I know “it’s never too late” is a cliché, but what exactly is it not too late for? A Fourthmeal, surely, but what else? It’s probably too late to corner the market on lawn darts, and giving your senior year prank a take-two may result in a felony, so it’s probably too late for that too. However, sometimes it really isn’t too late for the improbable to happen. Here, in the year 2025 A.D., Stellantis sold a brand new Dodge Journey in America.
Launched for the 2009 model year to tepid reactions, the Dodge Journey was Chrysler’s attempt at taking what it had learned from the old Chrysler Pacifica crossover and adapting it to a lower price point. Starting with the platform of a Dodge Avenger, Chrysler built a crossover body spacious enough to accommodate three rows of seats, carved out a few interesting storage areas like one under the front passenger seat squab, bathed the interior in hard plastic and sparked the idea to life with a series of unremarkable powertrains, including a 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine mated to a four-speed automatic with K-car roots.
Keep in mind, we’re looking at a product from a major automaker’s darkest time, one of bankruptcy, material cost management, and one-ply development budgets. I know it’s easy to look at the Journey as a bit of a punching bag, but as an attempt by a cash-strapped automaker to stay in the mainstream three-row crossover market, it technically got the job done.
For 2011, the Journey received a much-needed injection of cash. We’re talking about an all-new interior with up to 8.4 inches of touchscreen, the then-new Pentastar 3.6-liter V6, a new grille, new lighting on most trims and bumpers on many trims, revisions that still didn’t make the Journey competitive against the best from Japan and Korea, but made it easier to live with. More importantly, they made for a better product in a key segment—the dirt-cheap seven-seater niche for people with many children but not a load of money to spend on a vehicle.
Over nearly the next decade, the Journey carried on largely thanklessly, as the de facto three-row rental crossover at airports across North America, and as a reasonably attainable family vehicle. Sure, it did have an interesting detour in Europe where it was badged as a Fiat Freemont, but the second chapter of this Dodge’s life was largely unremarkable. When the Journey was discontinued after the 2020 model year, with more than a million rolling off the production line, it felt like the Cerberus Capital era was largely over at Dodge, but history has a way of lingering. In Stellantis’ Q1 2025 sales report, Dodge logged the sale of a singular brand-new Journey.
How does one simply forget an unregistered Journey for nearly five years? Sure, it’s not the most memorable car in history, but it must’ve lingered in a back lot and on the books for ages. It’s hard to believe that no dealer accountants raised a fuss about having a car on floor plan financing for years, but it’s also entirely plausible that one forgotten Journey finally made it out the door. Once incentives and factory-backed subvented financing options are discontinued for a car, it becomes harder to sell.
Still, it almost feels miraculous that this quarter, there’s one more Dodge Journey on American roads than there used to be. I guess there’s a right time for everything, and sometimes it’s later than you might expect. For now, let’s hope this forgotten Dodge Journey was a killer deal. At approximately five years old, there’s a chance the tires could’ve aged out before it even left the lot.
Top graphic credit: Dodge, depositphotos.com
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
Stellantis Sold Negative One (-1) Chrysler 200 Sedan Last Quarter And I Just Want To Know How
-
Are You The Single Person Who Bought A Brand New Jeep Patriot Last Quarter?
-
Fiat Sold Less Than One Car Per Dealership Last Quarter
-
Rejoice! Porsche Hit Record U.S. Sales Because Of Sports Cars, Not SUVs
-
Affordable Small Cars Are Making A Comeback Right As Tariffs Are About To Make Everything More Expensive
Please send tips about cool car things to tips@theautopian.com. You could even win a prize!
Perhaps someone can dig in the internet archive, but I distinctly remember on Dodge’s website a quote about the Journey’s transmission along the lines of, “The Journey’s 4 speed automatic transmission effortlessly shifts gears so you don’t have to.
State of the art?
I remember that too. I want to say I saw it in a brochure? They wrote it like this was the first car to ever have an automatic.
YES! exactly, I wish I could find the specific quote. I tried poking around trying to find it on internet archive and a few other places before giving up. If you can find the specific quote, I would be ever grateful.
I’ve looked around but haven’t found anything. If it was in a brochure, I’m guessing it would have been an early one where Dodge thought they still needed to hype up the 4 speed.
I was able to find PDFs of all the Dodge Journey’s years, and I was also able to find where I think it was on their website on internet archive, but I don’t think the tab with the tech specs for the lesser engine option was archived.
Our beloved David Tracy wrote about this in 2018.
“The four-speed automatic transmission automatically changes gears so you don’t have to shift gears manually.”
https://www.jalopnik.com/dodges-description-of-the-dodge-journeys-four-speed-aut-1826011826/
I’m not surprised he wrote about it, it’s the perfect for this corner of the internet. I’m glad there’s a record of it.
Had one as a rental in Hawaii. Can’t say I was excited with that draw.
I will say though, it was a totally reasonable vehicle. It sucked far less than I thought it would. I almost liked it by the end of that trip.
On another note, does anyone remember the scavenger hunt marketing ploy for the Journey? Where people drove around finding clues Dodge would release over time until someone found it in a barn somewhere and got to take it home for free? That was actually pretty neat.
Dodge has had some great marketing campaigns. The Dart (the 21st century version, not the original) had a gift registry program that let people buy parts of the car. The general idea was to get college students to sign up and convince their friends and family to chip in for a car as their graduation present. If you were cheap you could fund the rearview mirror or the floormats. If you were generous you could fund the engine.
I doubt many people ever used the gift registry, but the ads grabbed attention.
Wow I never saw that one. Honestly, pretty smart.
The fact that this vehicle was not directly replaced in the US and Canada (Mexico did technically get a new one) is malfeasance on the part of Stellantis management, Dodge dealers sold the hell out of Journeys. Not sexy, not particularly “good”, but they were what a huge swathe of the market wanted
Last full year of sales was nearly 75,000, from what was by then a 12 year old design. They sold as much as 108,000 at the peak. You’re telling me Stellantis dealers couldn’t use that kind of volume right now?
“…people with many children but not a load of money to spend on a vehicle.“
As someone with lots of kids, there is not a load of money to spend on anything.
Much respect for my neighbor with a Journey, I know he cares about it since it has fancy Michelin Crossclimate tires and a hitch, it also looks very clean.
Five years out of production and he didn’t stop believin’.
unpopular opinion. I genuinely liked my 2011 sxt. It worked great for exactly what it was, a 7 passenger vehicle for people with bad credit. It was reasonably reliable (aside from the heater hose tee and the bottle cap brakes that needed replacement every 40k miles), fit the family comfortably, doubled as a great little work van once we got an actual minivan after #3 was born. Frankly, there is nothing else really on the market today (outlander is the closest) that fits the mould and if I had any inclination that used ones had been maintained (again, made for people who likely couldn’t afford to maintain), I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend a low mileage one today.
Look I own a Journey and like most Journey owners it mostly wasn’t by choice, I wish the best for this buyer and many years of hopefully reliable transportation.
Also I will never buy another dodge until forced to.
I bought mine while stationed overseas. Only thing I could afford to finance with enough seats for my family (at that point, regularly driving my in laws around too). It wasn’t a good car, just a car. It served its purpose well with minimal fuss until I was in a position to afford something I actually wanted.
Same here, wife was two days shy of her due date and we’d been looking for a new car for a month and a half with absolutely no responses or luck and a neighbor offered it for $1500. It’s been reliable enough despite the limited maintenance of previous owners and being literally lemon lawed.
Journey fan here. There’s a reason FCA sold over a million of them over an 11 year model run: they provided a great value proposition. FCA made bank on these things.
Where else could you get a full warranty, seats for 7, a powerful V-6, and AWD, at the same price point? Nowhere, especially with the aggressive incentives in play for most of the product run.
For a lot of people, they just need to haul their family safely and get to work. The Journey checked enough boxes to keep sales going way beyond what most people would have suspected.
They were perfectly fine to drive as well, especially when the refresh came out and the Pentastar 3.6 was available.
I spent some time in a Journey company car. It got the job done better than a lot of the crap I drove back then.
Hey, if the warranty is still the same and covers anything that rotted in that time, why not?
I knew of a Dodge dealer in south Fort Worth that had a new ’94 Spirit (base four-cylinder) in their inventory in 1996. There was also a Jeep/Eagle dealer in north Fort Worth that had a new ’94 Eagle Vision on their lot in ’96.
Name checks out
I’m sure accounting errors happen wherein an automaker doesn’t quite get the specific number of units or a particular model correct in its reports. I’m not sure how that gets trued-up.
If they do it by publishing a retroactive amendment to whatever quarter in which the car was sold, then this really is a new 2025 purchase.
But if they do it by reporting it in the first available quarter’s numbers after the error is discovered, then that’s probably what it is. A previously unreported sale that happened some time ago.
Another option is that this was pressed into duty for the dealership at some point (like as a loaner, shuttle or parts-runner) when it was physically new, but was never titled and had few enough miles not to need to be titled until recently.
Or, perhaps the dealership misplaced it or left it disassembled in a back lot or bay all this time, without it having ever been sold, and finally recently sold it. That’s a plausible explanation. I once worked for a Kia/Mitsubishi dealership whose books were so thoroughly cooked—to the point that the dealership was shut down by the DOJ for rampant fraud and its principals charged, convicted and imprisoned—that the dealership routinely lost track of its cars, new and used. I remember an incident in which a nearly new Nissan Murano was abandoned at a third-party Nissan dealership, due to some kind of recall, for nearly nine months. I probably could have stolen a whole-ass car or two (new or used) and gotten away with it.
“Life is a journey, not a destination.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Where’s Waldo?
Living in that Dodge down by the river.
Junk, but pretty junk. I think it’s the best-looking CUV, then or since.
Strangely the rare time I had a bonding moment over a vehicle was when I had a rental Dodge Journey and a gentleman with a red Journey wearing a red hat (think he was too poor for a real MAGA hat) walked over to my gas pump to discuss how happy he was with his purchase of a Journey and to see how I enjoyed mine.
My father in law had 2 of these, both loaded versions with leather and AWD. First was an 09 that he traded in on a 14ish due to all sorts of weird electrical issues. Second he traded in because of electrical and transmission issues. Transmission could well have partially been self inflicted, he is and has always been really hard on vehicles.
Drove both a few times. While for what he paid I’d have been looking elsewhere but the Canada value package version was a heck of a deal for a new car with decent space and a warranty. I respect the base model buyers, but the people who got the loaded model I ask why not anything else in that price range.
Honestly, for the right person at the right price, why not? It’s a piece of basic transportation, an appliance; nothing more, but also nothing less. I might laugh at people who are obviously compensating for their shortcomings, but I won’t laugh at someone just trying to get by.
I have the utmost respect for anyone who’s willing to put their ego aside, buy exactly the right amount of car, and drive it til the wheels fall off. Honestly the majority of us enthusiasts could probably learn a thing or two from them.
“Why not?” – because once it is driven off the lot its value depreciates to the level of all other 5 y.o. used Journeys. The low mileage and like new condition may put it at the top of 5 y.o. Journeys, but that is only going to add so much. So unless the buyer paid for a 5 y.o. used Journey, they were waaay under water the second they drove it off the lot.
Speaking as part of a family that buys cars with the intention of driving them until the wheels fall off, depreciation is not a big consideration. I don’t think I’ve ever bought a car with resale value in mind. Our family drives them until they’ve reached the end of our usefulness to us, and then we let them go cheap; in a couple cases literally giving them away to people who needed a car and had financial difficulties.
I would think most people driving a Journey are working class folks who have families, don’t care about their image, and are just trying to find a car that will get them through their family hauling years. There’s nothing wrong with buying a cheap new car if you plan to run it long enough that depreciation doesn’t matter. Also, I’ll argue that in an era where any running car in decent shape has a floor value that is much higher than it used to be, and given that one didn’t start at a large number with a Journey (or a Mirage, or a Versa), there’s only so much value to lose.
Like you, I drive my cars into the ground. The last car I got rid of was with me for 13 years and then I got rid of it because an oil leak was too severe to keep driving and costs more than it was worth to repair. So I get it. But if you pay no attention to resale and your car gets stolen or totaled in an accident, the insurance company doesn’t care what you paid for it. They only care what the value is at the time of the theft/accident. Many people wind up owing on a car they don’t have because they didn’t care.
I remember seeing a Journey in my neighborhood that had had a Fiat Freemont grille swapped onto it, which was pretty interesting to see! I think the tailgate was just entirely debadged, but the (hard to fake) steering wheel still said Dodge
Speaking of the Fiat Fremont, I am surprised that FCA spent the money to give the Fremont its own steering wheel airbag cover with a cutout to fit the circular Fiat badge, instead of the pentagonal Dodge/RAM one. I would have expected them to just put a pentagonal badge there with the Fiat emblem within it, to save money. Especially as I don’t believe any other Fiat models used the contemporary Dodge/RAM three-spoke wheel.
Anyway, I wouldn’t feel like my Fiat Fremont conversion was complete until it had that airbag and cover, assuming they interchanged safely with the US-market versions of the same. I’d also want the key fob to say Fiat, and the splash screen for the infotainment as well.
Similarly, the Gen. 1 Hyundai Genesis sedan in the US only had the Hyundai logo on the steering wheel airbag cover, despite having either the Hyundai or Genesis badges on the deck lid. Meanwhile, the KDM version of the sedan had the Genesis logo on the airbag cover. A lot of people just swap out the Hyundai logo for an elliptical one with the Genesis wings within it, but I’d want a KDM airbag.
Wait, wait here’s the registration paperwork. Says here the last Journey was taken by one C. Tavares. Does that mean anything to anyone?
Depends. Is he pictured above?
With the V6 and leather, these were just fine. Comfortable, even. And lots of clever storage cubbies throughout. No, nobody ever pined for one. But they were fine.
The shitboxes of today are so much better than the shitboxes of yesteryear it’s not even funny
The Journey was one of those cars that was/is everyone’s punching bag, but no one can quantify why it’s such an objectively bad car. It doesn’t have any glaring mechanical defects, at least not any that aren’t endemic to the major components it uses in general.
Sure, resale value isn’t spectacular, and the 2.4/4AT version is miserable to drive. But you know what else is miserable?
The gen. 2 Suzuki XL7, which was little more than a contemporary Chevy Equinox/Pontiac torrent with an enlarged cargo hold and a third row and which had some timeline overlap with the Journey.
A Toyota Highlander or 4Runner with the 2.7-liter I4.
The prior Mitsubishi Outlander and—frankly—the current Rogue-based one.
Somehow, those cars have escaped everyone’s ire.
The Journey with the V6/6AT was a downright bargain, if you weren’t vain and didn’t need to sell it before it was used up.
We just had an Uber that was a Subaru something or other. God was that thing noisy, tinny, hard, and uncomfortable. Also, in a nod to “Curious Cars,” it had no storage for weapons or narcotics for rear seat passengers. I would have taken a Journey over that thing anytime.
I feel you. Subarus are not known for their spectacular command of NVH or their upscaleness. I was grateful my 2022 Outback Touring XT had laminated front windows, which apparently was only true of the XT (turbocharged) version; the regular N/A version did not have them.
Meanwhile, I was just in a late-model Ford Explorer Uber with ostensibly the 2.3-liter turbo I4, and I thought it drove and sounded and rode like shit—with 50K miles on the odometer—and couldn’t imagine why anyone would pay Ford’s prices for such a car.
The Uber driver himself was a bigoted POS, too, but that’s neither here nor there.
Does laminated mean tinted?
G.K. is probably referring to double-layered glass which helps keep noise down (and is safer too).
Pardon the mansplaining if you already know any or all of this, but, probably not.
Laminated glass has been used in windshields for decades – two layers of glass with a layer of vinyl between, to keep the windshield from shattering.
All side windows used to be tempered, so when they broke, they shattered into a million little pieces to reduce likelihood of getting impaled be a large shard.
Recently, they started using laminated glass for the driver and front passenger side windows, I think to help keep airbags where they’re supposed to be while they do their job during deployment.
The practical effect is it’s a thicker piece of glass that holds out the noise better.
It would be possible to use a tinted vinyl, but there are tinting restrictions on front windows that vary by state, so they go with clear or maybe very subtle shading.
Anyway, I’ll shut up now – that’s probably more detail than you (or anyone else) wanted.
Side glass is used for NVH, not any other reason. That’s why you see it on expensive vehicles or premium versions of vehicles
Laminated side comprises is two layers, with a vinyl layer bonding them together. It’s the same technology used for front windshields, but its purpose for side windows is to insulate the occupants from road and exterior noise. It is also called acoustic glass, at times.
Let me tell you which cars I’ve owned that surprisingly did not have laminated side windows, and should have:
– 2017 Volvo XC90 Inscription T6
– 2020 Lexus GS 350 F Sport
– 2022 Volvo XC90 Inscription T6
– 2022 BMW X5 xDrive45e M Sport
No narcotics or weapon storage is always a deal breaker to me.
“Worried about the upcoming Tariffs? Have I got a car for you!”
My reaction to the Journey has always been that they’re just kind of sad. No one winds up in one because they want one, they wind up in one because it’s the only option. Kind of like an Altima or Rogue but I’ve never personally seen a Journey being used as a makeshift intercontinental ballistic missile so I’ve never felt the need to make jokes at the owners’ expense.
In that way I almost…respect them, I guess? They’re perfectly cromulent transportation for families that need space but don’t have a lot of resources. I suppose I see Journeys and think to myself “hang in there and I hope the stars align for you to wind up in a Highlander next”.
I’ve known people proud of them: “It’s not a minivan”
If that’s what helps you sleep at night, sure.
Indeed. The Journey effectively replaced the SWB minivans, which did not get renewed for the MY2008 redesign.
You bring up a good point, and I’ve never hated the Journey because it filled a role that few others did – affordable family transportation for those who need a third row. It didn’t do anything particularly well, but then it also wasn’t at a price point where you expected it to. It served people who couldn’t afford something better, and that has a bit of melancholic nobility to it.
Great way to put it. Reminds me of when someone smarter than me once said that there’s honor in all work. There’s also a melancholic nobility in that, and it’s one of the myriad reasons why I’m never going to disrespect the person flipping burgers or working the register at the gas station or whatever.
They’re just out there trying to get theirs too and they’re providing us with a necessary service. Maybe we should make it so they make enough money to live off of? Idk just a thought….
We called ours the inconvenient minivan.
A cromulent and affordable vehicle that doesn’t ruin its owner with drivetrain failures is the working-class American hero many people need these days.
There was a post where someone selling the Dodge Journey often noted that this was the point where the buyers’ lives started turning around. Instead of buying another used car on its deathbed or getting hugely in deep with debt, they got an affordable new vehicle that was decently reliable.
Hopefully there’s one more person who is doing slightly better out there.
Godspeed Dodge Journey, may your journeys be good ones.
Leave it to this wonderful little corner of internet to bring us all together to wax poetic about the societal value of the Dodge Journey
The answer to the headline is: no one who reads the Autopian bought a new Dodge Journey in 2025.
Doubtful it was just sitting around all this time. It just means it was never titled, so technically still a “new car”. Probably was in the loaner pool, or the dealership owner’s kid was driving it on dealer plates to college. Could well have had 10s of thousands of miles on it.
I had at least one of these as a rental. It was certainly dull as dishwater and in no way “nice”. But they were a LOT of car for very little money, and the average American buys cars by the pound. And no CVT, unlike it’s cousin the far worse Caliber.
Yeah, another vote for “dealer’s kid was driving it.” Either that or it got damaged on the lot when new, repaired, and pressed into duty as a service department hack. No way it was just sitting around the dealership waiting for the right buyer.
Service loaner > pickup-and-dropoff shuttle > parts chaser before finally getting pensioned off.