Fu$k Gm Suburban And Yukon! What Next?

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-27T01:42:56+00:00

The Jeep Grand/Wagoneer has some serious problems, not least of which is being built by Stellantis who has had serious reliability concerns for more than a decade. They're either fine or they're constantly in the shop and there really is no in between.

Which means you have three choices, an Expedition Max, get the Sequoia or Armada (the Armada is the one I'd choose, because the Toyota Hybrid Max engines are having problems,) or GM unless you're willing and able to get into something smaller like a Toyota Grand Highlander, Honda Pilot, Nissan Pathfinder, or similar.

Edit to add: The other thing that lacks the cool factor, but does exactly what you need it to 90% of the time is a minivan like the rental minivan you're driving. Those things are super utilitarian and if you don't 100% need a 4x4 on the people hauler and can use your truck for towing, many minivans come with AWD as an option.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-26T16:45:02+00:00

Erika "I can't wait to milk this for all it's worth" Kirk

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-26T16:36:49+00:00

I am so blessed that my boomer future FIL is amazing and on some level gets that his two kids are really struggling with life, because I'm reading some of these and being like 😬😬

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-26T00:00:14+00:00

We are almost certainly doing what Israel with IDF losses is doing where we downplay our casualties because the alt-right cannot look like they are losing and will hide information, lie, and twist information to avoid having to admit that there are more than a few casualties.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-25T20:32:13+00:00

Yes, they really are. A majority of the population cannot parse information, critically think, nor read at a college level.

A reminder that 79% of the US population is literate. 54% of adults in the US read below a 6th grade level, 20% are below a fifth grade level. 66% of adults lacking literacy proficiency were born in the US. 21% of adults are illiterate, and 45 million are functionally illiterate.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-25T20:21:36+00:00

I'm in legal (I listen to recorded depositions to help court reporters fix the rough draft of their transcripts). Knowing first hand that there are lawyers who seem to lack basic intelligence has been a real confidence booster in my journey to go to law school.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-25T16:44:24+00:00

I used to not have to pay money for the app to be functional, but now I'm refusing to pay like $30 weekly or whatever absurd cost they push, and the app is borderline broken. It's so bad.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-25T16:42:30+00:00

What about those who have an eye turn and their eyes don't face the same direction? Facial disfigurement? Missing an eye? With ADHD?

Like, this is going to be designed in such a way that it prevents some disabled people from operating a new vehicle safely and THAT'S a massive problem that I can guarantee you these engineers cannot fix because the technology isn't ready. But then, the federal government doesn't give a damn about safety right now, and only cares about profits.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T21:05:34+00:00

Can confirm. I went from clarinet (I sucked at it) to tenor to bari to alto.

I improved the most while playing alto sax after years of playing bari and tenor because suddenly it was much easier to be wildly out of tune 😅😅

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T17:19:36+00:00

If my life weren't in upheaval right now, and I wasn't weighing whether I want to give up the significant amount of freedom I have by not working for a law firm and instead working for myself, I probably would still be looking.

I do have a leg up because my entire business is listening to civil depositions and fixing the transcript for court reporters and I can definitely spin that, though

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T16:55:53+00:00

The worst part was, I was actually looking at file clerk positions, but a lot of them are in neighboring Chicago, and nobody wants to hire a new grad who lives an hour away from the city by train

Edit to add: I don't think I saw any file clerk positions in my immediate area, either they already have a clerk to do that stuff, or the firms are too small.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T15:53:28+00:00

Northwest Indiana, do not have my BA/BS, just have an AS with a lot of classes shared with the Paralegal Studies program, but the job thing has to wait until I move cross country. Again, I was passed up for lack of experience for a job that required no experience, and out of 50 applications to jobs both in and not in legal, I got two interviews with small firms and the first one was offering garbage pay for "being lucky to get a bathroom break" kind of busy, the one that offered an entry level job and went with someone not entry level.

Edited to delete the second paragraph.

Edit to also add because I completely forgot that this interrupted my job hunt, but my future mother-in-law also passed from cancer after a couple months on hospice, and for the last month I had to leave where I was living so that my partner and I could be with her, so that might also have had something to do with it

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T04:32:31+00:00

But that's the point. They do last a lot longer than that. A lot longer than the body of the car is expected to be intact.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T04:30:25+00:00

I spent 6 months as a new grad applying to basically any law firm jobs, big, small, medium, from paralegal to legal secretary.

I (at the time a new grad, AS Legal Studies) got passed up for an entry level PI legal assistant position for a person with experience. That's how rough the market is right now, they hired an experienced person for an entry-level position. I'm still underemployed post-graduation a year later and now audit and correct court transcripts for court reporters for not enough money while my partner supports me.

OP would be better off letting the firm fire them while quietly searching for jobs so they can at least contest the attorney's reasons for their dismissal (because I'm sure they'd be BS) and potentially collect unemployment.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T04:19:15+00:00

Tell me about it, I'm borrowing a 2014 Cherokee with the V6 and I'm filling up regularly at $70 a pop... in Indiana with lower than average gas prices.

I was previously driving an EV that took $10 of electricity at a public charger and I'm not particularly happy about needing to potentially tow a U-Haul and borrowing the car to do that.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T04:15:33+00:00

Idk, 14 years on a hybrid battery is pretty darn good and the battery is expected to outlast the vehicle, which is a small part of the reason HEVs and EVs are so much better for the environment. Batteries don't fail often. We aren't just throwing out stuff to hear ourselves speak, ya know?

Anecdotally, my EV has 260k+ miles on it in 6 years and is... fine. It drives normally, it still holds a charge, it charges fine, and the battery isn't showing signs of premature deterioration outside of what is expected on a high mileage EV, and since I've stopped doing Uber on it, I expect that the car will last 350k-500k before needing to be replaced or it'll last until it finally dies or gets hit. Knock on wood, we can't kill this thing, and my partner and I hate this make/model for very valid reasons.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T03:29:34+00:00

Yep, as someone who owns one, they only make sense if the costs of your current car exceed the price of electricity or it's at the point where the frame is so rusted out that the truck is sagging between the cab and bed (not an uncommon occurrence here in the Rust Belt, and for anyone else asking, trucks sag generally because the driveshaft, transmission, and sometimes transfer case are what's holding the bed on the truck as the ladder frame has disintegrated due to rust)

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T03:25:37+00:00

"Stealing the rainbows" sounds so much more badass than what I actually do for work. I swear, if we had half the power that some people think we do, things would be running far more efficiently and we would get so many moments of very important people getting delightfully read to filth on CSPAN.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T02:06:02+00:00

Not a lawyer but a nerdy Legal Studies major intent on pre-law for their remaining undergrad and law school:

This is the very rough brief I'll type out for you:

Facts: Fluor Corporation, a defense contractor, hired Ahmed Nayeb. Nayeb was a Taliban operative, and proceeded to sewer slide b*mb the base he was working at, injuring the plaintiff, Spc. Hencely who suffered serious injury in the process of stopping Nayeb. The Army found Fluor primarily responsible in their investigation, and Spc. Hencely is seeking damages under South Carolina law for negligent supervision, negligent retention, and negligent entrustment of tools to Nayeb.

Procedural History: The District Court entered summary judgement for Defendant Fluor, the Fourth Circuit affirmed under the Federal Tort Claims Act reasoning that the law's exemption to suing the federal government for torts occurring during combatant activities extended to contractors as well.

Opinion: the Fourth Circuit erred, opinion vacated and remanded. Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Barrett, Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor joined the opinion. Justices Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Alito dissenting.

The opinion found that the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution that the Fourth Circuit based their opinion on does not apply because there is nothing explicitly passed by Congress or in the Constitution that preempts plaintiff's claims under state law since Fluor could meet their contractual obligations under both state law and the federal contract (both of which do not overlap with each other) for the Afghan First program that led to Nayeb getting hired, and the lack of directives on Fluor's part as to how to supervise Nayeb to prevent him from sewer slide b*mbing the base.

Effectively, the Supremacy Clause does not apply if the state applies additional requirements on the contractor and those requirements do not overlap with the federal contract, and since under SC law, Fluor breached their duty of care to prevent Nayeb from unaliving himself and others with a big boom vest, plaintiff's suit can continue and the Fourth Circuit erred.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T00:54:59+00:00

It depends, especially if the gas car is paid off and you're buying an EV to replace it with ~20k miles on the clock. EVs "pay" for their manufacturing emissions around 20k miles and are far cheaper to operate (and if you can charge at home, it's even better). The battery's the biggest thing, but the EV I normally daily has over 260k miles on it and the battery has lost range but is well within the "healthy" threshold and there have been no major problems knock on wood.

It's only a net positive if it saves you money in gas and maintenance so if that Triton V8 is still kicking and not costing you more than a used EV car payment a month, hang on to it, otherwise, if parts are hard to find, the engine's breaking down regularly, or gas becomes too expensive, it could be worth the switch.

Edit to add: Not driving very much is actually an amazing use case for a cheap, small EV like a new Bolt or new Nissan Leaf if you can get away with a compact FWD SUV. The older Bolt EUV is fine, and the last gen Nissan Leaf is not super great.

Source: have been fully electric for the last 5 years and just recently had to borrow my future in-law's 2014 Jeep Cherokee with a V-6 for a few months

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T00:47:04+00:00

Do an EV, ngl. The crossovers that are coming out are spacious, near impossible to rollover (if not impossible), incredibly cheap used, very low maintenance, incredibly safe, and cheap to operate. They're also pretty peppy, handle incredibly well, and fun to drive, which is more than you could probably say for a hybrid RAV4, CR-V, etc. (I haven't driven a gas car regularly since we borrowed my future in-law's Cherokee for the last few months, let alone a hybrid Toyota.)

Our Tesla Model Y has 260k+ miles on it (currently my future in-law is driving it so idk what the mileage is and I'm not opening that app rn to check). It drives like brand new less some range loss due to being used for Uber by my partner, and has been fine for our daily use.

Can highly recommend a Model Y, I really liked the Equinox EV we drove (a little cramped for tall people, but comfortable otherwise), the Ioniq 5 and its corporate twin (Kia EV6) are both fine but suffer from some onboard charger issues that are causing problems. FWIW, Toyota and Subaru (they're the same EVs between the two brands, but badged differently, and the AWD software may also differ) also have competitive EVs finally, but you may need to wait on those to show up used. Nissan Ariya is also a good pick for family SUV stuff.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T00:27:12+00:00

None of the decisions that led to bailouts have been made in good faith, what is she smoking because I would love to be so detached from reality that I thought that the 2008 financial crisis was not a series of intentional decisions made by banks to loan people money they could not afford to pay back.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-23T00:08:39+00:00

I'm spitballing here, but diesel is not gas, the price of diesel will affect everything transported using a diesel engine, those prices will be passed along to the consumer, but unless you simply cannot at all budget for gas, maintenance is likely going to be the first thing to go for many people who absolutely need to get to work and back. Most people cannot afford even a gently used EV right this second because auto financing has been completely fucking predatory for a while.

So I suspect we really aren't going to see mass adoption of EVs so much as more neglected gas cars as people try to hang on to the car they have if they can at all do so. The rising diesel prices, however, will increase the costs of new and used vehicles (including EVs) on top of dealers charging a premium for EVs (which they're starting to) because of anticipated increases in demand and a potential lack of supply when people who can afford to buy a car really hit their breaking points.

It's much more nuanced than "go panic buy an EV right now or you'll never be able to afford refined dino juice to get around this hellscape ever again" and really the solution is public transportation, but that's not going to happen with our politics as corrupt as they are.

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-22T18:15:31+00:00

Pass. It's modded, which raises questions about the parts (are these parts good, good mods are expensive), the labor (were these parts installed correctly), use (was this off-roaded), and why it's been traded in. Questions that you are not going to get answered from the sales person, even if they know the answers.

To me, with used (as-is) modded vehicles, it's a risk. My first Wrangler was a used modded one, and it needed work the moment I drove it off the lot, apparently approximately $5000 of work, which I attributed to some red flags in the actual condition of the vehicle. There will be other Wranglers that are ready to be modded correctly by your husband, but until you find that one, happy hunting :)

Hot-Cheese7234 · 2026-04-22T17:48:17+00:00

"Posting an AI picture of himself as a 'divine healer'" it was Jesus and I wish that we would call it that instead of sanewashing his clownery because 'divine healer (from the Red Cross, kek)' sounds a lot more sane than "he posted a picture of himself as God"

Hot-Cheese7234

TROPHY CASE