I bought my very first brand new car in June 2008. I have had other pre owned cars before, but this was my first brand new vehicle. I was excited about having the brand new car because I would know the maintenance history, have the records, know how it was driven, have a warranty + extended warranty, and not have any maintenance issues since it was brand new. I was wrong!! I bought the 2009 Dodge Journey and at 26,500 miles I had my husband take it to a brake repair shop to check the brakes since they had started making noises. I figured, there's no way the brakes should be bad!! Needless to say, the mechanic told my husband the brakes and rotors were shot and it wasn't safe to drive anymore. The front rotor was already metal on metal and the pads barely had anything left. I called the dealership before I spent the money to fix to find out if it was covered under my dealer warranty or my extended warranty. The service adviser told me that if it was within 12 months or 12,000 miles he could call it a warranty repair but since the car had 26k miles on it, it was considered normal wear and tear. That's BS. There's no reason a car should need new brakes after 2 years and 26,000 miles. I love my car and the features that came with it, but after reading all the complaints with the brakes, I'm not looking forward to paying off this car and keeping it. I wish I could just sell it and go buy something else that's not Dodge. Chrysler really needs to step up and address this problem. This is ridiculous and unnecessary. I don't have the funds to continually pay 400-700 to replace brakes every year or two. That's the whole point in buying brand new and having the higher car payment, so you don't have to worry about stuff like this. So pissed!!!

What a joke . All these people complaining and Dodge does nothing. I've filed with a complaint with them and you get the typical "we'll look into it." I'm going later today to chew out the service manager (hopefully there will be a crowd). If they don't take care of this, I will no longer deal with them. I will also tell everyone I know not to use this dealership and not to buy a dodge journey. I will also let everyone know that Dodge customer service does absolutely nothing but take your information and process it with a case number.

My Chevy uplander pads lasted over fifty thousand miles before replacement. If dodge thinks 20,000 miles is reasonable wear for pads , then this is the last Dodge I will ever own. I have never bought a foreign vehicle and never will , but if this is how Dodge takes care of there customers, it looks like it will be Fords and GMs for now on.

Update from May 12, 2010: After talking to the service manager, he replaced the pads and turned the rotors no charge and assured me that the replacement pads were "extended wear". If thats the case then Dodge needs to put these on the new vehicles, instead of the junk they come with. I surely hope that I won't be back at the dealership for premature brake pad failure . I encourage everyone to voice their concerns to Dodge and the service manager at the dealership. Make sure it's the service manager because when I was originally told of the situation, the service person who was helping me said there was nothing they could do about it.I wish you all luck with your dealer because they are the ones who ultimately took care of me not Dodge.

My breaks just had a little squeek, but I know enough about cars that I knew I should get it looked at. Had my husband take it in since he has a firestone right next to his work. When he called and said it need all new breaks and rotors, I almost divorced him for being taken as a sucker (not really totally love him, but I did yell) I myself could not go look at the rotors since I was not close to get over there. I started looking on line at all the complaints and figured I needed to appoligize to my husband...it is not acceptable that a new car need breaks and rotors with less then 30,000 miles. Looks like I got a little more out of mine then other people.

The more annoying part is two months later I needed all new tires! Way expensive!!!

I've lost a lot of respect for Dodge not only with their vehicles/performance but primarily because they do not recall their vehicles when obviously something has not been planned/built well (especially in this day and time)!! It is unbelievable to me that after barely 15,000 miles our brakes/rotors were not only trashed, but also not under warranty!! We are paying for a warranty on our Journey through the dealership....brakes/rotors were not covered by the warranty (we missed it by a few thousand miles....good planning on Dodge's part for their sake...ha..ha) nor was there a RECALL!!!!! For as much as we paid for the Journey & warranty, I would expect a better vehicle or at least the company providing recalls for problems THEY KNOW EXIST!!!!!!

My vehicle was not even a year old with 25000 miles and the front brakes were shot. My husband owns a 2004 Chevy and it still has same brakes. My father owns a 2006 Chevy and still has same brakes. I have owned a Suzuki Forenza, Chey Caviliar, and a Honda and none required early brakes replacements and I owned them no less than two years a piece with mileages over 100,000. I owned my Chevy for 6 years and only replaced the brakes once. Is this something I am going to have to do every 30,000 miles? If so, I would rather sell my car and buy another safer model, not dodge.

This is something Dodge needs to address immediately. I have 4 children and I would like the comfort of knowing my vehicle is safe. I have read many reviews with the same concerns so I know I am not alone.

I can understand that an SUV would go through brakes a little faster than sedans would but to tell me that the rotor needed replacing after only 40,000 kilometers?!?! I told the dealer to stuff it and just have the rotors machined, there should be plenty of metal on them to make it to the next brake pad change. And when that happens I'm getting some performance pads instead of the dealers OEM pieces of crap

The funny thing is I took my new vehicle in to have them find out what the squealing noise was from the front without the brakes applied, and they come back with the front brakes needing replacing already?

I'm with the others here on wondering if they are making cars too cheap nowadays and needing way too much in the way of repairs mere months after driving off the lot. Making "wearable" parts softer so they wear faster than they have in the past.

I bought a dodge journey 3/23/09 from Advantage Dodge in Mt Dora ,Fl and also purchased the extended warranty . I had this car serviced approximately 3 months ago and had dealer rotate tires approx 3500 miles ago and never mentioned brakes or rotors being bad. front brakes noise noticed around 3/09/10 and stop at dealer and no time to have look at. made appt for 3/20/10. dealer reports all rotors and brakes were bad and rotors could not be turned. replacement for all 4 rotors and brakes-725.00 .dealer states not covered under warranty and had to pay for repair.I called chrysler corp next am and was told sorry this is normal wear and tear and would not back their product. Next I received a call from a salesman at the dealership asking if I wanted to trade my vehicle in on a new one and that is when I blew my top. we have been paying for an extended warranty and feel this is not a normal occurrence and expected the dealer to cover this repair

Went to get tires and the tire shop said my brakes were shot, I thought sure just wanting to sell me a brake job, so I took it into the dealer to get some warrany work done and they came back with the same thing. Had to replace brakes and have the rotors turned. Picked my car up and went on a road trip, the brakes now shutter when I apply brakes going down hills. Took the car back to the dealer where the work was done and now they say I need to replace the rotors because they are warped and too thin to turn, I feel that this is a problem with this (Journey) car and they need to have the problem fixed with a recall. At lest mine held out to 32000 miles but I have 130000 on my Toyota and brakes are still good. WHAT THE HECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My car is brand new. I have previously owned a Dodge Caliber and decided to upgrade to a Journey, bad idea. On Monday my brakes started sounding so bad, I didn't want to break because of how bad they sounded. I brought the car in early this morning and the guy said that I need two new front routers and all that good stuff. He was like oh it's because of the way you drive, I was like yeah right dude. Left the car there to get it fixed, went online and found that many other people have encountered the same problem. Well I'm not staying quiet, I called Dodge Chrysler and they are going to get back to me today and tell me what I should do.

Call them at 18005219922, have the last 8 digits of your VIN number handy if not they can look you up. They said they are going to call me and let me know what they can do, I told them I don't care about the money, I don't want the same thing to keep happening over and over again. Not Cool! I might have to sell my car or something because if this is going to happen every 20k miles and its $400 to get new things, that like a downpayment (a nice one) to another vehicle. NO WAY DUDE! Just because I'm a chick doesn't mean I don't know a thing or two about a car. Call Dodge people! let them know so they can write it down and who knows maybe there is something wrong and with more and more complaints you could stop a fatal accident or something.

Update from Mar 18, 2010: Chrysler paid for 3/4 of the payment. I still had to dish out $100 out of pocket. But I asked them so what happens if this occurs again?! and they said we'll just have to wait and see because they have never heard of this before, and I was like go online you'll hear all about it and they were like people write things on the internet for anything and we cant always go by what they say, which is true. so people, if you had or are having this problem call chrysler, dont wait dont hessitate! they need to document these problems! in conclusion i got my car back but now im super paranoid about the breaks. still thinking about selling it but i love my car and its practically brand new. ehhh

Took delivery of this vehicle in June of 2009. Seven months and the front brake were shot. Dealer technicians did not seem to think anything of it. The usual comments were passed, you must be resting your foot on the brake when driving, this is normal wear(even after i informed them this vehicle is on the highway every day, and only approximately 20% of the driving done is city). They could say these things as the car is lady driven. I was very unsettled when i examined the car upon its return. I took the car back to the dealer and showed them i was not satisfied with the apparent quality of the work done. Their Service Director was summoned, who then admitted there was issues with brakes on the Journey. I also questioned why was there a multi point inspection on the work order when we did not request it. This was so they could inspect the rear brakes without actually saying so. Dodge needs to step up before damage is done.

Just like so many other Dodge Journey owners I too had to replace my brakes a 9,000 miles. Of course this was not covered by warranty. The mechanic tried to tell me that I need to stop driving with my left foot on the breaks and my right foot on the accelerator at the same time! Are you serious??? My left foot doesn't even know how to break! I tried it!!!! One month after replacing the breaks they started making all sorts of terrible noises again. I took it back and they put something called squeak no more or something like that. That worked for a week. Back to the mechanic, this time because the breaks had ruined the rotors. When is Dodge going to recall the breaks?????? This is my first and LAST Dodge. I'm going back to Ford!!!!!