The driver's seat offers plenty of head and leg room for just about any occupant. The view is generally unobstructed front and rear. It is the unique storage and convenience features, however, that really make Journey shine. Up front, models without the navigation system get a storage bin in the top of the center stack. All Journeys have a dual-level glove box with Dodge's Chill Zone up top. Chill Zone uses the air conditioning system to keep up to four soda cans cool.
The Journey's center console/armrest has a lid that slides forward three inches. It has enough storage space for up to 10 DVD cases. Two cupholders are located in front of the console, along with a tray for cell phones and the like. An additional, more discreet storage space is standard in SXT and R/T models. The front passenger seat bottom flips up to reveal a storage bin that has about enough room for a good-sized purse. The seat back also folds flat, allowing items up to 9-feet long to be loaded into the Journey. And to help drivers keep an eye on the kids, Dodge provides a traditional minivan feature, a fisheye conversation mirror.
The second row is equally as ingenious. The three-passenger bench seat is 1.6 inches higher than the front seat to give passengers a better view of the road and front passengers. It slides forward and back up to 4.7 inches in seven-passenger models, and can be ordered with integrated child booster seats for the outboard positions. The Journey also has two in-floor storage bins with removable liners. Each bin can hold up to six soda cans plus ice. The seat backs are split 60/40 and fold flat. When the optional Flexible Seating Group is ordered, the second-row seats fold in a scissors action, with the seat bottoms tilting up, the seatbacks tilting forward, and the seats sliding forward, to provide easy access to the third row. The rear doors also open 90 degrees, making ingress/egress easy.
The SE model comes with seating for five, but the SXT and R/T can be ordered with the Flexible Seating Group, which expands seating capacity to seven. The third row is 0.6 inches higher than the second row, is split 50/50, and folds flat. Dodge says it offers enough head room for a 95th-percentile male. That's all well and good, but leg room is tight and the bottom cushion is low to the floor, so adults sit with their knees at their chins. It will be possible to fit seven adults in the Journey, but the third-row passengers and second-row middle occupant will be none too happy about it. Younger children will have plenty of room, though.
Both the five- and seven-passenger Journeys have a shallow under floor storage bin that runs from the back of the vehicle to just behind the last row of seats. That means the five-passenger version has considerably more space under the floor. The cover for this bin is reversible, too, with carpet on one side and plastic on the other. The plastic will allow for worry-free stowage of items such as muddy boots.
With all the seats down, the Journey has 67.6 cubic feet of cargo storage space, almost 30 cubic feet less than that offered by the Toyota Highlander and Chrysler Pacifica and even slightly less than the 69 cubic feet offered in the smaller Ford Edge. Loading cargo shouldn't be tough, as the liftover is relatively low. It would be nice, however, if the tailgate had separate opening glass. As an added bonus, a removable, rechargeable flashlight is included in the rear cargo area.
The Journey offers plenty of entertainment features for all occupants. An AM/FM radio with in-dash six-disc CD changer and six speakers is standard. Customers can also choose Dodge's MyGIG Multimedia Infotainment system, which can be controlled by voice commands or through the dash interface. MyGIG has a 20-gigabyte hard drive to hold songs and pictures. In the Journey, it comes with a navigation system with real-time traffic. An available rear DVD entertainment system has an eight-inch screen, input jacks and a 115-volt outlet so occupants can watch movies or plug in their XBoxes and play video games. Dodge's UConnect hands-free cell phone link is also offered, and it comes with an iPod interface. Next Page