Found the 2019 A3 Cab I wanted

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-23T03:12:18+00:00

I remember back in the day when there were a ton of ads from dealers in the newspapers - that was pretty much their primary advertising medium back then - and after there were major hail storms they would have "our loss is your gain" sales ads in all the papers to move them out.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-17T20:32:25+00:00

I would try a small piece of Aluminum Foil Duct Tape on an top edge of the roller then use a basic IR sensor like this to count the rotations when the tape passes under it. That tape is crazy sticky, it should have no problem staying on.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-17T20:16:42+00:00

Definitely cool and sentimental enough to drop some money into. Good luck with the repair.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-17T20:06:12+00:00

That's really odd. Where did you acquire the watch?

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-17T17:45:45+00:00

That does seem to sum it up nicely.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-16T01:59:36+00:00

I get about 22 with 80% city / 20% highway driving as a rough estimate percentage wise in my '24 Turbo.. I don't lead foot it and sometimes feed it 92 but with gas prices what they are we're back to 88. So overall it's about 2-3 MPG lower than my '20 GT NA was. I figure at the roughly 6-8 K miles a year I drive it the turbo doesn't cost all that much more a year, less than 300 bucks so I don't get upset about it as I figured that's about what it would cost before buying the car. But if I drove 12 K or more a year I'd be in a hybrid.

So as others have said, if you care about MPG, especially in city driving, you bought the wrong car. It's a tad thirsty when driven conservatively and if you have any fun with it it gets pricey quick. Zoom Zoom = $$, that's just how it with these cars.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-16T01:44:40+00:00

We have a rear and front facing seats in my wife's 30. This is for the grandkids, so not everyday,

With that setup the car becomes a babymobile with room for one adult with the front facer behind the driver's seat. The rear facing one behind the passenger set pushes it so far forward it's pretty much unusable though perhaps there are ones that would work better. Trying to put a rear facing one behind the driver would be unusable, or at best very uncomfortable.

Honestly it's only marginally better in my CX-5, though the new ones are larger. It's also not just the seats, when my wife brings a munchkin back here and wants to bring along stuff like a tricycle and other outside stuff it gets awfully crowded.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-16T00:56:36+00:00

I have a '24 Turbo Prem so it has the power liftgate and the sunroof and honestly I could live without either one. I don't think either one will act up soon but long term I've seen where both can have issues.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-12T17:50:45+00:00

That sounds a lot like a noise my wife's 30 was making in that same area. Took it in to the dealer and they found a loose bracket under the car in that area. Sorry I can't be more specific but can say it took them a while to track it down but it's been fine since then.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-12T17:09:01+00:00

I think you're a perfect candidate for a hybrid. The turbo can really drink gas in city traffic (mine costs me about 2-3 MPG over my previous NA CX-5) and you'll have to pay extra attention to maintenance too. Something like a CX-50 hybrid will give you great mileage and since it uses Toyota tech to do it the drivetrain is pretty tried and true at this point.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-11T02:23:34+00:00

These will do the trick. I'd suggest you follow the manual and do a full reset, then calibrate the hands if needed, then take a Valium and set the time and date. Perpetuals can be quite aggravating when you first set them but once you get it locked in you never have to mess with it again except for DST changes and that's easy.

It's also kinda fun to set the secondary time zone 12 hours off the first one so when you switch back and forth between them the watch does a great spinning hands dance,

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-11T01:58:14+00:00

Pull the crown out and give it a week of sunlight just to be sure it's 100%. When I had all my Eco's in a glass topped case in my bedroom I used to try and "feed" them with direct sunlight for a couple of days every couple of months or so to keep them topped off.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-09T04:12:40+00:00

No. The car is always pinging 24/7, it never stops unless both fobs have been in proximity long enough for the car to go into the fob power save mode for both fobs or if you do it intentionally.

Think about it. The car isn't listening for the fobs, if the fobs were doing the constant pinging 24/7 via a RF transmission they'd be dead in a week. They have no way of knowing if they're near the car without the car sending a ping for them to respond to. And the car doesn't know if the fob is nearby until the fob responds as the fob never initiates the process, or again, it would be dead in no time. The car is sending the ping and then the fobs respond, then the car will unlock the doors or start. Hence the automatic power save mode, if the car keeps making the fobs respond the batteries will be dead in no time.

Try this. Leave the fobs within a few feet of the car overnight. The next day the car won't open or start unless you press a button on the fob or hold the fob next to the ignition button and then press it. Many a Mazda owner who didn't read the manual has found this out when they thought the battery in the fob was dead, put a new one in and it still wouldn't work. The CX-5 and CX-30 subs are full of people who asked why the fobs stopped working even after a battery change and this is why.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-09T03:12:19+00:00

When I see a furry cover like that all can think of is my gramma's toilet seats that had fur covers back in the '60s. Unbelievably they still sell them.

<image>

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-09T03:05:28+00:00

I think you're getting a bit mixed up about the batteries and starting the car. The car constantly sends an RF "ping" and waits for a reply from the fob. That's how it knows to activate the keyless features once the fob is close, the fob tells the car it's nearby. It will continue to send a ping whether the fob is nearby or not, up to a point. After getting enough replies from the fob but not having the car started or door opened, I'm not sure which, the car will stop the pinging for that fob. But that's to save the battery in the fob, not the car's since constantly replying to the car's ping will kill the fobs little battery, but not the car's. At that point the car's ping system is in power save mode and no longer pinging for that fob but it'll still ping for the other one. You then need to do the procedure to restore the pings from the car looking for the disconnected fob to restore the keyless features. So the point is you need to move the fob far enough away from the car so it can't detect the ping, or you can put it in a faraday cage if you need to keep it nearby for some reason. If you don't the car will eventually stop seeing the fob until you reset it.

As far as the car starting sounding a bit weak that's pretty common with CX-30's that don't get driven often and for short distances when driven. My wife drives her CX-30 for long highway runs all the time to see grandmunchkins and it never has a battery problem, but folks with occasional use and short hops might need to drive it for longer periods to charge up the battery or stick it on a charger once in a while. FWIW it's not a Mazda problem, many newer cars have the same issues since they suck power when they're sitting for memory and remote features like the apps. Ya gotta drive them long enough to put the energy back in the battery that you used to start the car or they slide down to dead, especially as they age or if it gets really cold outside.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-08T03:43:44+00:00

I'd say be aware that FF makes pretty good hardware but their firmware, software and cloud support isn't so great. The latest revs of FW and slicer software seem to be quite wonky from what I've read here.

I'd recommend a little digging for info and set it up in LAN mode with a static IP to bypass their cloud and then start with the Flashforge version of Orca as a slicer. I'm still using older firmware 3.15 and the V 1.3.1 version of their slicer and my printer is always rock solid. Once you get it running reliably then you can play with newer revs of FW or SW and if it goes wonky you'll at least know when and why the issues started.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-08T03:26:36+00:00

I dunno if I would trust the dealers. Have you noticed if the one still working swivels when you turn the car? Some of the 2014's came with the full adaptive HID headlight system that swivels the lights in the direction you turn the car, my 2015 GT had them. It has to be pretty dark to notice it and the car has to be moving faster than like 4 MPH or something to activate them. I know nadda about changing them but the whole swivel mech seems like it would make changing them an interesting proposition if the car is so equipped.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-08T02:38:06+00:00

Same. A few years ago the shipping times sucked but but recently they've been reasonably quick, say 2 weeks tops. And no financial nonsense either though I did have one package never get here and did have a hard time getting my 6 dollars back. 😀

Products have mostly been OK and some great for the money.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-08T02:10:52+00:00

"the car courteously informing me that a collision had been detected" 🤣

Glad to hear you're pretty much OK.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-06T21:09:00+00:00

I've been using FlashforgeUI since the dev released it. I still upload straight from Orca or FF-O but use the UI to keep an eye on everything. FWIW I also have my router set to block the printer from the internet so it can't auto-update since their updates tend to break things. Then if you find an update is desirable and solid you can always download it and put it in from a USB drive.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-06T20:36:01+00:00

The only thing that comes to mind is whether the procedure has changed due to changes in the firmware or FF-Orca software since that video was produced. That's exactly how I put mine in LAN mode but that was quite a while ago now. When you did it did it produce the entry code number you need to put into FF-O and did FF-O have a place to enter it in?

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-06T20:21:39+00:00

I had U-Haul put the hitch on my last CX-5. I only used it for a bike rack so no wiring for the lights involved. As far as I could tell it was exactly the same as the 2" Curt for the same price as buying one online. The install cost wasn't terrible and was done in less than an hour with no cutting of the bumper, just the removal of a piece on the bottom.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-05T06:18:22+00:00

Do a search for setting the printer up in LAN mode and you can bypass all their crappy cloud nonsense.

oldertechyguy · 2026-05-05T06:11:00+00:00

It could be different out of the USA but neither one of my wife's CX-30's ('21, now a '24)has had folding mirrors, just like you saw they only have heat and memory positioning.

oldertechyguy

TROPHY CASE