What is it with being Filipino and having the notoriety of bringing along big, heavy luggage? It’s not everyday we get to drive a car in North America, so in typical fashion we always like to make the most out of it. In 2004, we wanted a Mustang, instead we got a Freestar; in 2007 (after some arm twisting), we insisted on a Mustang again and thankfully got a bright, yellow V8 one. This year, we wanted a Dodge Challenger, and behold what appeared on our driveway: a dreamy Journey SXT.
We’re not saying that the Journey is a bad car, but admittedly, after having your fingers crossed during the transpacific flight, seeing a people carrier is certainly anticlimactic. Well, it could have been worse: Dodge could have given us the Caravan. Thankfully, we weren’t given with anything that had sliding doors. In fact, the Journey is specifically designed for people who don’t want to be seen driving a minivan. Dodge continues its penchant for segment busting cars with the Journey which is best described as a SUV-MPV-car mix. The SUV part is seen in the Journey’s tall roofline, angular appearance and tall seating; while the MPV portion is visible through the formal greenhouse and low floor height. And the car part? It’s down to the Journey’s passenger-car based platform and those standard 19-inch rollers. All in all, we’d say it’s a nice mix. It’s not necessarily a sports car, but it’s perfect for us Filipinos.
Loading our luggage in the Journey’s cavernous loading bay, we started from the Boston Globe office (we’re now part of their motoring section staff, at least for this week) and drove through different states with nothing but a Garmin GPS to lead our way. Initially, we though we were driving a similarly-speced Journey to the one sold here by CATS Motors. However, the car’s quick wits felt like we had more than 185 horses under the hood. Approaching a runabout, our slight throttle nudge resulted in the front tires squealing—the 2.7-liter V6 engine this certainly ain’t. Curiosity got to the best of us and we popped the hood the first chance we got. Voila, we found the 3.5-liter V6 under there! It’s the same one that powers the 300C (but de-tuned), so it means 235 horsepower and 315 Nm of torque. However, unlike Chrysler’s full-sized gangster car, the Journey’s driven wheels are located in front, hence the tire squeals.
Like the bigger engine, the rest of the Journey package is different from the Philippine version. While the local version leans towards the luxury (leather steering wheel, automatic climate control, Infinity sound system and rear parking camera), the US-version that we tested didn’t have much fanfare. In fact, what we had was the Journey SXT with just minimal stuff. That said, you still can’t fault the interior; perhaps with the exception of the materials, which we’ll get back to later.
You sit high in the Journey, with a commanding view of the traffic ahead. Overall, the ergonomics are sounder than the Nitro’s, but not necessarily perfect. The manual climate control is very easy to operate thanks to the use of rotary knobs, but it takes a while for them to cool or warm the cabin, which is pretty discontenting especially when you’re driving in the middle of winter. On the other hand, the audio system placement is somewhat illogical. Aside from the two main knobs, the rest of the controls are hardly readable. The small screen and similarly shaped buttons make tactile operation almost close to impossible. The Journey we tested had the optional Sirius satellite radio which is god sent especially since we forgot our iPods back home. The Philippine-spec meanwhile has a touch-screen system, which is just as hard to use. But you do get an internal hard drive, Bluetooth and more connection options. Meanwhile, the gauge cluster on the Journey is a mix of modern and traditionally crappy. The electroluminescent numerals and needles are easy to read and don’t wash out in direct sunlight, but the vacuum florescent green display on the PRND and the trip computer is something you’ll see in your old pocket calculator. It glows an eerie green at night too, and this leaves a somewhat cheap atmosphere.
As we’ve come to expect from the purveyors of the minivan, the Journey has the most flexible cabin we’ve ever come across with. It may not look it, but this car is available with a 7-seater configuration (the Philippine-spec has it as standard, while the US car we tested didn’t). With the third row up, the Journey has enough space to load a cooler or two. With them down, it has enough space to shift a soccer team’s gear. If this still isn’t enough for you, the second row bench can be split-folded in a 40/20/40 configuration and the front passenger seat can be folded forward revealing a pass through for long objects such as 2×2 lumber. At one point during our trip, we had to transport more than just luggage: we had to move a dining set for 6 using just the Journey. It took just one trip—all the chairs and the table fit in with the second row seats down.
Unfortunately, transporting stuff like chairs and wood creates the propensity to scratch the cabin. Scruffs in the luggage area is a given, but because of the hard plastics used pretty much throughout the Journey, even a misplaced shoe or watch will cause the door panel to get dinged. Usually, manufacturers find ways to dress up the cabin, making them look and feel more expensive than it is. Not so with the Journey, where it’s the other way around. There’s a lot of cabin tech like the cleaver seats, chilled glove box and so forth, but the plastics feel cheap and it detracts from an otherwise good cabin; unfortunately, even the all important wiper and light stalks as well as the shift lever doesn’t feel solid. We’re certain that it won’t fall off like in a Chery, but it doesn’t shout quality either.
On the road, the Journey feels light, perhaps too light that it’s actually quite numb. It feels typically American, where you’ll never feel that you’re reaching its limits of adhesion until you breach it. There were times when we thought we could take a bend with a bit more speed or stop at an intersection a bit later. The next instance, we hear the electronic nannies kick in. It’s actually good that this car comes with both ESP stability/traction control as well as anti-lock brakes or else things would have been messy. We can always pin the blame on the all-weather tires (a standard in Snow Belt states), but we’re sure that better suspension tuning could have corrected this. In a straight line though, the Journey is a formidable performer. It can enter highways and interstates with ease, merging effortlessly. It’s generally quiet too (it has the quietest cabin in its class at 70 mph). The standard 6-speed automatic is equally good and smooth with nicely spaced gearing, though we wished that a manual override were made available (again, the so-called “AutoStick” is standard for the Philippine model). We drove the Journey a total of 532.37 miles (856.76 kilometers) achieving a mixed city/highway figure of 19.6 mpg (8.33 km/L), the highlight of which was a drive to Ming Tsai’s famous Blue Ginger for a round of foi grois dimsum!
Of course, like all other stories ours had a happy ending and we did manage to sample a few exotic car offerings, which we’ll save for a later day. In the mean time, though the Dodge Challenger didn’t appear on our door steps, the Dodge Journey SXT ended up as a blessing in disguise. Although we didn’t have the sportiest of experiences behind the wheel, the Journey’s functionality and flexibility sets it above the rest. For families out there or for those who have the propensity to travel with large boxes, the Journey presents itself as a serious case thanks to its ingenious design and clever packaging. It’s worth a look, if you can forgive its cheapo plastics.
By Ulysses Ang | Photos By Ulysses Ang
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