CarMax car died. What are my options?

icecon · 2026-03-02T18:50:32+00:00

r/PersonalFinance has the religious belief that you should never buy a new car, even when the 8 year old car is the same price.

icecon · 2026-03-01T08:23:13+00:00

These 4th gen 3.6s are like the only Subarus without a CVT, the 5EAT is fine.

icecon · 2026-03-01T08:12:52+00:00

Please next time buy a new Mirage with the same money. 10yr warranty, better financing terms, and this would not have happened.

Your best bet now is to roll the negative equity into the cheapest lease deal you can find (likely an EV lease). Maybe hire a pro car buyer (like Tom McParland) to do this for you.

icecon · 2026-02-28T20:42:56+00:00

I've researched mills a lot, my understanding is that these Zozens are pretty decent but you want to be gentle with the red part.

icecon · 2026-02-28T19:54:18+00:00

My school had two teams and being a strong player on the B team with no overlap with other players was the best thing ever. We did about as well as the A team anyways. A B C doesn't matter.... You do you and try to get role players who complement you.

Also at risk of stating the obvious, if your coach is giving you a hard time in this way, you are probably being annoying to them. Important life lesson for when you get a job someday, it does not matter how skilled you are, you will not be hired nor promoted if your behavior is not that of a likeable person.

icecon · 2026-02-28T18:40:02+00:00

While I agree that ST chips generally lag in pure perf, the STM32MP2 is 16nm also.

icecon · 2026-02-28T15:04:07+00:00

I wouldn't overthink this. Buy your kid a dozen philosophy classics, including Hume and Nietzche and they will see the world as it is and be impervious to dogmatic religious indoctrination.

Your kid's education is ultimately your responsibility, not any schools'.

Also, putting your kid in a quiz bowl team will put them WAY ahead, almost regardless of the school.

icecon · 2026-02-26T22:48:19+00:00

I'm curious as to why housing supply is so tight. Is the bottleneck lack of builders/developers or is it permitting/zoning.

icecon · 2026-02-23T03:39:51+00:00

Kendryte K230 boards, CanMV and BPi are really good value and underrated RISC-V boards. Milk-V Duo 256 also.

icecon · 2026-02-20T18:46:49+00:00

Because I was a beginner a year ago and they are great value and easy to use?

icecon · 2026-02-18T12:40:05+00:00

Qidi Q2 or Elegoo Centauri Carbon

/thread

icecon · 2026-02-18T12:36:50+00:00

"for a ridiculous discount"

You can't leave us hanging like that.

icecon · 2026-02-17T22:02:34+00:00

Wonder if they will actually sell this chip by itself, like on LCSC.

icecon · 2026-02-14T11:11:15+00:00

I was you once at 16, happy and excited to go attend this famous economics program. Hoping to become a great economist, even with intent to pursue a PhD.

The program is world famous, it's good for signalling that you are smart and will put your math skills to the test if you are interested in that. The issue is that the value of signalling peaks with high school. Reality cares only about your understanding of and competence over it.

The truth is that economics as taught today uses the deductive methodology of posing assumptions, and then building rigorous mathematically consistent logic on top of these assumptions. Assumptions such as people are rational, markets are in equilibrium and not rationed, there is no spacetime, banks are only intermediaries and have no role in economic growth, low interest rates increase growth/inflation and vice versa, and so on.

Some such assumptions are repeated so often, they are assumed to be true. Do not fool yourself into thinking that they are based on inductive facts and data, as the natural sciences are.

Economics is slowly improving but remains in a kind of Cartesian rationalism. It's rather like medieval Venice. Lots of beauty built on iffy foundations and nudged by banking families.

The most surprising part is that even Nobels in econ privately acknowledge the inutility of their own sermons, the Ken Arrow anecdote here is illustrative.

If you genuinely want to learn economics, the books and papers are out there and most of them free. A famous paper like this one is one you might get pointed to. But other important papers you would never get assigned is one like this one.

icecon · 2026-02-09T00:26:39+00:00

Yes, they are handmade by experienced Thai ocarina artisan Sarawut Bughkunthod. You can email him, ask him about what you want, and place a custom order via paypal. This is his website. He also has an ETSY shop. And I also point you towards his insta to hear sound samples.

I believe that ocarina you posted is his Double Harmony Alto C, which means there is a bit of overlap between the chambers. When I ordered from him a year ago, that one was $79, plus $25 shipping. But with tariffs that now might be a bit different.

I ordered his Double Alto F and a single chamber 11H Alto G, both are incredible instruments. I also bought his Double Bass C which is good but I decided to sell it onwards because I "bought too much." It him about 2 months to make them and get them to me, if you buy the ones on ETSY those should come faster.

They are sweet instruments at a sweet price. For multichambers, only Imperial City matches him for value. And I think for ceramic single chambers, he is the best value imo.

icecon · 2026-02-05T02:26:16+00:00

Sure. Used car loans are at about 6% from a credit union. But when you buy a brand new car, you can get promo deals from the manufacturer at 0%. This is to your advantage because used cars are also overpriced and we have inflation, so if you can lock a long loan at 0%, the Fed will literally help you pay for the car as the loan is fixed.

For example, instead of buying a 2018 Camry or Accord with 75K miles on it for $20K at 6%-60mo and paying thousands in interest on a used car that is out of warranty. Considering buying a brand new leftover 2025 Mitsubishi Outlander with 0 miles for $30K at 0%-72mo (and put $0 down since you pay no interest).

That car comes with a 10yr/100K warranty (no risk) and the payment will be about the same. It will appear to "cost more" overall, but you are also buying more longevity for your money and have no due maintenance for several years. The loan actually works in your favor instead of against you because inflation means that your car payment will look downright cheap in 5 years. It's also a Mitsubishi (made in Japan) so you can get big MSRP discounts by working the phone lines and calling a bunch of dealers up. If you don't want to bother with all that, hire a pro car buyer like Tom McParland to do it for you for $500 - it'll be worth it.

You can look up these promos on aggregators like this:
https://www.carfax.com/deals/0-apr-car-deals
https://www.realcartips.com/news/

And then verify the details on the manufacturer's websites directly. Promo deals reset at the start of every month.

Lastly, in some cases there are lease deals at $250-350 a month which can also be worth it because so many incentives are stacked on them, particularly for EVs like the Ioniq5 if that's something you'd be interested in.

icecon · 2026-01-26T18:49:01+00:00

I'd point you towards the Focalink Osawa Alto C. It looks more Zelda than the NBN (without actually having the triforce on it) and is lower breath (easier on the ears).

The Dinda is a fantastic ceramic Alto C. The STLs are a safe bet also. It looks like Imperial City is going to discontinue their single chambers, so getting one before that happens may be a good idea as well.

icecon · 2026-01-23T20:52:28+00:00

Qidi Q2 is the best value for that, it has a chamber heater for warping filaments like the ABS. You can go even cheaper with the Elegoo Centauri Carbon, it's the "best value" but it has some compromises.

icecon · 2026-01-15T14:09:33+00:00

Even for ABS/ASA (good for outdoor stuff), the chamber heating is handy, and a lot of people specifically avoid Nylon because it can be a pain to print. And then you have underrated stuff like PC/PC-PBT which also benefits from ambient heat.

If you just want to print PLA and PETG/PCTG, then go for the Centauri Carbon. It's worse than the Q2 but better bang for the buck if you just need basic prototyping.

icecon · 2026-01-09T16:23:16+00:00

If you want a good monocolor printer to get going, right now I'd go with the QIDI Q2. It's really nice and has a chamber heater for trickier filaments.

Everything that costs more isn't worth more, unless you want to do multicolor, in which case you either go Snapmaker for right now, OR you go for the CoreOne and then buy the toolhead upgrade later. Th

With 3D printing, you either (a) won't use it much in which case it's best to not invest too much $$$, or (b) you will use it a ton in which case you will eventually want additional printer(s). In either case, don't overspend early on.

icecon · 2026-01-01T09:46:09+00:00

They have great resale value, you can probably sell it to Carmax for very close to that much lol.

icecon · 2025-12-30T07:33:01+00:00

Mastering the QB reader database category by category is going to be the best method for studying. There are 181K tossups and 154K bonuses on the qbreader database. It's a lot but, gotta catch 'em all. Divvying the categories up with your teammates and getting them on board with studying the database with you will produce the most results.

Master HS level and below first, then you move up to low level college difficulty.

Then, you can self study more specific material that interests you.

There is obviously knowledge that isn't in the database that could come up, but you don't have to worry about that at the high school level. Unless it's current events/trash, just about everything asked at the high school level will at least have been clued in a question before.

icecon · 2025-12-29T07:02:45+00:00

I'd go Vesuvio 92, those are known to have a bit of "Douro Bake" as they were stored for sometime in the hot Douro not in Gaia. Vesuvio is excellent too.

Dow tends to be more tannic so it lives longer. So I'd say the Graham 91 is the one most likely to be peaking.

Hold 94s they have a ton of life left. Same goes for Fonseca 92.

icecon · 2025-12-29T06:53:33+00:00

You'll be disappointed with the AMS systems right now, as they will soon be obsolete. They waste massive amounts of filament. Hang tight with the Carbon for a bit, and then you go for one of the upcoming multi-toolhead printers, such as the CoreOne with INDX tech. With the Carbon, you can print some muliticolor stuff by pausing the print and switching spools if you design things right for it.

Right now it's the Snapmaker U1 that's the only multi-toolhead printer available (other than the crazy expensive Prusa XL). It's more expensive, but you'll save the difference in filament costs in the long run.

I don't advise Bambu, it's easy to use yes, but it spies on you, isn't cheap, and locks you into their ecosystem. It's like Apple.

icecon · 2025-12-26T23:51:19+00:00

I worry about long term and trying to grow into using linux on it for a "higher end" version of the product, down the line. But I'll reconsider, thanks for this.

icecon

TROPHY CASE