Just need to vent...

What happened this time? Your third-party regulator module went kaput?

Did I read the post correctly, that somewhere within the fridge there is 24v, and this is supposed to be bucked down to 12v for the interior light?

 

Becoming a master at something has a long tradition in China I guess. But when the bosses want to make 30% of the world’s violins or instruments, for profit, something is lost Imo. Not that there aren’t examples given the volume made.

 

The Sonic manual only warned against using 85 octane in the turbo engine. Chargers get the in cylinder air densities up to sea level.

 

... and beyond.

 

Economics are driving me nuts:

I'd like to be able to buy a home and save up enough to retire some day.

Yet, I feel like I can't in spite of the fact that I make more than a median wage, am virtually debt free, don't gamble nor have any addictions, don't have any health issues nor take medications, I don't have any subscription services except Microsoft Office 356 and AAA, I own a car that's paid for and gets over 40mpg and hasn't had any major issues in the 6 years or so I've owned it, I have the cheapest internet that's been virtually free, and I have what is very likely the cheapest rent in all of town.

I suppose that moving to some other state, or perhaps country, could help solve my problem. Here, the cheapest mortgage would be nearly my entire salary. Here, nobody offers 401K's or other retirement plans, so it's up to me to save everything myself, and I've started a bit late in my 50's. Here medical insurance has been going through the roof and is taking up a large percentage of my income even with Obamacare help and on the cheapest bronze plan that will still make me go bankrupt with it's nearly $9,000 per person/$18,000 per fam deductible.

But I don't want to move.

 

My related gripe - When the fridge manufacturer uses bulbs that melt the plastic housing to make it look bright. I had to replace several internal parts to correct the problem with LED bulbs on my "reliable" Maytag fridge.

JeffD

ps: That fridge has had to be repaired four times now. It replaced a 20 year old GE that never needed repair.[

 

It’s worth the extra to go to the best plan. But staying on the bronze, 9000 is chicken feed in medical care. Ambulance rides are 1000’s. Some day you will hit 65 and have Medicare, and probably a supplemental.
In the past two years I have had to spend 7000+ and counting on my dog. Since he was an older dog when I got him with conditions, they say sorry preexisting conditions are not covered by your insurance.
I believe they fixed that for humans under President Obama.
As for houses I believe buying is almost always better than renting. Especially looking down the road.

 

For my household, that would likely be closer to 50% of my entire income. There's no way I could afford anywhere near a best plan.

I'm spending nearly $1,000 per month now. What's worse, a $1,000 ambulance ride or a few more $1,000's per month on premiums?

 

What would the premium be for the second-lowest-cost silver plan in your area?

 

Ambulance rides are 1000’s. That gets you in the door. Hospital stays or surgeries go into big money. At least you have something for anything big, because before the ACA it was out of control.

 

HIPAA fixed it some (Clinton, 1996)—the P was for 'portability'—at least as long as you could show you hadn't gone uninsured for 63 days, they couldn't tell you sorry on preexisting.

That still left room for games; I had one insurer pretend not to have received my premium for two months after I'd sent it, and were very close to the magic 63-day mark by the time I got them to admit receiving it. And they ran the same play again the next quarter (but I'd learned who to call for results the first time, so they didn't get as close the second time).

By the next quarter after that, the doctors had figured out the condition they were worried about wasn't going to be expensive, so the insurer went back to acknowledging my payments right away as they always had before.

ACA fixed it better (Obama, 2010).

For really "out of control", just remember the world pre-HIPAA.

 

Ambulance rides are comparatively cheap.

A helicopter life flight to a major trauma center is what really costs. $50k from my location.

Had a friend who put down his bike to avoid a car coming out of a parking lot. I saw his hospital bill. In 14 years ago $s it was $1.3M. Not including the flight that saved his leg. It just so happened he was the head of the state insurance brokers association so he was fortunate.

 

Before we had insurance my wife went in for a problem that we got a bill for some $100,000. Thankfully it turned out they accidentally added another zero and it was in reality about $10,000. That was still a lot of money and it took a long time to pay it off.

I guess, though, it's best to look at the bright side. If something major happens health-wise, we're covered. We have a roof over our head, even if we have to rent it. We have food. We have clothing. And best of all, we have each other.

And who knows, when my parents pass away maybe I'll have some sort of inheritance to finally buy a home or something.

 

Today's vent is focused on a rented 2023 Ford Escape. I'm traveling and I've spent about 10 hours behind the wheel of this thing now.

The Escape is Ford's small SUV, and we're already in trouble.

It is both longer and wider than the original Ford Explorer SUV- so much for smaller.

This car has a fairly aggressive idle-prevention system, as is common on many new cars. After driving a Prius, it's no big deal to notice the engine shut down when stopping, and then feel it start up again when accelerating.

But a Prius can do this much more smoothly than most cars...

This Escape for example, starts the engine very quickly and whips all the slack out of the driveline with a mighty CLANK! each time I slip my foot off the brake. It comes with a pretty good kick in the seatback, too. It very definitely feels like the sort of thing most drivers would try to avoid doing to their cars, but since it is (apparently) an ordinary feature of this Ford I just let it do its thing. It's loud enough to turn heads at stoplights.

The dashboard display is not terribly easy to understand, mostly because the designer chose some pretty unconventional ways to illustrate linear readouts for water temp and fuel level, and then used a completely different style for the tachometer. The same display animates all sorts of other messages in and out. It's been furiously trying to get me to add windshield washer fluid with a suite of images and text panels that animate in and out at random times.

Naturally, they signed the car out to me with just enough fluid in the reservoir to avoid tripping the low level sensor. I'll do my best to return it in the same condition.

The infotainment system in the car is (whatever the 2023 version of Ford Sync is). It took many, many steps while parked on the side of the road to figure out that it can't do app projection- Apple CarPlay while playing back audio from a bluetooth source. One or the other, but not both. (I regularly use CarPlay navigation while listening to a Sony music player in our Prius and our 2020 Mazda at home.)

Next bit of the vent needs visual aids:



Close-up detail of the rear hatch. Notice the little black plastic pod which most definitely does not have the hatch release button on the end of it. This is actually the rear vision camera mount. (the hatch release is under the lip, to the left)

Some renter before me appears to have been convinced that this was the hatch release, and pushed the 'button' pretty hard.

So now the camera has been dislodged and provides a limited view:



So you get a few vents in one here.

• The current-generation Ford Escape no longer represents a smaller SUV, it is full-size now.
• Automatic stop-start on this car is CLANK! not smooth or graceful at all. I can't imagine that this is not hard on the CV joints and transmission mounts.
  
• Ford Sync infotainment remains years behind the curve
• Hidden hatch release button invites clueless fingers on the rear vision camera
  
• Hertz (still) isn't taking good care of their fleet
• CLANK!

 

I hate the auto shutdown on my Subaru Outback.

I can turn it off, but you have to do it each time you start the car unless you pay $100 for an aftermarket gizmo. My dad taught us that starting an engine was one of the worst things you do to your car.
Kris

 

Once upon a time there was some truth to that, but I don't think it's worth worrying about any more.

For most modern cars it is merely annoying.

On the other hand, it might be the only way this SUV is giving 30.something MPG instead of in the 20s. Pretty bad overall.

 

I was manually turning previous cars off while driving them.

 

If that was still a bad thing for all engines, then the whole Prius family would be in a world of hurt.

 

"the whole Prius family would be in a world of hurt" And engine oil analyses (some presented here) would show where hurt happens.

However no hurt here. All those other restarting vehicles can tell their own stories. In their websites

 

modern synthetics have helped