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Dimmer Control


DHP

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I have a 2011 Journey SXT. I have two dimmer controls on the left side of the steering wheel. One to increase the brightness of the instrument panel lights and the other is to increase the brightness of the "door map pockets" and "cupholders".

Question - I'm not able to increase the brightness of the "door map pockets" and "cup holders". Where is the door map pocket located? Maybe I'm not equipped with this feature. Any suggestions. Thanks

Edited by DHP
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Even at the brightest setting, those little blue lights are not very bright. They are mounted above the bottle holder slots in the front doors. You rotate the control all the way up for maximum brightness but, as I said, the lights in the front doors only illuminate the bottle holder slots and they barely do anything.

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  • Official Dodge Support

I have a 2011 Journey SXT. I have two dimmer controls on the left side of the steering wheel. One to increase the brightness of the instrument panel lights and the other is to increase the brightness of the "door map pockets" and "cupholders".

Question - I'm not able to increase the brightness of the "door map pockets" and "cup holders". Where is the door map pocket located? Maybe I'm not equipped with this feature. Any suggestions. Thanks

I agree with the poster above that the map pocket lights are not very bright. If you PM me your VIN I can at least tell you if your vehicle came equipped with them.

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Take a look at this picture of my driver's door. Click on it to see the larger version:

post-3208-0-36670800-1315442062_thumb.jp

If you look straight above the bottle holder slot, you will see a what looks like a small cutout. The light is in there. It is really only visible when it is dark out and even then, it is barely visible.

The second dimmer control ONLY controls these lights on my Journey. I don't know why Chrysler even bothered to put these lights on a dimmer. At their brightest they are barely visible.

The other dimmer control on the left controls all the other lights (IP, storage cubby and cup holder ring lights).

Edited by drb227
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It's a single blue LED for both the driver and passenger front doors. Drb227 is right they have a low level light output that really only shows if you have a bottle in the door (especially one with a light colored label). And they didn't bother to put them in the back doors. The back doors didn't rate the under door courtesy lights either. Another interesting thing is when you use the driver's door window control lockout it cuts power to the rear window switches completly (the indicator lights on them don't illuminate).

I was scanning through the 2011 brochure and front footwell lights are mentioned several times for every trim level except Express (I guess SE in Canada) but mine doesn't have them. Was this a prior year item that was deleted and the brochure not changed or do some of you have these?

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I checked the lighting/dimmers on my June built SXT,the left most dimmer

(when headlights are ON) controls brightness of all dash lights including the

cupholders.

The right most dimmer controls only the door map pocket lights again ONLY when

the headlights are ON,and they are quite quite bright when on full.

I have footwell lighting,having said that it must be noted that it is provided by

the same source as the courtesy door under the door lighting source,mine have

large plastic lenses under the door sill that direct light into the footwell albeit

more to door than to the center of the footwell.

Checked it all this am in the dark of my garage.

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Yeah, it's gotta be really dark to see the door map pocket lights. I find I only notice them while on the highway at night (where there's no street lights. No idea why a dimmer control was needed.

I would have loved to have footwell lighting. It's pretty rare on vehicles these days. The only vehicle I've every owned with them was my 1980 Cougar.

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well now i know what that knob does now,had to go out last nite to check it out.LOL . My 2004 dodge van had a green light shinning down towards the center cup holders and showed up real good at nite on the ash tray and cups even thou you couldnt see the act. light shinning down from the roof . wish my mainstreet had that also, because it was just right while driving at night.

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Wonder if you could change the LED to a brighter one for use in the side pockets.

That is an interesting idea but it depends on what type and voltage is used ( http://www.ledlight.com/ ). I've thought of adding them to the rear door pockets feeding off the power window switch but when the master switch lock is used it cuts power all together to the rear switches. I changed the front side marker to 168ST (Silverstars) and was going to do the same to the rear markers. Removed the outer tailight housing and found the side markers are LED. I'm surprised the turn signal bulb was still incandescent but that saves on a per unit cost (for the short term)..

Cost is the fate of footwell lamps. The '06 Commander I owned had them but you won't hardly find them in any GM product built after '03. 2late4u I had a '10 Traverse for a rental while the transmission in my Avalanche was being rebuilt and it had a LED setup similar to your Dodge van. It actually was more effective than the Journey setup.

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ha! I finally discovered those lame little door pocket lights. I had not noticed them until last night. And ya, the dimmer does control them. It makes them go from useless dim to non-existent dim. thanks to the forum member who posted the picture so I knew where to look.

a brighter bulb in there would be cool. Or maybe just hog out the hole a little bigger?

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Yeah, it's gotta be really dark to see the door map pocket lights. I find I only notice them while on the highway at night (where there's no street lights. No idea why a dimmer control was needed.

I would have loved to have footwell lighting. It's pretty rare on vehicles these days. The only vehicle I've every owned with them was my 1980 Cougar.

Dodge/Mopar does offer a kit to retrofit the Journey . . . .

http://mopar.snaponeasy.com/en-us/Dodge/2011/Journey/partlist.aspx?DivisionId=2&VehicleId=40&Year=2011&CategoryId=1004&GroupId=2081&SubGroupId=5005

Installation instructions: http://site.justforjeeps.com/guide/82212347.pdf

Edited by bramfrank
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  • 3 months later...

IS THAT WHAT THE DAMNED SECOND DIMMER IS FOR??? I've been trying to figure out what it was for since I bought the danged thing!!!

Oh - general - maybe it's not on the American version - because my Canadian 2012 (base model at that) has two dimmer dials. :)

Youi know, they do document the dimmer in the owner's manual. Then again that same manual says that Bluetooth is standard equipment.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I guess Chrysler figured out that it wasn't needed because the 2012 doesn't have a second dimmer control. Mine only has a single dial.

Yep, same here on my 2012 R/T. It is still listed in the manual, though. Drove me crazy that I was missing it and thought it might have been a production error. Searched the Mopar OEM parts catalog and the only dimmer switch listed is the one with the left dimmer control only. This seems to be a running change in 2012. Now that I know what the switch does, I won't miss it.

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  • 4 months later...

The dimmer that your missing .......is that the one for the small lights over the cup holders in the front doors?

I really don't know what they were thinking ..............the lights are so dim you will never need to dim them anyway...........And why a second dimmer,they could have been on with the normal dash dimmer anyway......IMO....Caper....

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In the Fiat version the second dimmer is for adjusting the headlights beam height.

Are you referring to High/Low beam?

To switch mine I have to push/pull the wiper control towards/from the dash which allows for quick changes.

Not sure I'd like having to reach down for a small dial to control this.

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