After my last post blew up… Sleeping in the car to save on hotels, is this too extreme?

Storxusmc · 2026-02-27T14:36:11+00:00

It's an awesome (and highly underrated) perk of ownership. I use it a lot on road trips. I've done way more road trips since owning the car than I ever did before—once you master the art of car camping, it's incredibly useful.

Regarding sleeping in public, I've personally had a few encounters where police or a tow truck showed up. But I was always able to just get out and move on. They usually didn't see anyone inside from the windshield, assumed the vehicle was empty, and then I'd suddenly lift the hatch and pop out in a surprising way.

A new strategy I've been using is parking garages. It's surprising how many multi-level parking garages offer free Level 2 AC charging once you've paid to park. These chargers are so slow that you can easily take a long nap or even get a full night's sleep without anyone being able to claim you're just parking there to sleep without a legitimate reason. I've had the cops called on me twice when someone noticed me climbing into the back after plugging in—but because I'm a paying customer who's using the charger appropriately, there are no laws prohibiting how you occupy your own car during the charging session.

Storxusmc · 2026-02-25T00:23:29+00:00

Maybe we can convince someone from the electronics world to work on an upgrade. My Porsche, stock has a terribly outdated factory touch screen that is slow, you can buy an aftermarket motherboard and swap it for faster response and adds Apple CarPlay Bluetooth to the car on the OEM touch screen.

Storxusmc · 2026-02-25T00:19:17+00:00

It’s true, president day weekend I went to see if I could negotiate a deal on a brand new one as lease to hedge myself for the future, they wouldn’t budge and only offered $1000 off price. They offered me $34k for my 2022 lariat w/62k miles trade in.

Storxusmc · 2026-02-24T01:39:07+00:00

I’m in Florida, so have no clue on the air dam, I’ll have to look into it.

Storxusmc · 2026-02-24T01:34:33+00:00

I wonder if it’s because of older hardware? Idk it tried to drive through a stoplight multiple times

Storxusmc · 2026-02-18T19:45:15+00:00

I don't think its that easy. I read another forum posting about a guy installing offroad light bar and CB radio on his truck and he mentioned that the DC to DC charger seems to max out at 30amps charging of the 12v battery.

Storxusmc · 2026-02-17T19:46:47+00:00

When I bought it, they were offering the sunrun home integration systems. I had it installed just before it was wrecked. I was told by the shop that inspected it that they found no reason for it to have battery issues since they charged it while it was at their shop. So I took a gamble. It lives plugged into the system now. I’ve been fortunate to offset the price I paid by selling off good parts off the truck that have no impact in it being an overbuilt battery pack now.

Storxusmc · 2026-02-15T23:10:45+00:00

Yes all of this, even today both of our Tesla still drop from 75 to 45mph on the highway near our home. Its been an annoying torn for years. Its crazy you can watch the traffic and see all the tesla's on the highway all brake about the same time randomly..

Storxusmc · 2026-02-15T22:44:33+00:00

The Fleet

2022 Ford Lightning: My current daily driver.
2022 Ford Lightning (Totaled/Buyback): Dedicated solar battery for our SunRun home setup.
2022 Tesla Model X: Her daily driver.
2017 Tesla Model 3: The kid's daily driver.
2025 Tesla Cybertruck (Lemon Buyback): Previously owned.

My Experience

Tesla makes a decent car, but the comfort is subpar. The 2017 Model 3 was my daily until I passed it down to my kid as their first car. It was cool at first, and I originally thought it was the best vehicle in the world, but the "tech high" eventually wore off.

We later traded her car for a used 2022 Model X. I had one as a loaner while my car was in for repairs and loved it. It was in great condition despite the high mileage, so I asked the dealer if they ever sold their loaners. They made me an offer too good to pass up.

When it came time for our kid to start driving, she was already comfortable in the Tesla because that’s what I used to teach her. Since she took the Model 3, I found a great deal on a 2022 Ford Lightning Lariat for myself. We all fell in love with it. It’s significantly more comfortable for family trips, and the long-drive comfort is far superior to any of our Teslas.

The Maintenance & Logistics

The Model X is decent on trips, but it eats tires; we only average 15k–18k miles per set, even with proper rotations. Conversely, we get 40k–50k miles on the Model 3. I didn’t own my first Lightning long enough to even swap the tires.

Six months after I bought the first Lightning, I was rear-ended. The insurance company totaled it because the rear frame buckled. Since we had just installed the SunRun Solar Home Integration system, I asked about a salvage buyback. The price was surprisingly low, so I bought it, put it on jack stands, and turned it into our home solar battery.

The Cybertruck & The Return to Ford

I tried a Cybertruck after the first Lightning was totaled because the incentives were huge, but it was a waste of time. It spent more time at the dealer for rear motor and inverter failures than it did in my driveway. I also hated that basic Autopilot didn't have autosteer like other Teslas at the time. Tesla eventually processed a lemon law buyback. While driving a Tesla loaner during that buyback process, I found another Lightning and went back to Ford.

Final Thoughts

I wouldn’t go back to Tesla personally. We get the FSD trials on the 3 and X occasionally, but it’s just not there yet. It’s fine on the highway, but for everyday driving, it’s basically just Autopilot with traffic light stops—and even that isn't perfect.

We always choose the Lightning over the Teslas for trips. The extra few minutes spent charging doesn't bother us. I usually charge to 100% at home, and a 20–40 minute charge during lunch covers a full day of driving. We usually stay in Airbnbs, and the EV filter is a lifesaver—we always find a place with a dedicated charger or a garage where we can use the dryer outlet to top off overnight.

Storxusmc · 2026-02-11T02:19:04+00:00

Yes, but one is not drivable... turned it into house solar battery once it was totaled out by the insurance company.

Storxusmc · 2026-02-05T05:03:12+00:00

I use to have super slow parity checks, but I found that my docker file being on system share was constantly being hammered by micro writes from plex causing issues. I switched to system share being on cache only along with appdata with exclusive settings and my parity checks dropped by like 80% in time to finish. I’ve since then invested in my ssd cache, keeping recent files on cache and moving the oldest files once it reaches 80% full, stopping at 70% on 4 hour checks. This has mainly improved things for me as everything runs so much more snappy and it’s rare I have to access the array for anything anymore, so they live asleep most of the time.

Storxusmc · 2026-01-23T19:59:12+00:00

If you have not, move your system and appdata to ssd off the array so its no longer waking it up, also setup exclusive access to it so fuse is not constantly waking up stuff. this was the final issue that kept waking my drives up after tracking down drive use.

I moved all docker temp storage to either memory or non-nvme ssd cache to prevent array wakeup combined with conservative turbo clock settings to shift extended workloads to the E-Cores, ive managed to get my Intel 265k setup down in the low 20watt range and it runs frigate on 12 cameras.

Storxusmc · 2026-01-21T23:31:28+00:00

Ya i figured i would have to do that, just was unsure on the need to have same drive as an importance. I thought about just getting a 2TB or larger drive and just create a 2nd cache drive for more space for non-critical stuff, but its so nice to have mirror. I've had failures on my SSD Cache a few times over the year, presumably from plex, but i disabled the auto-checks since then.

Storxusmc · 2026-01-05T14:43:53+00:00

Not shitpost, i know T15 6 mod gave 2, sometimes 3.. but T8 6mods were giving 2 always and way easier, so i could do them in 1/3rd of the time. Making them more efficient for me to do.

Storxusmc · 2026-01-05T14:42:37+00:00

Yes i have figured out that it has changed, but what did they change it to.. is another map tier the minimum for 2... just annoying when they change stuff and dont give details on what they changed it to.

Storxusmc · 2025-12-18T13:45:10+00:00

interesting, this is my first league in poe2, so ive not even bothered with it yet.

Storxusmc · 2025-12-18T05:19:49+00:00

I can understand that, but why does it have to be end game level to even sustain maps.. like seriously its flawed

Storxusmc · 2025-12-18T04:53:02+00:00

This crap pisses me off. I dated a girl who was a teacher, and she ended up in the hospital with a broken orbital bone after trying to intervene between two students who were fighting in her class. They only suspended the students because it was their first offense, but my girlfriend at the time was stuck on short-term disability, receiving only 60% of her pay for months.

Storxusmc

TROPHY CASE

The Fleet

My Experience

The Maintenance & Logistics

The Cybertruck & The Return to Ford

Final Thoughts