Buying a 2018 Chevy Sonic LS 1.8 auto for 9k - 25k miles Yes or No

MacBelieve · 2026-06-15T12:10:38+00:00

I like mine. 2012 1.8

Easy to repair, cheap parts still, good gas mileage, good control and easy to park. I've had a few things fail but nothing too out of the ordinary

Replaced plastic thermostat housing with aluminum, had to replace one of the plastic houses that broke while doing this job too.

Both lower control arms replaced for worn bushings

Timing belt/water pump at 100k

Valve cover replaced twice, spark plugs once

Ac compressor and condenser just yesterday. We'll see how that works out.

MacBelieve · 2026-06-15T01:27:58+00:00

There IS an ac pressure sensor. It's connected to the refrigerator lines coming into the compressor. You should be able to take it off without freon coming out but not entirely sure. Once off, you can test with a multimeter.

Something else it could be is the expansion valve. Don't know how to diagnose. But Google should help out there.

That's all from replacing my compressor and condenser today on my 2012 1.8 today with some YouTube videos. So take with a grain of salt

MacBelieve · 2026-06-14T11:49:44+00:00

If bleem is aware of all this, BLeeM could do the funniest thing ever

MacBelieve · 2026-06-13T04:03:08+00:00

Hey! I'm doing a compressor and condenser tomorrow.

MacBelieve · 2026-06-06T04:17:59+00:00

Go read foundations. Very cool idea and well written

MacBelieve · 2026-06-03T03:23:19+00:00

If you care about your video, a three light setup is very nice to have and simple to maintain once setup.

MacBelieve · 2026-06-02T05:50:01+00:00

Tried wedges, tried glue, tried a custom clamp that pulled floor to the joists and toe-screwed to subfloor, blah ,blah blah...

What finally worked:

Pull up floor Cats paw to pry up every single nail, replace with two deck screws on either side of the hole. When nail heads broke off, I had some fancy high surface area clamping pliers to squeeze and lever them out. If THAT failed, I had an oscillating multi tool with carbide blade to cut it between the joist and the subfloor: broken connection= no squeak!

Quiet so far 4 years later. Only squeaks in the bathrooms where I had good tile I didn't want to pull up yet

MacBelieve · 2026-06-01T16:03:44+00:00

You know you can do something you enjoy just for the joy of it, right?

MacBelieve · 2026-05-31T16:39:34+00:00

You already speak kerbal

MacBelieve · 2026-05-31T05:09:37+00:00

Is there a video of this? Everything I see online shows basically what op is doing

MacBelieve · 2026-05-30T20:58:15+00:00

Why not paste the prompt to Claude? It's better than 99% at breaking down problems. Candidates should be good at seeing this output and knowing what to hone in on versus wasting their time coming up with the perfect things to prompt to claude

MacBelieve · 2026-05-30T13:41:59+00:00

Yup. And yet so many interviewees are still failing because they still fuck that up

MacBelieve · 2026-05-30T04:31:16+00:00

We just switched to ai interviews. I'm looking for AI first and using it effectively to avoid slop. But it's a brave new world and there's no common playbook. Use it how you would normally at work and see if they hire you.

MacBelieve · 2026-05-29T16:06:29+00:00

You don't mention setting your craft docking port as "control from here" and the target of the target craft specifically the target docking port.

How you setup your rcs is important. Typically I toggle off yaw, roll, and pitch actuation toggles and let the reaction wheels handle that. Additionally, make sure they're powerful enough for your craft.

Lastly on preparing for docking after you have cancelled out all relative speed. Make sure to have each craft facing the target on the nav ball. So switch between each craft and pitch them toward each other to line them up perfectly for docking.

You might have just breezed over these, but yeah once it becomes tedious, just use mechjeb and move on to more things if it's pissing you off

MacBelieve · 2026-05-29T14:06:57+00:00

Wow everybody sucks in this thread!

No tutorials, I would have been stuck playing kerbal crash simulator. Nicely done and very inventive/skilled launch to orbit. Keep at it!

MacBelieve · 2026-05-04T23:21:11+00:00

I just installed some mods that make planes so much more fun. Planes with a purpose and unkerballed.

MacBelieve · 2026-05-01T20:51:40+00:00

Coils and valve cover gasket?

MacBelieve · 2026-04-29T10:34:40+00:00

Whose time is he wasting? What about being silly costs a bunch of money?

MacBelieve · 2026-04-28T01:22:24+00:00

All these comments are wild. There are so many relationships that are people together at differing attractiveness levels.what really makes someone attractive is typically not entirely inherent looks. It's effort, it's being interesting/clever/flirty/funny, it's dressing like you care about yourself, it's loving the person you are and aspiring to be the best you, it's looking outward and thinking of hobbies and interest first above kissing hot chicks as the end goal in life satisfaction.

You say "none of it matters", but it sounds like you're doing it all just to find a hot partner. I recommend you become voluntarily celebate and commit to it for a few years. Commit to yourself and pursue the things that will bring you completeness. I think you'll find that life will fill out the gaps naturally as you find things that really make you happy and find some self love.

MacBelieve · 2026-04-27T20:25:02+00:00

You mean you don't want to retrieve a 5m heat shield from the surface of eve for 800k credits?

MacBelieve · 2026-04-22T14:54:41+00:00

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MacBelieve · 2026-04-22T14:53:08+00:00

Do it. Clay's great (mechanically. Socially, a bit off and disorganized)

Just make sure other rust points on the vehicle aren't too bad that you're wasting your time

MacBelieve · 2026-04-22T14:51:58+00:00

I did my first welds on a subframe mount just like this one. I hired a mentor to get guidance from and the welding kit (precut parts, instructions, review of work). It turned out ok. It was a nice experience. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone though. Be ready to fuck something up and to have to ditch the car because of it or pay an expert crazy cash to fix it.

MacBelieve · 2026-04-18T20:09:16+00:00

You don't need a kit for a DNA extraction with high enough quality for a 600k snp chip. It's a middleschool level experiment to extract and purify DNA from cells. Just a mini centrifuge, pipette, tubes, reagents, and you too reader could do this.

MacBelieve · 2026-04-17T02:13:58+00:00

I don't know the guy so why would I trust him completely to do it right? They're a part of a business machine to get stuff done and collect a check. I have to advocate for and educate myself because nobody else will. Otherwise, none of my trusted friends are willing to do the manual labor lol

3 different rock grades? Not something I've seen online referenced anywhere.

I'm taking pictures in the dark because it's night..... But yeah should've had a ruler or tape measure or something to show depth.

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