When you have got a lot of kids and you want to go on a journey then think Dodge. Ha Ha.
That's right the Dodge Journey is not an SUV and is not really a people mover either, it's more a mobile kids entertainment centre. You have got the roof mounted DVD that can play in the back as a standard feature, you also have the built in booster seats for the little minion that can't see out the window, and you get a full seven seats with the third row being perfect for even bigger kids. What more do you need to keep the kids happy on those summer and winter road trips.
We took delivery of our Journey on an unusually sunny Auckland day. We wanted to drive the new model for a few days and see how it went in standard mode before we then set about making this mobile kid entertainment centre a little bit cooler and even more practical than the others.
First impressions was that it was much more like driving a station wagon than anything else and this appealed, as too often you think if you want to carry lots of kids and need seven seats you are going to need a big SUV, not with the Journey. Don't get me wrong it's still a long and rather large car but not excessive.
The performance is more than adequate for the car and it handles pretty well on the factory 19 inch wheels and tyres. There's not a lot of road noise and the cornering is pretty good for a large seven seat car.
After driving it for a few days it was time to get it into Hyper Drive workshop and transform this Journey.
First of all we selected a new set of 22inch BGW Storm wheels. Now I know what you are thinking 22 inch wheels on a family car, but it transformed it into something that looked and drove a million times better. Well maybe not a million times better but you know what I mean. The handling sharpened up significantly and car felt a lot more stable at motorway speed.
We paired these wheels with a set of 265/35R22 Landsail tyres. Now the Landsail tyre is not super well known in NZ but they are a modern tread design and a perfect match for this wheel and car combo.
Now as you know, unless you are prepared to tow a trailer or buy a Dodge Ram truck then when you put the third row of seats up in most seven seat cars you lose most of the boot space. Never fair though we have a solution.
Bring out the Thule Roof box, the best invention since the trailer. We fitted a Thule Dynamic M to the roof of the Journey which allows you to store 320 more litres of gear on the roof.
Now the great thing about putting the Thule roof box on the Journey is that because the car is not as high as an SUV you then can potentially keep it on all the time. That said I would still check before you launch into that underground car park building and rip it off the roof!
Because the Dodge Journey comes standard with a roof rack system all you need to buy is the roof box, even all the Thule accessories like bike carriers and snowboard and kayak holders all work with the standard Dodge roof racks so super easy to carry a wide range of gear on the roof.
I would have to say that I wasn't expecting huge things from the Journey but I became very pleasantly surprised. You are going to find there are so many standard features in this car that you just don't get in a lot of others that will make it hard to go past a starting price of less than 40K. Go and see the team at Winger North Shore and get amongst a Journey.
