bramfrank

Nah - dhh3 has a bee up his butt. Just the comment he made above speaks volumes - he doesn't want two functions in one unit - but his phone can have 10 functions? Having a single screen for everything is a major plus, not to mention that (strangely) you can play with your built-in hardware while underway, but if you touch your phone (even as a navigator) you get a ticket. Traffic service is included with the uConnect system, by the way - at least for five years AFAIK. And it works where nothing else does, since it is delivered by satellite. As I wrote, there seems to be an issue with some vehicles not getting along with their nav units. And a significant number of those that have the issue seem to get it more than once, implying that it is a configuration issue of some sort. I added the factory nav to my vehicle and have done a lot of miles - no issues. There are literally tens of thousands of Journeys, not to mention hundreds of thousands of Chrysler 300s and Dodge Darts and Chargers with this particular unit - and it affects only a tiny percentage of them. And that's why you have a warranty - again, as I wrote, it is in your best interest to get an extended factory warranty because one dead module (not just the navigator) can set you back $1,500 or more once the warranty expires. Then, of course there's the fact that the screen is huge and the map extremely readable, compared to the tiny screen on a phone and the wires you need to have because you'll need to keep it plugged in while using it to keep the battery from draining. And the traffic on your phone uses data from your plan, if you happen to have one with a limited cap. The factory nav gets the traffic via Sirius. I'm not suggesting that you *must* get the factory nav, but simply that concerns about reliability are only raised by those relatively few who have had issues. And those are the people you are going to find seeking out boards like this, so the complaints are highly concentrated among the users here.

uConnect is FCA's name for the stereo and air conditioning subsystems - given the nature of your questions, I will assume that you are looking at the 8.4 inch screen, which is available in 2 flavors - with nav and without - both of them have SiriusXM. Bluetooth MAY be optional, depending on the trim level, though I am in Canada where you could get the large screen without BT in the old days. I'm not so sure about the US. The subscriptions are: SiriusXM, Travellink, traffic (note that this is XM's traffic, and has nothing to do with the navigator, if you have that option). The Garmin navigation works very well and has the distinction of having dead reckoning, which means it works underground and in tunnels, but map updates are infrequent (no a real serious problem) and relatively expensive. Some people have experienced failures of the navigation module - some repeatedly. It can be expensive to get it going again if you have one of the vehicles that causes trouble - but the history of the car you are looking at will tell you a lot. If the vehicle is within the bumper-to-bumper warranty I do suggest investing in a CHRYSLER (NOT a 3rd party) warranty. One bad module can cost a lot to diagnose and repair. This is not unique to the Journey - today's cars are all complex and very computerised and dealers are not adept at troubleshooting . . . repairs are limited to swapping modules . . . expensive. The traffic for the navigator is supposed to be included with the vehicle - I seem to recall reading that this was for a 5 year term, but they don't sell the traffic and in discussions with XM when I got my current Journey (I'm on my second) they just turned it on and seemed to imply it just would keep on working. One thing about uConnect. It is THE highest rated infotainment system in terms of usability and function. It is very intuitive. However, like anything connected to your cell phone, for example, a lot depends on how well the components get along. Your phone might not like the car - I know that precious few do messaging to the screen. I'll stop now. Good luck.

I keep a 16 gig Gen-2 iPod I my armrest - if works perfectly. There are about 2400 songs on board and I do et artwork. When I copied the music from my server to a 32 gig microSD card and put that into a slot via an adapter it worked the same, though it seems to make the radio work harder - there are small delays and ticks in the playback, which I attribute to processor loading - so the iPod remains. My phone is a Nokia Lumia 920 - music works well on that as well, but I prefer not draining the battery, as I get about a day out of it between charges as it is.

One would think that if there's a problem the local dealer would be the first resource to be consulted. Neither poster mentioned checking with the dealer at all.

Somehow your radio thinks it's in a Chrysler 300 instead of a Dodge Journey - they use the same radio, but the default is Chrysler blue . . . . when the radio gets the word that the vehicle is A Journey it should change back. Usually this will go away after a power up or two. I'd be more concerned with the reason it died in the first place.

I don't know if they do it in the US, but for $60 Canadian (that's about $47 in US funds) Costco does an oil/filter change with Castrol fully synthetic oil.

Yes, the display reminder should also be disabled - I said as much when this first came up.

Find another dealer and provide him with your history.

There's more out there - specifically I have not located the topic which discusses the various temperature and sun sensors that will be required if you don't have auto air, though you will be able to manually set the heat with the manual buttons if you don't install it. So here's some reading to get you started - don;t get too excited about the post that says that a member bought his radio for $150 - those days are long gone. http://www.dodgejourneyforum.com/topic/6259-43s-to-84-uconnect-and-backup-camera-installed/?hl=upgrade http://www.dodgejourneyforum.com/topic/6169-rb5-upgrade-questions-after-fail/?hl=upgrade http://www.dodgejourneyforum.com/topic/4445-upgrade-to-uconnect-84-or-aftermarket-navigation-system/?hl=upgrade

You'll need the radio, the screen, new lower panel, bezel and, depending on whether you have auto air or not, a new ambient light/temperature sensor.

Martinbec05; You might want to try the 'disconnect the battery for 30 minutes' reset process to clear out any accumulated 'stuff' from the computers - there may just be a glitched memory location that resetting can resolve. bigtsr; That always did bother me on the '11 - it is one of the neat things about the factory navigation; You have the option of slaving the vehicle clock to the GPS. Why it is an option is beyond me, since the GPS will ALWAYS be more accurate than the vehicle clock. I was a bit surprised that the coders didn't offer a clock adjust parameter in the list of parameters - there is a dealer value for adjusting the speedometer accuracy, so you'd think there'd be one for the clock as well. Of course I wish my motorcycle, which cost more than my last DJ offered a parameter to adjust the speedometer, since it is more than 8% optimistic, as well as the clock, which runs slow. These are all digital systems. There really is no reason why they couldn't be made accurate, or adjustable.

The 'A" DOES stand for Access - and, if you live in the US (according to the manual, ONLY in the US) then your 8.4A or 8.4AN can be connected to the cellular network if you have an appropriate subscription. The system allows you to remotely lock and unlock your car, can tell you where the car is located and send messages if the alarm goes off, provides the option for enabling a WiFi hotspot, has an HD radio receiver and so on. I've also read that the 'A' has all of the necessary hardware and firmware to do navigation and that it can be enabled after the fact though a keycode. But again, it isn't available on the Journey

Roll by the dealer and have them replace the hose . . problem solved.

Once more, for effect: He was talking about a radio we don't get in our vehicles.

I can tell you that traffic works on my RB5 - however mine is a second generation (post-2012) radio . . . have you called uConnect support? It may require a firmware upgrade. Not that it impacts on you, because you are in the US, but I can tell you that Sirius claims traffic isn't offered in Canada. They told me that it is limited to testing only and only to Ford and Mercedes - I had a spirited discussion with them over that. In the end I managed to get them to switch my account to the US organisation and traffic did start working - and it works very well. I can also tell you that for some reason the Sirius Travelink does not work on radios in Canadian vehicles - we don't get the 'more' icon, even though the radio is identical to that in the US. I suspect that this is a regional feature, enabled by a parameter in the vehicle's BCM . . . . I have the Travelink subscription on my radio - it shows as bring subscribed in the dealer menu, but there is simply no access to the feature.

He was referring to the AN, which supports apps and is connected to the cellular network.

That is the 'underdash component' I was referring to. There's no point in getting into part numbers and such until the OP confirms what his starting point is.

There was a hardware change co-incident with the end of the 2012 model year (so some 2012s have the old radio and others the new), but there are firmware updates available for the old and new radios. You can find them here: https://www.driveuconnect.com/software-update/

You can install an RB5 (8.4N) into your vehicle, but you already have an RB5, based on what you wrote. The 'A' variant does not work in the Journey. But be aware that the Bluetooth module is external to the radio. So either way you need to get that fixed.

So put a 4 ohm resistor across the speaker wires to simulate a load.

Does your unit have Bluetooth? If not, that is a deal breaker (at least as far as using Bluetooth is concerned). That can't be added to the vehicle. Do you have automatic air conditioning? If not then there is an underdash component required and possibly a cable. Do you have SiriusXM? If not you need to add in the satellite antenna. Once you get past all that you would need to replace the screen, the plastic surrounds including the buttons below the display and, of course the radio itself. Once that's done adding the OEM camera requires that you run a cable to the rear - I added it on mine (you can also use a wireless camera).

They'll do that, but if it works it won't fix the problem, it will clear the fault - you would likely need to get your battery load tested, in case it is failing. It could also be a loose or corroded connection - but that's just conjecture.

Your battery could be dying and could have caused the BCM to glitch. Did you try disconnecting the battery for a half hour and then trying again?

But you aren't allowed to touch your phone for any reason while the vehicle is in motion; and your phone doesn't do dead reckoning navigation. If you use online mapping or require traffic updates it won't do squat for you when you are out of cell range and I don't know whether your phone can navigate while you talk on it - some can and some can't. Your phone doesn't lower the volume of the radio when there is a navigation announcement and you don't have SiriusXM on your phone, except as an online function - and that requires cellular connectivity. And of course, the screen on your phone is tiny. On the other hand, the RB5 was rated as THE number one infotainment system for function and features available as of May 2014 - and aside from the uConnect-A, there is nothing new on the market since then: http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2014/05/top-10-infotainment-systems.html/11

AFAIK it only covers the '09 and '10 because we got pushbutton start with the 2011 model year. And I can't speak to the GM recall, but I understood that the fob only turns under the weight of keys applying a turning force to the fob - the solution should have just been a sticker on the dash that instructs the driver not to attach anything to the fob and to leave it at that. That's the solution applied to genav aircraft - little warning stickers all over the place.