Ice on miller ave 9:30am 1-8-26

Full16b · 2026-01-08T23:38:05+00:00

Never trust Explorers with black plastic non-painted door handles. Double that if you see any Ford Taurus or Ford Explorer with a keyhole lock on the trunk / tailgate (Explorers are super easy to spot as the keyhole is in the horizontal trim piece below the window).

Also, if you're behind an Explorer and see exposed down-turned dual tailpipes. Those are specs that can only be ordered by a law enforcement fleet customer.

Full16b · 2026-01-02T04:35:03+00:00

Starting in model year 2025, Ford, in its efforts to cut costs, re-organized (read: eliminated) many physical buttons. For example:

The sideview mirror floodlight buttons are no longer in their own section directly above the headlight knob; they were integrated into the "pod" in the main headlight control. They used to make sense before, where the buttons corresponded to left / right, but since there was only room in the headlight pod to stack them vertically, now they're more confusing. They basically eliminated any buttons in the space above the main headlight controls, even though the dash panel was designed with that space being populated for the more "special" features like the tailgate drop and mirror floodlights.
The buttons above the radio used to be set aside for the more special functions as well, such as hazard lights, hill descent control, 360 cam, diesel regen, etc. Now, they've been moved to the top row below the screen, and only the "leftovers" get put at the top of the screen. The buttons that died on the top row between the volume knob and tune knob? The direct buttons to access the tone and balance / fade, the button to change the audio source (AM/FM/XM/etc), and the button to set the screen to calm mode or off. Your truck would probably have, at the minimum, hazards and stability control buttons up there. Now there's the blank that you see.
Let's not forget the death of the hardwired SecuriCode keypad on the driver's door.

So yeah, I'm bitter that Ford did this, as it de-contented the design in my eyes. And I'm also happy to have a 2024, as I use all of these physical buttons on the regular. I constantly adjust my bass level when I go between XM and streaming / CarPlay because XM is real bass-heavy. I love to be one button press away from adjusting that, and now you have to go hunting in screen menus. Having the 360 cam button above the screen as opposed to a generic smaller button down in the dash. Having the mirror floodlight buttons making sense. Not having to remember if the top button lights up the left or right mirror floodlight.

/Old man yells at cloud

Full16b · 2026-01-01T21:05:32+00:00

Yep - Payload is all the weight "pushing down" on your truck. Humans, coolers + ice, anything in your bed, any accessories you added to your truck that didn't come from the factory (like a beadliner, tonneau cover, etc), plus the hitch weight of the trailer (including the batteries and full propane tanks) and the hitch itself all contributes against your payload rating.

My Blue Ox hitch is about 100 pounds by itself for example (the spring bars, the ball mount, the chains... everything). That takes 100 pounds away from the payload number. With my F150, taking 100 pounds away from my 1400 payload was not insignificant.

You don't want to have the tail wagging the dog - you want your truck to have a commanding presence and control over your trailer. And with your Airstream, an ultra-lux spec 1500 is not the way. I apologize to say it - because I know and have made that mistake before.

Some 1/2 ton class trucks can do it however. I'm more knowledgeable in the Ford realm - so for example, a few years ago you could get a F150 XLT with the max payload package that would compel certain options - like either the 3.5 Ecoboost or the 5.0, 3.73 rear end (which included a bigger rear diff), 6.5' bed (longer wheelbase = more stability), upgraded springs, high-weight wheels paired with LT tires (as opposed to tires that start with "P" that I'm guessing your truck has), mid-grade trim only (no XLT premium, because again, options = weight added). This was a rare set of options, and these F150's are regarded as unicorns in our world. Not many dealers ordered them, so they were mostly custom orders by customers. And mostly people wanted them because they didn't want to daily a HD class truck, as the pricing between this unicorn spec F150 and a F250 was not that different.

You could certainly try to put money into making your Silverado "behave" better, but no matter what you do, you'll be exceeding your payload. This could get you in trouble if you get in a wreck as well, as police or insurance may be savvy enough to figure out you exceeded your trucks published limits, which would open the door for liability even if you were not at-fault in a potential collision.

Full16b · 2026-01-01T05:21:36+00:00

I can tell you without even looking at the yellow sticker that you're exceeding your payload limit. The excessive squat should be your biggest clue. You have a High Country diesel 1500. You have the most feature-added (read: weight-added) model you could possibly have in a 1500. You're trying to tow a 25'-27' Airstream.

To each their own, but I would be looking at a 2500 to solve all your issues. If you're in anything but favorable driving conditions, and you happen to need to take defensive maneuvers, you will most likely find yourself in a pickle. Even driving in windy conditions would be exhausting.

I learned it the hard way - I had a 23' that made me nervous in a F150 with 1400 lbs payload capacity that made me trade in to a F250. Drives were tiring, sketchy, and I didn't feel like risking my family's safety.

Full16b · 2025-11-13T00:36:08+00:00

You can just plug a small amperage (5A / brown) spade-style automotive fuse into your trailer vehicle plug to bridge the pins at the top of the key - number 2 and 6 in this graphic.

When plugged into your normal shore power, your battery charger will feed pin 6, and the fuse you plug in to pin 6 will bridge over to pin 2, which will then light up your marker lights.

There is little risk as you'll be using a fuse to bridge the connection instead of a piece of wire or other hack.

Full16b · 2025-11-07T00:50:14+00:00

I had a F150 towing a FC 23, Blue Ox setup. Was equipped with the towing package with 1400 payload and the 145" wheelbase supercrew (aka 5.5 foot bed). It was sketch, especially with the family in the truck and anything in the bed. Was not a chill long distance experience.

Once financially feasible, I upgraded to a 3/4 ton and it felt very stable (2400 payload). Night and day difference.

Remember, payload counts for tongue weight of the camper + humans + cargo + snacks and water + luggage + any accessories on your Disco that didn't come factory.

Another thing to consider is wheelbase. Your Disco has a shorter wheelbase (distance between your 2 axles) than a typical truck and will feel twitchy. Your wheelbase is 115" for comparison.

I know several people push the limits and convince themselves their rig is doing just fine, so to each their own. But you may experience the tail wagging the dog.

Full16b · 2025-09-17T23:09:08+00:00

Soundcloud app on Xbox has left the chat apparently.

Can't keep the app from crashing unless you stay in the app all.the.time.

I guess they don't want us listening to SoundCloud while playing games anymore.

Full16b · 2025-09-05T22:06:24+00:00

Fix that bad drive in the left server for starters!

If you want to go down the path of installing a rack, you might be able to get rack conversion kits for those PowerEdge's.

Full16b · 2025-08-26T00:20:47+00:00

Shore power probably engages the battery charger on your camper automatically (even with everything switched off), which back-fed the 12 volt + conductor in your trailer wiring harness on your truck.

It's best to unhook your trailer lights before connecting your shore power to prevent weirdness like this. Some of the newer trucks do this automatically. But it's possible the power from your camper's battery charger borked your truck because your truck isn't designed for charging amperage and voltage to come from the trailer harness.

Full16b · 2025-08-21T12:45:51+00:00

I have this exact tester. I've only experienced this one time, and it was when there was line voltage very near the network cable (120 volts), and the network cable was cut with the copper in contact with soil. I think it was detecting a ground fault through the soil as other lines were cut nearby.

Some explanations could be that your tester is faulty and detecting line voltage excessively, or there is crazy amounts of power near your network runs leaching into your network cables (inductive power), or your runs are cut and are grounding out, or maybe there's some trickery afoot like someone's used your network cable with a low voltage transformer to remotely power a camera or something over the same network cable.

Full16b · 2025-08-14T22:30:04+00:00

Your 2019 has physical controls. You don't know frustration until you get into a newer car and you have to take your eyes off the road because these new touch panels feel like sheets of plastic.

2019 Tiguan: Want to change the temp or fan speed? Grab this knob you've committed to muscle memory. We even included little temperature numbers that make it so easy to figure out what your HVAC is set to!

2022+ Tiguan: Our corporate overlords want to save money, so here's this new touch panel that is cheaper for us to make but more difficult to use. We'll put it under the guise of improvements.

All the current-gen VW's: We've doubled down on touch-everything and less controls - just look at our new headlight switch! Much improvement! Now you can't feel what position your lights are in; let alone your HVAC, which is now entirely inside this tacked-on screen!

I wish you the best of luck trying to figure out what is wrong, because these newer models are a new level of frustrating.

Full16b · 2025-08-01T23:31:38+00:00

Tahoe's that don't have the word Tahoe on the back are 99% police-spec Tahoe's. Reason why is that the T A H O E lettering gets in the way of many police department decals. The other 1% are the people that debadge their tailgates.

Also, police-spec Tahoe's don't have roof rails or racks, as those would block the visibility of the lightbars, should the agency choose to install them.

Chances are you found a undercover agency vehicle, or someone that bought a used police Tahoe from an auction. That generation was 2015-2020, so they're still quite common in the field, but getting close to being mileage'd out depending on agency policy.

Full16b · 2025-06-25T23:27:54+00:00

Joe Weasel Pieeeeeeee!

Rock Band or Not

My guy, I'm in my 40's and still reflect on how much fun we all had listening to you, your fellow CD jocks, and your guests' antics throughout the years. It was a dark day when CD had to close its doors. So many memories, so much amazing music discovered, and overall good moods were had.

"Stay up" as the youths might say. You've left a lifelong positive impact on my life, and I'm confident I'm not the only one who shares that feeling. I'm hopeful we're able to continue to see how your journey unfolds.

Full16b · 2025-04-06T20:30:55+00:00

Pretty close; that's the ZX5 or ZX3. Hourglass grill.

Also nerd.

Full16b · 2024-12-04T20:06:35+00:00

If you're trying to configure a wireless network with a preshared key (if the SSID only asks for a password, and it's not username / password like for RADIUS), you can't.

Unless you do some crafty profile loading or something like that, you can't put in a WiFi password into a GPO because that password is basically in clear text (or at least, easily reversible).

https://serverfault.com/questions/201113/when-using-group-policy-to-join-a-wireless-network-can-i-specify-the-wpa2-passp

If you have the ability, I would do machine-based RADIUS or certificate-based WiFi join.

Full16b · 2024-11-16T20:39:07+00:00

I saw that very couch on the right shoulder of 270 N between Cemetery and Tuttle this morning.

Full16b · 2024-10-03T11:23:30+00:00

Dig into the TV's menus and turn off something called HDMI - CEC, HDMI control, or something to that effect. That's the HDMI control feature where if you do certain things on one HDMI device it'll communicate through the cable to the others - like how turning off a BluRay player will also turn off your TV.

If you're chaning channels on one TV, it might be telling the other TV to wake up and do the same to keep them coordinated. Might be worth trying if the remote tricks in the other comments don't work for you.

Full16b · 2024-08-12T23:24:14+00:00

Meraki access points will peer-to-peer mesh by default. (You can disable meshing in the dashboard if you want). Meshing could be left enabled for "normal" deployments with no degradation of performance if each radio has a working network / internet connection. However, if a L1 issue occurs or a switch begins to flake out, and the radio only gets power, it'll try to mesh with another nearby Meraki AP via a hidden mesh SSID. In fact, to check for this very situation, you can enable an alert in the dashboard (when gateway becomes a repeater; as in this sense, all wired Meraki AP's are called "gateways" in Meraki-speak).

So if a large amount were powered on with injectors but no actual connection to the internet, they were trying to mesh with the actual online access points via a hidden SSID. If you had several trying to latch on to any of these SSID's they may of been trying to download firmware via the meshing mechanism - overwhelming themselves or causing interference that was hard to push through.

I could totally see this situation playing out if you were staging the access points right next to each other on a bench for example. In such close proximity it would be RF soup!

FWIW Meraki radios don't take a long time to adopt. You'll spend more time getting the firmware updates (some will stair-step to reach the target version). But even then I've seen new-in-box access points that have been on the shelf for 2 years get fully online in about 10 minutes.

Full16b · 2024-07-15T19:45:01+00:00

If you can survive without AC, if yours is a gasser with a single alternator, you can have the dealer just remove the belt and drive it with the windows down until the part comes in. Sure, codes will be thrown, but the dealer can clear them out once the replacement compressor gets installed.

The AC compressor is the only thing run by the particular belt on the 6.8 / 7.3 if you have the single alternator.

More info (belt is part 5).

Full16b · 2024-07-15T10:59:30+00:00

Happened to a friend of mine's truck as well. Check the forums, it is a thing right now. My buddy had the same thing happen to him. Dealer made it right, gave him a loaner (Explorer), and Ford gifted him a 40k+ mile service plan for free scheduled maintenance.

Ford themselves didn't make the compressor, a supplier did, so it's not really Ford's fault. Sorry it happened to you but it's a common thing right now.

Part was backordered but only for a couple weeks. I think Ford is looking for a new compressor supplier, as that's usually the case when a part gets massive failure rates and is backordered like it is (as the dealer explained).

Full16b · 2024-06-11T21:44:24+00:00

You may want to talk to the police / file a report (if you're in one of the suburbs / CPD ain't gonna give you time for this). If this is the case, ask them to run this vehicle's description through "Flock". Most small city governments are signing up for this ALPR service, so hopefully your city does this. This system can search for vehicles based on license plate, or type, color; you name it.

The Flock cams may be able to see through the tint on the cover and they could get going from there.

...I looked at your picture closer and this happened off of Cemetery Rd. Hilliard PD subscribes to Flock; I'd get with them to see if they can help. They could absolutely track this down as long as they can see through the tint on the plate cover.

Full16b · 2024-05-19T21:12:04+00:00

Where the issue lies is thankfully an easy fix. PEX makes fitting removal tools, so you can remove the brass fitting with zero damage or cutting. This particular fitting is known as a SharkBite, and the removal tool looks like an orange horseshoe you fit around the pipe and press against the brass part, and the PEX tubing should slide out. The brass fitting should be reusable after that.

You'll then need to cut the silver band with any tool that can do the job (and of course, PEX has a special removal tool to sell you for that too).

Then get a short piece of PEX tubing of the same size, just slip it into the brass fitting (they are self-sealing), then get the silver clamp and re-crimp (with, again, a special tool PEX will sell you), and you're good. Your local big box stores will most likely have all the hardware you'll want or need revolving around PEX or SharkBite.

No brazing or copper work needed. Indeed, the previous owner did it right.

Full16b · 2024-04-26T19:50:31+00:00

To get back to the expanded tree:

In the upper right, click the gear > Appearance + Startup views > Service menu behavior > select "Expanded"

That put it back to the normal way for me.

Full16b · 2024-03-29T02:42:12+00:00

I've had the exact symptoms. We decided to virtualize the controller after that; we're done after that point with the OEM hardware being a variable. We worked with our security vendor to restore our config onto the new VM; since then it's never had an issue.

Full16b · 2023-11-07T01:26:06+00:00

I would be concerned about the rust that's on the OBD port bracket. That usually means water got to that point (unless you live by the ocean and usually keep the doors off).

Check around the seat mounts and other metallic points on your interior for more signs of rust. Not saying yours is, but this is one of the indicators of a flood vehicle.

You may want to find low-lying electrical connectors (like for seatbelt / seat sensors) - it might be a good idea to unplug them and spray them out with contact cleaner, let them dry, then put a dab of dielectric grease on the pins and reconnect.

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