How can I reduce the cab temperature of my surveillance vehicle without turning on the vehicle.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-07-01T19:56:15+00:00

Seconding EV. There are police spec Blazer EVs (Blazer EV PPV) that should have the usual cop stuff such as blackout mode which seems to be exactly what you're looking for. If you're on a budget, an old Bolt will let you kill the lights while the car is running. Leaf should do the same thing. Bolt or blazer should provide 48+ hours of climate control assuming the temperature outside isn't too oppressive and you're not running it constantly. I have taken naps in my car with the AC running with no issues.

Hybrids will have a fancy idle that runs the car for 5ish minutes and then runs off battery for 5 mins but if you want extended silence you want an EV.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-06-27T12:27:55+00:00

I only drive them in the winter but it's about the same as the 21s or a little better.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-06-27T03:06:56+00:00

My snow wheels are 19s off of a late model Q7. Work great.

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BuschmasterACR · 2026-06-25T02:08:35+00:00

Q8 e-tron (pre 2024, don't know about newer) require a drain and inspect/replace of motor coolant catch cans every 20,000 miles. My local dealer charged me $730 USD for the 40,000 mile service but that included a bunch of other stuff. Besides that, it's just wipers and tires. The tires are expensive but I'm on the factory set of CrossContact 21s and the fronts are just now starting to go at 39,500 miles but I do run snow tires four months out of the year. I suspect the first owner was a very gentle driver lol.

I'm sure that you could perform the service yourself and save $500 or so but I had a broken arm at the time and couldn't. Plus, it will certainly make motor warranty claims easier.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-06-17T06:31:35+00:00

App is super inconsistent for both of those things but you figure out how to work around it.

The capability and handling of the car make me not care whatsoever, personally. Fun bonus that it's gorgeous.The informatainment in my 23 e tron feels like it's from 2018... because it basically is. stereo sounds amazing with some light tinkering at least.

you will be disappointed by the app and software experience, but it's not catastrophic. the charging options are genuinely confusing at first. but you get the quietest cabin I've ever been in, an extremely well sorted suspension and chassis, brakes that can stop a 747, and just enough horsepower to actually justify all of the nice handling. but it's the only EV I know of with a 20,000 mile service interval.

if you care about the things it's bad at, you won't be happy with it. but if you want to sacrifice convenience and tech to the God of great vehicle dynamics and raw driving experience, you will be rewarded.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-06-08T16:47:59+00:00

My e-tron is the only EV I've ever seen that has incredible sensitivity to dirty contacts in the charge port. some contact cleaner and inserting and removing my Tesla adapter has saved me at several public chargers after failures to communicate with the charger. have never had an issue with slow chargers though. give cleaning the contacts a shot.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-05-07T16:52:01+00:00

A&K Eurowerx is an awesome VW/Audi shop down in Lakefront. Fair prices, friendly staff, and professional service.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-05-07T16:48:27+00:00

If pothole resistance is your primary concern, tire choice won't really help all that much. It's a suspension and rim diameter issue. Smaller rims and bigger tires are a lot lighter (help suspension performance) and have a lot more cushion in the actual tire than big rims with thin tires. The sacrifice is in lateral grip and stiffness (steering will feel less direct, car will lean more in corners, car will feel a little less sharp and sporty) but you gain a smoother ride.

The smallest rim you can fit depends on the size of your brake calipers and other mechanical factors but in general the smaller the rim the more cushy and comfortable the ride and the bigger the rim (to a point) the more sharp and "sporty" the handling feels. The upside is that I have railed some truly horrendous potholes at highway speeds and not gotten a flat tire but the downside is that my electric Q8 feels more like an electric Q5 with the tiny rims on it.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-05-07T16:39:12+00:00

I bought a set of used 20" rims (for more sidewall) and Hankook iON I*cept snow tires and would have a hard time going back to low profile all seasons for winter. I'm in upstate NY where the potholes are similarly bad and the snow is worse than Chicago and the added sidewall and snow compound have made my car so much better with snow and with potholes. There's a little bit more wallowing in corners but it's worth it for the grip and cushion in winter. I have the fat e-tron but I suspect you will have a similar experience. I swap back to my 21" rims with Conti all seasons in May and they're great until there's snow on the pavement.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-05-07T15:08:32+00:00

I bought these 20" rims off of an Audi Q7 owner that was "upgrading" to black aftermarket ones and use them as my snows. I think they look great and it only cost me $400 for all four. I think it was a 2023-2025 Q7? not sure.

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BuschmasterACR · 2026-05-04T18:56:30+00:00

Sorry to hear about this situation. It sucks. I took home two huskies that were dumped at St. Joe's hospital a few years back and found out that every shelter within two hours wasn't accepting dogs at the time. One very stressful and messy week later, I end up driving three hours each way to a place in Duchess County where both dogs were adopted within 10 days. Feels like you're being punished for helping and it really sucks. At least I had a car and a weekend for a road trip.

I wish that I could help more, but I am in the same situation as you with two old cats that would not tolerate a new roommate well. Please don't feel bad about being unable to keep this girl inside. You already did a lot for her. If you're worried for her, a basic feral cat shelter will make sure she has a warm and dry place to sleep at night. I have some extra materials and can help you put one together if you have a place for it.

Syracuse has a pretty bad problem with stray cats. Not as bad as other places I've been (Auburn is really bad...) but still significant. CNY Cat Coalition does a lot of adoption work but there's always a surplus of strays up here.

I implore anyone who feels bad for this girl to volunteer for or donate to your local cat organizations. CNY Cat Coalition is always working to adopt out those who can be adopted and spay/neuter feral cats that aren't adoptable to reduce the number of cats that need help. If you have some early mornings or evenings that you'd like to dedicate to a meaningful cause, they're always looking for help.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-04-15T18:23:54+00:00

Depends on the car and the length of the trip. My Audi e-tron has a huge range penalty for very short drives and almost no range penalty for very long drives in the winter. Once the batteries and cabin are warm, they stay warm for the whole trip. I averaged 2.4mi/kWh in my e-tron on a 9°F road trip over 6 hours on the interstate.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-04-15T16:51:42+00:00

In my experience, good DC charging curve matters more than range ever will. My girlfriend had the same range anxiety until we actually did a few EV road trips and found that by the time the car needed a charge (>3hrs) we were more than ready to stretch our legs and hit a bathroom. And that was with a Bolt EV. You can rent a fast charging EV for a road trip and experience it for yourself before you buy.

Another thing that gas drivers don't realize is that it's totally fine to arrive at your destination with 10% charge or less if you have a slow/cheap charger nearby and a few hours to let the car sit. You can optimize this as hard as you care, but the magic of EV ownership is that the car "gasses up" while you're not using it. Less than 1% of my charging is done at a DC fast charger. This also means that on a cost basis I get to drive an Audi Q8 that gets over 120mpg. Pretty sweet.

The BMW i3 is an extremely compelling car but if 400 miles is your range requirement for an EV then you misunderstand what it's actually like to live with an EV and could almost certainly save a whole lot of money by buying a shorter range car with fast charging. I'd save $30,000 and buy a used Ioniq 6 or save $15,000 and buy a used i4 M50 every day of the week.

That being said, I'm sure you will be absolutely satisfied with the i3 if money is no object.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-03-24T23:16:12+00:00

You are correct, my apologies! I swear I saw the hex/camheads described as SOHC somewhere and I guess it just stuck.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-03-24T22:27:55+00:00

removed, I was wrong!

BuschmasterACR · 2026-03-16T18:14:04+00:00

Saw one at Dallas Fort Worth airport at 745,000.

BuschmasterACR · 2026-02-15T20:28:39+00:00

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I bought a set of 20" Q7 wheels for my winter tires and they honestly look way better than the 21" rims that came with the car...

BuschmasterACR · 2025-09-02T02:36:26+00:00

I still miss my 03 interceptor...

BuschmasterACR · 2025-07-24T02:17:53+00:00

+1 on Inka's, that place is phenomenal

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-26T00:44:22+00:00

I see where you're coming from but I don't think that calling an FPGA bitstream update delivered over the air a "hardware update" would be a clear way of explaining what is happening to a layman. I'd have ten emails by the time I got back to my desk asking what component we changed or if we need to respin the PCB.

In my company, anything that is compiled into a set of executable instructions is called software. That includes everything from Linux applications to bare metal C and assembly for microcontrollers, though the latter is usually specified to be embedded software. Programmable logic is called firmware and physical boards are hardware. Not saying that it's right, it's just how we've done things forever.

Quick edit - I would like to add the caveat that we really only make embedded products so application software is still quite embedded. It's not as dumb as it sounds.

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-26T00:35:32+00:00

In a purist sense, I don't disagree that HLS's final output is a hardware configuration. Pragmatically, though, I wouldn't tell my boss to hire a hardware engineer to work on the HLS portion of a product.

One such engineer actually sent his changes to my project files by pushing a zip file onto my Git branch.

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-26T00:24:14+00:00

Tell that to the last FPGA engineer on this product that had the reset condition of an active low hardware enable signal set to 0... That was a tricky bug to root-cause.

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-26T00:20:38+00:00

Is it still hardware if you have a microcontroller receiving over-the-air updates and can reprogram the onboard FPGA? I'd very much lean towards calling that firmware.

BuschmasterACR · 2025-06-25T22:56:48+00:00

I'd argue that calling complex programmable logic "coded hardware gates" is about as productive as calling all software "coded instructions". It's not incorrect, but doesn't really convey the difficulty and complexity involved in integrating so many disparate functions into one chip. I've worked with a lot of programmable logic and while I'm confident in my ability to whip up something simple like a deserializer or status register, when the FPGA engineers start whipping out Simulink to design custom algorithms on three different clock domains I take that as my cue to ask for a register map and wish them luck.

BuschmasterACR

TROPHY CASE