John/Horace

Without weight on a bearing it’s often hard to tell if it’s worn at the early stages. Which is why some better shops use a vibration analysis tool to isolate which bearing is bad without guessing. Later stages often play can be found in hub with tire off the ground, manually. Audio clip not great way to try and diagnose a wheel bearing IMO. The google says..... The classic sounds of a bad wheel bearing are cyclic chirping, squealing and/or growling noise. You can also tell that the sound is related to wheel bearings if it changes in proportion to vehicle speed. The sound can get worse with every turn, or it can disappear momentarily.May 14, 2019

Magnet is either built into the replaceable filter in the pan, or it is a separate ferrite magnet stuck to bottom of pan.

Transaxle on transmission output can be noisy. Has transmission oil been changed as well. How was magnet in the pan. You have reved engine in park to make sure it’s not coming off one of the engine components.?

A Bad Wheel bearing often follows the speed of the vehicle as a droning noise. Usually the faster the speed the louder it gets, doesn’t fade away in my experience. Try checking the front ptu and rear transfer case oil levels. No dip stick on front ptu so you have to drain and fill to get correct level. Very little oil involved, 75w90 used for both. Search forum for oil change instructions.

You really need a schematic and a pin out drawing for ecm to diagnose. I wonder about that driver door harness that got fixed. Sometimes switches like a dome light etc could have an auxiliary contact that sends a signal, power or ground somewhere else. Even though door stuff seems to function ok, could still be broken wire causing the issue. There are quite a few delayed lighting options on the Journey using some kind of timer. Try going into the display options and setting to 0 as many as you can. Just a thought. I hate automotive electrical too; can be very tricky.

It varies depending on the trailer really. Often 15” tires can sit higher than a trailer with 13” tires. Need to have some tonge weight so slight downwards angle needed. Usually 2.5” is the most common drop, but you need to check trailer and car together at hitch and see what works.

All the cvt trans are crate rebuild now. Dealerships just swap out the units with the reman. Specialized tools make it too hard for independents or dealers to take it on.

None I’m sure. I think around 5 yrs is about right. Starts to get really dark after approx 7-8 yrs. Instead of pushing dirty fluid back through abs system you can bleed it out at the caliper, then top up reservoir. Swaps a bit of the fluid.

https://jalopnik.com/meet-margaret-wilcox-the-woman-who-invented-the-car-he-1846657270

Useful and not expensive. Although changing based on colour and time interval works. https://jalopnik.com/cool-tool-this-brake-fluid-tester-can-help-you-keep-yo-1846642461

Insurance can’t find a link...or don’t want to find a link. Proving the link to the accident could be tricky without someone like a mechanic if your corner. Insurance company using cheapest repair shop they can find. The existing problems from the repair make me think they aren’t great at accident repairs and it’s accident related IMO. Insurance probably should have totalled car rather than half ass fixing it. Might have to deal with insurance company staff higher up the food chain. Tough situation, hope it works out.

BCM tricky to shoot with so many connections. If you can swap it out from parts car, with identical options, might save some time. I think the proximity door locks trigger the cluster to light up when they see activity. Are they functioning normally.

Anything is possible...depending on your fortitude. Pull the front plastic bumper cover first and eye ball the metal behind it. How many pound winch and what is the application matters. Custom fabrication of a bracket would be needed for even a 2000 pound winch, which wouldn’t be strong enough to drag the Journey itself out of the rhubarb. Unibody makes winch mounting quite an adventure. My Honda atv winch mount that I made taught me a few things. A close to 5k pound vehicle would be a bigger challenge.

Sometimes the rubber degrades and gets weaker; the extra movement is transferred to the bolt/bushing which is mild steel. The metal bushing wears very quickly and you get squeak/clunk until new rubber assembly is there to properly pick up movement. Or the lube allows extra movement and covers up noise from worn item. Eventually lube won’t work I think.

I’m assuming you mean transmission.Part of the mech electrical unit attached to fluid body inside transmission housing. Four and six speed shown. Plug on tranny exterior will indicate location I think. Can sometimes be changed on some vehicles with transmission in place; so labor not crazy. I've never changed one, hopefully someone else chimes in with more info. https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/dodge,2012,journey,2.4l+l4,1502335,transmission-automatic,shift+solenoid,8476

Thanks for the decent explanation. My wife’s Journey is awd, she had a Santa Fe and a Jeep before that, awd. Our weather makes it tough to disagree with not having it. Little more maint but worth it. Change your rear diff oil on time , it seems to get dirty pretty fast. Drain plug magnet gets furry. The lip seals on the two input c/v shafts have a tendency to fail a little early. In the rust belt areas corrosion eats the metal on the $25 lip seals. Spray with fluid film or other rust proofing might make them last longer. I did after changing both at around 100k miles. Ive driven the awd 200 with the 9 speed tranny and the 3.6 before, peppy ride. Shame they discontinued so fast.

With a ram and Journey I should check into this. Non factory programming stuff does require patience I find. My older code scanner which does abs/air bags is like that. Not intuitive, lots of blind searching of modules, but saves $’s. By the way what is a proxi alignment for awd.

Is horn still working ? Clock spring harness has horn wiring on it. Runs through steering column. Will set a code but you need the right code reader for non obd codes to be read. Not sure if O’Reilly type places will have correct reader. Chrysler use to have issues with that harness on the vans. WAG.

Get a Mitchel login, they have all vehicle data for maint.

Tough issue when it’s not starting some where else. In your shop could check voltage drop etc that would eliminate things. Im guessing not two bad starters in a row. It sounds like a hot soak condition; not starting after car has been running and turned off. When it’s not starting need to remove starter relay and jumper I think 30 to 87 contacts, forcing on starter and bypassing all safety stuff like key switch security, transmission range selector switch etc. If it still doesn’t turn over its cables or starter related problem. If it now turns over it’s key fob, or transmission neutral switch problem or TIPM. Putting car in neutral sometimes helps proves range switch issue but not always. TIPM module with random no starts another possibility. Make up a jumper pigtail to prove failure before buying part. More common on early journeys. Try different key fob to eliminate security. Good luck.

Have you scanned to see if any codes showing up in ecm that could point towards the issue?

For pan seal use this.

In comments section of link, a Journey in Minnesota gets mentioned. So it’s not completely off topic. https://jalopnik.com/heres-what-engine-oil-looks-like-during-a-sub-zero-temp-1846558237

Check connections on vacuum booster. Check valve or hose could have an issue. Scan for any brake codes in ecm.

Pan needs to be dropped, filter replaced, magnet cleaned and new atf+4 fluid added. Dropping pan gets about 5 litres out of 11 approx in system. I top up the 5, run it through the gears at less than 40 mph so torque converter gets flushed out. Then syphon out oil from dipstick, usually 4 litres will come out. Then top up again. It’s messy and timing consuming doing this; but just a flush with out it is not a great idea. Flushing can disturb deposits in system and most mechanics I know don’t recommend it, especially on a high mileage car. The atf+4 is a semi synthetic oil that is only $8 a litre, so price is too high. Use a tranny shop and get a receipt.