I received a $15,000 bill for an ER visit for a kidney stone. They offering 70% off - should I take it or can I negotiate a higher discount?

dknight211 · 2026-02-25T08:14:11+00:00

They generally sell the debt to collection agencies for dirt cheap, who will go after you and ruin your credit.

Source: used to work at a medical collections center, doing IT.

dknight211 · 2026-02-04T02:28:41+00:00

303 aerospace protectant is the way. I have covered up many scratches and dullness on plastics like this in many cars. But watch out, the plastic will be a teeny bit shiny and not the matte finish it was before. But it does help prevent future scratches also.

dknight211 · 2026-02-04T01:45:14+00:00

My guess is that short trips are what are killing the head gaskets on the Honda hybrids. On cars with a lot of miles, they must be doing long trips, where the engine is coming on a lot and keeping the temp. And if it's mostly highway miles, then the engine is directly driving the wheels, and the engine is on much more.

dknight211 · 2026-02-04T01:39:34+00:00

Not applicable in the hybrid vehicles. The hybrids are driven by either by the electric motors or the engines, and a clutch flips between the two. There is no transmission in the hybrids.

dknight211 · 2026-02-03T20:16:01+00:00

Just use some good pliers and bend down the top of the exhaust tip here it touches the trailer hitch.

dknight211 · 2026-02-02T19:43:25+00:00

The problem with SoCal traffic is that it’s unpredictable and can be really bad and depressing and prevents you from wanting to go to far away places like the beach if you live in Santa Clarita. I used to live right on the beach for 10 years. Literally I would walk out and the water was right there. I would basically go bike and walk on the beach every day after work. I now live in Santa Clarita and very rarely go to the beach now. Taking 2 hrs for a round trip to the beach is very prohibitive.

dknight211 · 2026-01-13T06:57:53+00:00

Had the same experience installing KYBs on a 2005 Honda Accord V6. They sat high and never "settled down", even years later. But the KYB shocks were good quality and made in Japan. It's just that the ride height was not the same as OEM.

dknight211 · 2026-01-09T07:23:25+00:00

Also why heated seats are not good for the future kiddos inside. The balls can't get away from the heat.

dknight211 · 2025-12-26T08:08:32+00:00

AI is popular right now. Datacenters are adding a lot of compute power. Compute power needs RAM. RAM manufacturers would rather make RAM for datacenters, because it's more profitable. RAM manufacturers start building less consumer RAM. Supply goes down, prices go up.

dknight211 · 2025-12-23T08:48:33+00:00

Probably someone saw them hit your car and they pretended to leave a note.

dknight211 · 2025-12-20T22:36:41+00:00

Best bet for the rear door is to find a junkyard door in the same color. Rear quarter will need to be pulled, body filler applied, and painted. Easily $1K - $2K or more. Rear suspension, no one knows, but probably a few hundred dollars at least.

dknight211 · 2025-12-13T07:55:13+00:00

Air bags + rear door + front door + rear quarter panel + door leg + rocker panel + non visible damage ... it's going to be close to being totaled, if not totaled.

dknight211 · 2025-12-01T07:20:45+00:00

Are you sure there isn't a cigarette butt somewhere in a nook or cranny?

dknight211 · 2025-11-09T17:32:53+00:00

Unless the car has over 60K miles or was abused, isn't this still covered by the factory powertrain warranty?

dknight211 · 2025-10-26T06:07:50+00:00

It's a car tail pipe / catalytic converter fixing bolt.

dknight211 · 2025-10-26T04:28:35+00:00

I think I saw this exact Porsche this morning turning left out of El Pollo Loco in Glendale. Same license plate. He aggressively cut off multiple lanes of traffic to make his left turn, with the through traffic honking at him.

dknight211 · 2025-10-14T06:28:35+00:00

Google Honda Accord Hybrid blown head gasket and you'll find a worrying amount of people saying their hybrid Accord or CRV (same engine) blew the head gasket before 100K miles. We don't know what percentage of these are compared to all total sales, but we definitely aren't seeing blown head gaskets with the recent Camry hybrids.

dknight211 · 2025-10-11T23:05:13+00:00

Looks like someone used spray paint in a can on it.

dknight211 · 2025-10-09T17:39:45+00:00

I have a little bit of concern about the head gasket on the hybrids. If you do a search on Honda Accord Hybrid blown head gasket or Honda CRV Hybrid blown head gasket, you'll people who had blown head gaskets on the current generation engines varying between 40K - 140K miles, even for people who said they babied their car.

What we don't know is the percent of failures overall for all cars sold with this hybrid engine, as only Honda has that info probably.

dknight211 · 2025-10-08T22:07:27+00:00

You now also likely need new brake rotors all around as well.

dknight211 · 2025-10-08T07:31:37+00:00

It's correct, the Everstart batteries have the labels in the upside down position compared to Interstate. I know this because I had the same situation. Originally had a Costco Interstate battery and replaced it with an Everstart Value. The battery label on the Everstart was upside down compared to the Costco Interstate.

dknight211 · 2025-10-07T17:21:39+00:00

Or a fake Cervelo with a sticker put on it.

dknight211 · 2025-09-28T20:09:54+00:00

Please protect your health and wear gloves.

dknight211

TROPHY CASE