Road Test
Dodge Journey 2.0 CRD SXT
Test date 24 September 2008
Price as tested £19,995
For Creative storage spaces, robust interior trim, seven seats, family friendliness
AgainstCumbersome dynamics, agricultural engine, heavy handbrake
Dodge has always been Chrysler’s testosterone-infused brand. The Charger and Challenger muscle cars of the 1960s and the still-current Viper of the 1990s emphasise the point.
But Dodge also has a history of MPVs — or, as they’re called in the US, minivans — starting with the 1984 Dodge Caravan, available in both SWB and LWB versions.
To be a Dodge, a car has to be big, brash and square. It must ooze Americana. Which is why Dodge has styled the Journey – at heart an MPV – with the looks of an SUV. Does this ‘best of both worlds’ concept work? That’s what we aim to find out.
Dodge’s stablemate, Chrysler, no longer sells a standard-size Voyager MPV in Europe, merely a Grand version.
That’s where the Journey comes in, providing seven seats in a package that, while hefty by European standards, is still smaller than a Voyager. And its faux-4x4 styling may well appeal to those who like to make a rugged, active, lifestyle statement.
The Journey’s aping of a 4x4 character even extends to the way it drives.
This Mexican-built Dodge offers two engines for Europe: the 2.4-litre, petrol-fuelled ‘world engine’ used also by Mitsubishi and Hyundai and matched only to the entry SE trim level, and Volkswagen’s versatile 138bhp 2.0-litre turbodiesel, available in SE, SXT or RT spec and with an optional DSG-type Getrag transmission.
Our test car is a regular six-speed manual turbodiesel in SXT trim.
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