volt battery power. So an electrical issue causing a mechanical latch to lock and prevent car from being driven. Bring car to an electrical specialist shop. Changing whole wire harness is likely not needed.

Two quarts is not a little. Maybe last change it was under filled. The plastic oil cooler/filter assembly is know to leak oil if the seals start to fail. Watch closely where it is parked for signs of oil on the ground. With the beauty cover removed shine a light down into the valley right at base of oil filter. Shouldn’t be more than a few drops of oil down there, investigate if there is a puddle starting to form. Common failure item on the 3.6 engine. Some people switch to all metal assembly.

Always start with scanning for codes. All the coolant leaking could have damaged an electrical part preventing it from starting. Or overheating could have damage the engine, need to trouble shoot problem.

Right side you mean drivers side, correct. If so it sounds like a stepper motor for rear hvac is acting up. Small little motors used for moving flaps controls inside heating/cooling hvac systems. The plastic gears strip and they can lose track of their position. Need to be changed out to stop noise and keep hvac functioning. Probably two or three in the back, I don’t have rear hvac. Hopefully Someone with more knowledge answers. Parl looks something like this, undoing plug will stop noise, but actuator door will stay in one position afterwards. Losing some functionality. https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/dodge,2013,journey,3.6l+v6,1505070,heat+&+air+conditioning,heater+air+door+actuator,10721

On the 2.4 engine which is drive by wire, the electronic throttle control starts to act up with the lightning bolt and driveability issues. There are plastic internal gears that start to stick intermittently from wear on the servo motor. Eventually a code comes up pointing to that part with one of several codes. Sometimes a simple calibration procedure clears issue for a little while. Auto parts stores will often scan for free with one of their units. Could be better than yours. Trouble shooting is better than random part changing. The oem part is Hitachi and Rockauto sells it at a good price. A new base gasket should be used during install. Do not use a reman or cheapo aftermarket China part for a critical item like this. Four bolts and a few clamps, not a tricky job. Free advice is worth everything you pay for it. https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/dodge,2016,journey,2.4l+l4,3353539,fuel+&+air,throttle+body,6472

Fuel, spark, compression and timing are the main critical items. Have you scanned for codes with the replacement engine.? VIN shouldn’t really matter for starting, it is the fob remotes that have the security features. A flashing yellow symbol can prevent starting. Bad CPS sensor as well.

Cool you figured it out, very useful for people on this site. Are the 12 and 8 cables jointed together on harness and you just T in. Or are they plugged into modules, just curious. Can you just add remote start option now if the hood switch is there and remotes have the capability? Might be rf modules, antenna wires etc that have to be there too. My wife’s Journey already has it, nice option at times. There are posts on this site from a guy who added this option and others to a base model Journey. Crazy wire harness work involved. Think he was retired.

A lot of shops the licensed mechanic signs safety’s. Gets involved with trouble shooting, but turns a wrench very little. Majority of work is just random tecs. Bothers me paying mechanics rate for non mechanic repairs. But that ship has sailed. Older cars are only really affordable if you can do a chunk of the work your self. As long as I’m physically fit enough and I have driveway space to work…I’ll continue fixing stuff. Don’t have a lot of local small shops anymore that I could go to. Even many wrecking yards have disappeared.

Auto wrecker would a good place to grab something like that. Number of pins at bottom is critical. Inside panel, power seat 4 pin, or 6 pin relay might be close enough description.

Junk yard unit might already be messed up, can’t really test it. Bleeding air out of abs is best done with a plug in scanner that can pulse the pump while bleeding so all air comes out. Need crowfoot wrenches on tight brake line connections. Lots of reasons it was better to wait out the warranty guys to do it. Living near enough to a decent dealership is the key to these warranty’s. And keeping car a very long time; people get bored and flip vehicles. Had a friend with an awd Safari van with very expensive dealer extended warranty. Said to me a week before it expired, I wasted my money, never had any big issues. Next day the awd transfer case locked up on the way to work. That one repair exceeded his warranty cost by over a grand. Aftermarket warranties however, usually have a lot of weasel clauses and I would stay away.

Seized nuts don’t fall off. A stripped nut with damaged threads I would think cant be torqued properly. But even with four nuts holding, can still drive for repairs. Seized nuts can be removed with a special knurled socket designed for that. Harbour Freight/ Princess Auto sell this this type of thing. Better than wrecking a good socket with a hammer. If search on site worked properly you could look this up, I’ve posted it before.

New batteries often don’t come with a full charge. Can be helpful to put it on a charger until it shows a full charge. Usually a square battery symbol comes up on dash when voltage gets low. There is a whole sequence of preserving car functionality as long as possible with battery dieing. Cooling fans being one of the top priorities. Car will disable sound system and power seats and various other non critical items to help limp vehicle back home. Stuff like ecm don’t run at 12 volts anyway, so lower voltage doesn’t get to them. Eventually car will be shut down from low voltage. Either battery not able to support car operation, or alternator not able to charge battery enough to keep a functional level. Goal being car not stuck on road, you should get strong hints to pull over. At least that’s how wife’s alternator failure played out with me trying to limp car home. Unsuccessfully, she used her caa for a small covered tow.

Known weak spot is the wire harness feeding the hatch back. Rear high mount brake light, manual push lock/unlock button on outside of hatch, wipers etc all going through it. Soldering and heat shrinking several broken wires is the fix. Solenoid on locking latch could also be getting flaky, need replacing. Not that common an issue. Trouble shooting using a multi meter should verify what it is. Or a fancy bi-directional dealer or android style scanner.

Unhooking horn wires takes about 5 mins.

People have made up a temporary TIPM bypass harness to trouble shoot this type of problem. Because of high cost of the part and tricky trouble shooting. If car has original CPS sensor, crank position sensor; your should pursue this for no start issues. Heat and vibration eventually make them flaky. A fairly cheap plug and play part ($30 -ish) oem original equip manuf being preferred option. Does not always set a code when failing.

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Welcome to the site. My 2014 has not been updated since I got it in 2014. Not great but works ok with android for Bluetooth stuff, worse with Apple. Works better with cable than Bluetooth. Can stream music through it and answer calls. Nav is not an add on app, you need a different unit with bigger processor etc. Buy a phone with bigger screen and use that instead, uconnect not that great really. Upgrades not plug and play. There are newer China android based systems that people have installed. Keeping heating steering wheel, seats and hvac controls that are in dash display are the big concern. Microphone is in mirror, try lubricating pivot joint of mirror with clear silicone spray, might free up a bit. Go over all your fluids for the awd, front ptu unit, rear differential, make sure transmission fluid also critical item has been changed. Fixing leaks before running something low is the preferred maint method.

And the security gateway module that 5rebel9 talked about is still in play; so no guaranteed functionality with an android unit on at least 2017+. 2016 might be old enough to get by, not sure. Dealer firmware updates could have been adding obstacles for diy the last few years. Time will tell.

From above post…… a diagnostic scan tool is required. More specifically a bi-directional scanner with current updated software usually from a two three hundred dollar annual subscription. Also the ability to understand how to operate the scanner. Good independent shops are capable of this. These units can pulse door locks, fuel pumps, windows etc. I just picked autel, I have an older non two way unit that still works. Lots of kinda sketchy China aftermarket guys selling these android units under different names. US right to repair laws doesn’t mean easy repairs sometimes. North of border laws even weaker for right to repair IMO. https://obdprice.ca/products/autel-maxipro-mp808bt-pro-diagnostic-scanner-full-kit?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAqA-hW7N9DWg6Fq7UJ5eNciKO1Phd&gclid=Cj0KCQjwurS3BhCGARIsADdUH52b6J0lYO2waWnHyfFdc05O9q7ofM6rxNgXuKYGdwC9uCcGmHMgoXwaAhUbEALw_wcB

Get someone who knows how to solder. Or practise a bit to see if you get the hang of it. Watch utube soldering links. Need to pretin wires first, then solder them together. Electronic flux is useful even if flux core solder used. Need multi strand copper wire of same or bigger gauge. I think I broke one more during soldering process, ended up with 5 bad wires. Test everything while harness is still apart. The wires break because not enough slack in harness, not too little. I added a maybe 6 inch splice to each broken one, I needed the extra space to separate and solder properly. Tucked some wire further into gate and folded some of the new slack into wire bundle. Grommet was sliced longitudinally. Used small zip ties to hold wire bundle together. Then used them around grommet to hold around fixed wires, urethane caulk used on cut seam held together with wraps. It’s like extra wire in house wiring junction boxes. Can fold extra into loops and make it go away. Electronic Tec’s would do this in their sleep, of course.