Humans love a good gimmick. From the rotating gauge cluster in the McLaren 720S to the available shag-pile dashtop merkin in the third-generation Nissan Cube, delightful gimmicks add a little fun to cars, and Dodge’s Chill Zone added some delight to cars that so desperately needed it. Dodge isn’t the first automaker to put a beverage chiller in a car, but its specific implementation was gloriously simple and cost-effective. It brought a slice of luxury to the drab grey era of material cost management, and even if it only did an okay job of keeping cans cool, okay is a hell of a lot better than nothing.
Making its debut on the 2007 Dodge Caliber, the original Chill Zone was a contoured compartment inside the glovebox specifically designed to hold four 12-ounce cans or 20-ounce bottles. Further inside the dashboard, a duct picked up air from ahead of the heater core and delivered it to the Chill Zone, so with the air-con on and the level for Chill Zone ventilation flicked to the on position, four sodas of your choosing would stay reasonably cool, even on a long road trip.
Keep in mind, this isn’t a fridge. It’s just a cheap and uncomplicated way of using the air conditioning to keep your drinks cooler than they would be in the cupholders, a low-cost idea that works well enough to merit its implementation.
Soon after appearing on the Caliber, the Chill Zone spread across a good chunk of the Dodge lineup, including the Avenger midsize sedan and the Journey crossover utility vehicle. Like in the Caliber, it still used the A/C to keep drinks from getting too hot, so it definitely wasn’t a fridge. Still, it worked well enough to keep owners who don’t live on the surface of the sun happy, with positive testimonials easily found across the forums.
This guy on Caliber Forumz (yep, 2007 was a time) gets it. It’s just a neat little feature that works well enough and sparks joy. Likewise, the forum poster below gets it, in that the Chill Zone is better than the alternative.
Mind you, user operation played a huge role in the feature’s effectiveness, and users can be forgetful. Obviously, the Chill Zone won’t keep cold drinks cold-ish without the car running, and if you leave a can of pop in the compartment for several hot, sunny days, you might have a mess on your hands, as a few owners on the Dodge Journey Forum have found out.
Thankfully, the liner of the Chill Zone is removable and washable, but the jump scare of a can bursting isn’t exactly something you want to experience at 70 mph. Isn’t thermal expansion fun?
Unfortunately, the Chill Zone wasn’t to last. Soon after the formation of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, initiative was taken to make Chrysler interiors not feel completely awful. Starting in 2010 for the 2011 model year, the Chill Zone was out in favor of plastics that didn’t feel bargain basement. While everyone appreciated the improvements in interior materials, the disappearance of the Chill Zone was a shame. Sure, it wasn’t the greatest way of keeping drinks cool, but it was better than nothing, and better than nothing at a ridiculously low cost counts for something.
(Photo credits: Dodge, Caliber Forumz, Dodge Journey Forum)
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I finished my tenure achieving my retirement out of the location where the platform vehicles mentioned in this editorial were built. Belvidere assembly in Belvidere, Illinois. I am a 5th generation UAW Chrysler employee. We used to make fun of the so-called chill zone. Likely the best gimmick any automobile manufacturing company ever created lol. At the time during these vehicles were being made. They were highly profitable. The average medium vehicle was $27,000 and the company had a profit margin of just over $19,000 per unit. That’s right, $19,000 profit margin. Chill on that for a moment lol.
The cool box in the center console of a Lexus LX is the same way, just pipes the A/C through the box, doesn’t have a dedicated heat pump.
I was a quality engineer at Chrysler working on FWD platforms at that time and remember this as one of those cute features (like the hot/cold cupholders in top-trim JSes) that couldn’t even begin to make up for the execrable interiors.
Hyundai also did this briefly in the first Elantra GT but I never actually used the feature.
The local amusement park got misting pavilions with drink machines in the 90’s, branded it the Cool Zone. Very on brand for Cerberus-era Chrysler to be out of step with the times (although the Caliber goes the other direction – if it hung on for another generation of decrapification instead of getting the Dart, it would’ve been just in time for everyone offering compact crossovers).
I have one of these in my Odyssey. Just like the Dodge version it won’t cool down warm drinks but keeps already cold drinks cold. It’s a great feature for long road trips.
Rented a Caliber in Maui many years ago with this feature. It couldn’t hold up to the Hawaiian heat; a sunshield would have helped, but rental.
In the same day, Torch gave us analingus and Hundal gave us merkin.
Welcome to Autopian After Dark.
My MkV Golf had a valved port in the glove box that did the same thing. I never used it for drinks, but my gloves stayed nice and cold, which actually is counterintuitive.
My favorite gimmick in the Ram is the floor compartments under the backseats. While not specifically designed to function as an icebox… they work well as one as long as it’s not too hot inside of the truck.
What happens in winter? If the AC is off and the heater is on, will you have 74 degree sodas? Or does it pipe in outside air and keep them actually cold?
Swap the soda for canned coffee?
Or live in a place that doesn’t get that cold…
Sounds like the duct enters the “zone” after the AC condenser but before the heater core, so presumably if it is cold outside the cool outside air would chill the beverages. Though to your point, it seems like a system that wouldn’t be optimal in a temperate environment
My 2007 Saab 9-3 had a version of this. I got the vehicle via their European Delivery program. The woman who was walking me through the vehicle in Trollhattan pointed it out and made sure to explain that it would be good for keeping a bottle of water cool but I wouldn’t want to store ice cream in there “but maybe Norwegians might try that.” A funny little reminder of the good natured ribbing those two countries like to give each other.
Yes! I’ve got that in my 2005 9-3 convertible. Neat little trick even if the only thing I keep in there is insurance cards.
Peasants. My old Range Rover Sport had an actual fridge. And a television.
Tell me they worked consistently and I’ll be impressed.
Both worked flawlessly.
Not from Lucas then.
You’d need a telly to watch and a cocktail to drink while you waited for a tow.
The Range Rover / Land Rover fridge was pretty nifty. It used a TED, AKA the Peltier cell. Thermoelectric cooling – Wikipedia
Between the Chill Zone (ugh, I don’t even like typing it) and the heated/cooled cup holders in the Avenger, it’s as though Chrysler was trying to add gimmicks to make you forget how shitty the rest of the car was.
Chrysler has a proud history of putting lipstick on a pig instead of making the car better *cough TC by Maserati cough*
Also, the Sebring had Speed Grooves, they make the car go faster
All I can think of is “bing chilling” after seeing the top shot
“It’s like seeing the face of god!”
You seem to imply that an explosion chamber is a bad thing, and I don’t understand why.
I gotta admit it was pretty refreshing to see Chrysler interiors be designated a Chill Zone for a reason that didn’t involve weed.
my 2011 Tiguan has a glovebox cooling vent to keep drinks and snacks cool.
Thanks for the timely reminder that late aughts Chrysler interiors are absolute shite.
The 1984 Toyota Van’s ice maker scoffs at this.
My family had this when I was a kid. Even came with little bottle style ice cube trays. We only made ice with it once, just to see if it worked (it did). It would keep a six pack of soda nice and cool
I’m a little bummed my parents didn’t spring for one in our Van growing up. We still have the van so the ice maker probably would have been dead 30+ years ago anyhow.
Now they just need to bring it back, but with a screen that can stream netflix
I hope window tint comes standard.
It’s an extra $3.50 a month for non-tinted windows
So it’d cost more to be a… content creator?
My father in law had this in his first Journey. Eventually a water bottle swelled up enough that he couldn’t get it open. I didn’t find out how he solved it, all his plans involve way to many steps for me to keep listening. For all I know he traded it in on his second Journey with the bottles stuck inside.
Yes, he is a man who after having a tonne of transmission and electrical problems with his first Journey decided the smart thing to do was buy another one.
I’ve never even considered the possibility of someone owning two Journers in a row. You’d think they stop after a bad trip.
My 2011 9-5 has this feature. Or…had this feature, until I had to remove the glovebox to replace the cabin air filter. If it’s possible to reconnect the hose that feeds in the cool air, I don’t know the secret.
As did the first gen 9-5s… all the way back in 1999. In my 2001, I always thought it a gimmick.
Our Q7 has a little knob with a snowflake on it in the glovebox. The hole is so small though I doubt it would be able to actually chill anything. It’s pretty weird.
It should just slide kinda loosely onto the nipple on the glovebox right next to the connections for the in-glovebox light, and that should be it. And I can confirm that the 9-5 glovebox is perfectly-sized for a bottle of champaign (er, sparkling wine) to chill in there without rolling around everywhere.
My ’12 Odyssey had a similar feature. What I discovered is that it would rapidly convert the 40 degree beverages you put in there into 65 degree beverages. Probably would’ve been great if you left a bottle in a hot car and needed to make it drinkable, but I never found myself in that position. Eventually it became the spot where we kept the Kleenex.
You may remember me as the guy who also said he didn’t use the picnic table in his CR-V.
We still have a ’13 Odyssey with this and can confirm.
It definitely can convert the 90 degree yuck-beverage you left on the console while the car was parked to a 70 degree tolerable-beverage… eventually… if your ride is long enough.
2015 Odyssey owner here – the “if your ride is long enough” is spot on. We only use it on road trips, and even then it is only used as an overflow for when there are too many drinks to put in the cooler we place between the middle seats.