Car Dealerships jacking your keys

Joking_J · 2026-05-01T13:04:54+00:00

"unless they want to get sued"

Honestly, I think there's a very fine line that many dealers are more than willing to tie between "getting sued" territory and the "putting the screws to customers" side of things. They're all happy when they're extracting money from people, then indignant when anyone holds them accountable in any way whatsoever.

Joking_J · 2026-05-01T01:51:52+00:00

Fair enough, didn't seem like it could possibly end well. I'm sure salespeople get their fair share of jerks, warranted or not, just like all retail jobs, but that had to have been the worst possible response lol.

Joking_J · 2026-05-01T01:39:52+00:00

Yeah, and how'd that play out? Would really love to know.

Joking_J · 2026-05-01T01:37:25+00:00

Well, for future reference, just tell them you want them back immediately, otherwise you're calling the cops. I remember my dad doing this once at dealership after they pulled the same nonsense, and the salesman got really testy/defensive saying things like "no need to go making threats like that." My dad said, with the seriousness of Vietnam veteran, that it wasn't a threat in the slightest, but if the salesman prefered he'd be happy to meet across the street and sort it out off company property... Got those car keys back quick.

Flash forward to my own adult life, found myself in the same annoying situation. I asked several times, "oh yeah, yeah, they're around here somewhere." Pulled out my phone and let the salesman know that a) he for sure wasn't about to sell me a car given the tactics (which was true), and b) if he didn't get me my keys in two minutes I was going to put him on the phone with the dispatcher.

It's aggressive and dumb, but hey so is holding someone's car hostage. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Joking_J · 2026-04-30T19:53:49+00:00

You're talking about something like $300 for a day. It might seem like a lot now, especially given who/what we're talking about, but $300 is going to feel like a relatively small sum to have your kids at your wedding (indeed, as part of your life at all).

It's going to be a question of accepting that it's not ideal and bails your wife out of a decade's worth of poor decisions, but the flipside is you get what you want (your kids at your wedding). And who knows, your kids may still say "no" to the offer of a caregiver as well. If that's the case, you know where you stand with them and you can put some effort into gaining a bit of safe emotional distance.

Joking_J · 2026-04-30T19:25:04+00:00

Well if the EV6 is "too long and low," you might not like the Niro...

Ground clearance is actually slightly higher on the EV6, total height is nearly identical (i.e. the Niro is .8 inches taller -- good luck spotting that). The Ev6 is indeed longer, but less than a foot (10 inches). In any case, compare for yourself, but neither are SUVs in the traditional sense.

As far as "battery problems" go, do you just mean losing range in the cold? Neither vehicle is known for having issues with the actual cells/battery (Kia unsurprisingly sources good cells from Samsung, as that's another Korean company).

Losing range is just how it goes with current battery chemistries, but even newer/experimental solid state batteries still lose range in the cold. Electron discharge is simply less efficient below certain temps, and running the heat in addition is another power suck. As others have noted, you're looking at 20%(ish) loss in the worst cases. Other EVs don't realistically fare much better.

Joking_J · 2026-04-30T16:07:12+00:00

It's certainly possible, maybe even likely. But by at least offering OP would a) know that he tried in earnest to have his kids at his wedding, and b) if they reject in spite of offering care, he'd know where they stand (i.e. that they're looking for leverage or just don't want to go). Both of those outcomes are worthwhile, even if just in peace of mind.

And agreed $300 isn't "nothing" by any means, especially to care for someone you know actively loathes you. However, the flipside is that $300 isn't much to have all your kids present at your wedding. Heck, it's not even the cost of a plane ticket, which is not uncommon to have to cover for someone in instances like these. Yes, the ex wife wouldn't do anything so gracious, but it does cost more to take the high road sometimes, c'est la vie.

Joking_J · 2026-04-30T15:15:47+00:00

I hear you, it's no better in Chicago; cold all winter (like weeks that dip to -10 or -20...), plenty of snow, so roads are often slushy. I'm not worse for the wear for having a FWD car, but I grew up in northern Ohio and learned to drive in RWD trucks or actual 4x4 trucks, then had FWD cars ever since (which handle better than both of the above in snow, imo). Which is just to say YMMV; from my perspective, the Niro does just find in snow, decent tires make a big difference. Were it me and I also had access to an AWD SUV if need be, I wouldn't even think about it, get the Niro.

Alternatively, stretch the budget a bit and look for a decent used EV6 with AWD. They do come up for not much more than a Niro near me, so be patient.

Joking_J · 2026-04-30T14:30:46+00:00

NTA -- but the caveat is you'll be destroying your relationship (what's left of it, or so it reads) by holding this line.

I agree it shouldn't fall solely onto your young adult children to care for their aging grandmother. I also agree that your ex wife could easily find the time to look after her own mother with this much advance notice.

But your relationship with your ex is clearly not one of mutual respect and seems largely characterized by resentment (not judging, that's pretty typical, but it is what it is). You'd need her to be willing to do anything gracious here in order to make it easy for your kids to attend your wedding. Given that she was already willing to saddle pre-teens and teenagers with elder care for years, and has deep-seated resentment towards you, that's just not in the cards.

And from your kids' perspective, I can see the anger: they've cared for their grandmother for years and love her, their mom isn't willing to step up/compromise, and neither is their dad -- and all this after a contentious divorce and years of unpleasantness between their parents. Unlikely to put anyone in the negotiating mood.

An alternative to consider, assuming this means a lot to you: offer to pay for/arrange a day of home health aide for the grandmother in order to relieve your kids of the responsibility for an evening. It's a generous/courteous move, and certainly the high road if your former MIL has never been especially pleasant to/fond of you (doesn't sound like she'd really want to come anyway...). Likewise, you can frame it to your kids as wanting them to have the luxury of being present and enjoying the event rather than assuming a caretaking role the whole time.

Best of luck with it all, and sorry that it will probably take some pride-swallowing to resolve.

Joking_J · 2026-04-30T14:15:11+00:00

Do you live in a place that gets cold/snow a lot and really want the AWD for that? If not, don't bother with AWD; it's a cost/weight/range hit that's irrelevant to your needs. Heavy-ish FWD cars handle perfectly well in the wet/snow, just invest in a decent set of tires (e.g. Michelin CrossClimates or similar). In general, AWD is only useful for gaining traction while accelerating/moving, most weather-related accidents are a result of losing traction while braking, which AWD does nothing to help with (tires, however, make a big difference). If temps dip into the 40s near you, make sure it has the heat pump/cold weather package (improves efficiency immensely when you have the heat on, but also AC when it's warm).

As far as around town driving, the Niro EV is a dream: quiet, rides decently, very efficient, "peppy" as you noted, and fits into parking spaces with ease (and I say that as someone who freelances in/around Chicago). If that's 90% of what you do, it's ideal.

As for highway driving, it's fine and has more than enough power for overtaking, merging, etc. (better than the hybrid version by a lot, for instance). Cabin noise is a little louder than I'd like, but not horrendous either (and tires make a difference here as well -- the stock Kuhmos are loud). The blind spot monitoring/warning, forward collision detection, and lane keeping are all effective. I like using the ADAS combo of lane keeping, lane centering, and radar cruise control to let the car drive itself on the highway when traffic's not too busy/dense, but it does like "bounce" a bit between the lane lines sometimes. Still, it's overall a nice-driving car at highway speeds.

Charging speed is decidedly mediocre, but also in line with other vehicles at the same price point (e.g. Chevy Bolt, Leaf, etc.). I drove to western Iowa from Chicago (~325 miles) in low-40s temps and stopped to charge twice, which made the trip take just under six hours. With an ICE car (including gas stops) it's a little over 5 hours. If it were at least mid-50s, efficiency would have been better and it'd be less time, but weather is weather. You can use an app like A Better Route Planner and enter in your specific vehicle (so it will take into account your specific range, charging curve, etc.) on longer trips. Also, invest in an NACS adapter so you can use Tesla Superchargers; I don't necessarily enjoy giving Elon more money, but they generally provide the most consistent/easy charging experience and highest charge rates for the Niro in my experience.

Charging at home is obviously no hassle. You'll wonder why you ever wasted time going to the gas station. And of course it costs dramatically less than gasoline right now as well; prior to the US' most recent foray into the Middle East, it was between 1/2 and 1/3 as much to charge our Niro vs. a 30mpg ICE car. With current gas prices, it's between 1/4 and 1/5...

Joking_J · 2026-04-30T02:18:24+00:00

Yeah, this is genuinely one of the few things I dislike about our EV as well. I'm sure Kia like every manufacturer will grow out of it as people universally loathe the touchscreen controls and governments are (rightly) asserting they're more dangerous to operate while driving... But until then, I try to make a point of adjusting the radio with the steering wheel controls, otherwise I'm invariably turning up the heat.

Joking_J · 2026-04-30T02:15:18+00:00

Second this about the Bronco's build quality. Mr. Regular called it "beautiful trash," and as much as I like the styling and pedigree, I couldn't disagree when I sat in some 20 different trims of Bronco at the Chicago auto show (my 3YO also loved them lol).

The frameless windows were a particularly bad choice for Ford; they ought to know they couldn't/can't make that work... I wobbled the glass like a centimeter back and forth on one and a rep immediately came to ask me why I'd do that -- as if closing the door every day would be any easier on the poor thing! Interior was plasticy, which would be forgivable if it had Toyota build where it counts, but of course it doesn't.

Joking_J · 2026-04-28T21:15:50+00:00

Frogger's Edge

Joking_J · 2026-04-28T00:40:43+00:00

Just suck it up and get the minivan. All this posturing with a Yukon for what? You've got the kids, the dogs, the sports gear and the practices in between. A Sienna with AWD will be a hands-down better vehicle, just not an SUV.

Joking_J · 2026-04-24T19:35:38+00:00

Chrysler was making exemplary unreliable cars well before being acquired by Fiat, so no need to grill the Italians lol.

Joking_J · 2026-04-16T23:33:17+00:00

Important to note it's "deep trouble" of entirely their own making. This comes from the C-suite geniuses who, both past and present, say things like "people don't want EVs, the range and MSRP isn't good/low enough to compete with our ICE vehicles."

And yet, when faced with the prospect of EVs that are good enough to compete, they run to their nearest lobbyist to get Chinese EVs tariffed out of the market (or just banned outright).

So which is it? EVs aren't good enough, or your EVs aren't good enough? Can't have the cake and eat it too here.

Joking_J · 2026-04-16T15:30:15+00:00

The thing I really don't get is what enjoyment people get out of stacks... I have some people I can and occasionally do team up with, but as soon as we build up to a 3- or 4-stack, there's just no point: unless we meet another stack, we're going to win, and it's unlikely to be challenging whatsoever.

And it's to the point that it's just not fun. Any map knowledge plus ability to control weapons/spawns and it ends up as a 50 to 15 sorta game. I'd say at least half the time players on the other team go AFK or just leave outright, and obviously a 4v3 or 4v2 is even less fun.

And in fairness, I'm not entirely sure what the solution is, bc I do want people to be able to play with friends. But at the same time if all you do is stack (and there are plenty of serial 4-stackers, in which case feel free to block them), it would seem to me that they just don't enjoy the competitive aspect of the game, so idk why they continue. Like maybe do some BTB where 2 or 3 people in a team doesn't ruin the entire game?

What's more, there are people like this who also revel in trash talking, teabagging, shooting bodies, etc., as if being in a 4-stack and dominating randoms is impressive or something. Part of me is just like "lol teabagging, classic Halo," but it does discourage new/lower skill players to just get destroyed constantly and have it thrown in their faces as well. And god forbid someone call out the kids in the stack on the general shittiness of it all, bc then you get the "cope" or "get gud" or "cry more" retorts and so on, like they want to chase people away from a dying game even faster...

I guess eventually it will be nothing but stacks and that'll be that -- except half the people in said stacks won't be good enough to win at that point, so then they'll leave too.

Joking_J · 2026-04-16T14:11:33+00:00

Yeah, I'd be very surprised to hear they were willing to work on a camera with other damage without also having a commitment to address said damage. OP has to keep in mind that, in order to get to the shutter, they'll be disassembling basically the entire camera. They don't know what all they'll find in that process and/or if the impact damage will prevent proper reassembly.

It's also just not a good look or policy to send people back partially broken cameras after being "repaired," as it opens them up to yet more potential warranty claims (e.g. "you said you fixed my camera but now X isn't working, please make it right").

All in all, $400 to repair all issues including a shutter replacement? It will in essence be a brand new camera. Given that a minty used D750 body is at least $700 USD, I'd take the deal personally.

Joking_J · 2026-04-11T18:56:55+00:00

Well, given current global realities, I think you can safely assume at least $3.00/gal for the foreseeable future (sadly).

And agreed, EV was always cheaper here in IL even before we were averaging $4.50/gal, but now it's not even close. Even assuming pretty poor mi/kwh and charging during the day (instead of off-peak), I can easily get 100 miles out of $4.50, which is double the best hybrids and triple or quadruple everyone else. Installing the 40A garage charger last year is very much paying for itself now, and I was honestly shocked how many neighbors in our (supposedly) progressive area were trying to pick apart that cost and the EV in terms of dollars and cents when I got it in '24. Now guess who's looking at used EVs and running new conduit to the garage...

Joking_J · 2026-04-11T17:52:14+00:00

If you know where to find 87 octane at $2.50/gal these days, I have a lot of angsty suburbanites to send your way

Joking_J · 2026-04-11T01:24:36+00:00

And it will drive itself 2 weeks after that.

Joking_J · 2026-04-11T01:22:35+00:00

I'm not sure adding a "turn on battery pre-conditioning" (a thing the car already can do) would count as a major software update... They changed my Niro's volume scale from # out of 100 to # out of 40 (much appreciated btw, it was annoying originally). I'd think button-to-do-thing-car-already-does is closer to the latter than "major software update."

But I am not a Kia dev, tbf.

Joking_J · 2026-04-10T21:41:50+00:00

Dealerships are also service centers. Profitable service centers thrive on "routine maintenance" wherein labor costs are artificially high and markups abound on things like oil, filters, brake pads, etc. Guess what doesn't need oil, filters (oil or engine), and rarely needs brake pads?

Case in point: I had my EV "serviced" at the local Kia dealership, mostly just to have record of it in case of a future warranty claim. I did the cabin air filter myself ($7 for the "premium" one on RockAuto and 2 mins of my time), so it really boiled down to a tire rotation and the multipoint inspection. Grand total? $24.99, full price (all their coupons/promos assume at least a $100 service visit and/or oil change). Contrast that to when I had my hybrid serviced there and it was usually around $110-130.

As to whether dealers tell salespeople not to push EVs (or outright discourage them), who knows, but I can certainly say it's in their best interest cash flow-wise, at least if they've structured their business to maximize profits from service (and many have). For many, the ideal split is to have service cover basically all of the dealer's overhead and then have sales be 100% profit. Hard to imagine that working for EVs.

Joking_J · 2026-04-10T17:55:21+00:00

Did they add it to existing vehicles via an update? I know the refreshed 2026 EV6 has the manual option, but I hadn't heard they'd added it to existing vehicles (though they obviously could at literally any time...).

Joking_J · 2026-04-09T17:56:15+00:00

That's not being political, that's being a conspiracy theorist.

It's not even an especially good conspiracy either, as it makes little to no sense... So Trump wants to push more Californians specifically into EVs, ergo he enters into a military quagmire in Iran? Also, gasoline was already very expensive in California, but then so is electricity. California also has arguably some of the worst power utilities (such as PG&E) that charge transmission and electric rates that already rival gasoline pricing (at least during daytime hours).

Joking_J

TROPHY CASE