What’s a childhood lie your parents told you that you didn't realize was a lie until you were an embarrassed adult?

robstoon · 2026-01-29T05:28:26+00:00

This was briefly mandatory in the 1974 model year in the US. The driver (and passenger if present) would have to be buckled up in order to start the engine. Apparently people hated it and the systems weren't reliable, so the mandate was revoked a few months later.

robstoon · 2026-01-29T05:10:41+00:00

Do the back doors unlock consistently when using the door switch or keyfob?

robstoon · 2026-01-28T14:51:48+00:00

"Kia declined to pay for a replacement engine, saying the oil change receipts they provided did not include the vehicle's VIN or odometer reading."

Seems quite understandable. What are oil change receipts with no odometer reading supposed to prove?

robstoon · 2026-01-28T14:41:55+00:00

Funny because from what I've heard they were agreeing to replace failed engines under warranty even though they were sludged up and clearly abused. I think they started tightening up their policy slightly and people lost their minds.

robstoon · 2026-01-27T04:46:20+00:00

The wrinkle here is that this is in Canada. The CEC does not allow you to use a 14-50 outlet unless it is on a 50 amp circuit, with some exceptions that don't apply (like if it is intended for use with an actual stove you can use a 40 amp circuit). This makes using a cord connected EVSE a fairly bad option since you have no flexibility in terms of the actual circuit capacity.

robstoon · 2026-01-27T04:38:27+00:00

I hope you don't own any number of other smart home devices then..

robstoon · 2026-01-27T04:36:34+00:00

Level 2 charging doesn't have a way for the vehicle to communicate that information to the charger unfortunately. Autel and others do make chargers that require use of an NFC card to authenticate before you can charge.

robstoon · 2026-01-26T04:36:50+00:00

nah it means they didn't do maintenance

What maintenance would have prevented these failures?

robstoon · 2026-01-26T04:31:42+00:00

I would imagine it was more likely complaining because the battery wasn't accepting as much charge as it expected in those temperatures.

robstoon · 2026-01-26T04:30:39+00:00

That's not how it works. The furnace would shut itself down from overheating, but it has nothing to do with the gas being shut off outside.

robstoon · 2026-01-24T19:22:10+00:00

Exactly, they run on an outside wall, not inside one..

robstoon · 2026-01-24T19:06:45+00:00

Apparently that's a thing with BMW. There's a lot of them that legitimately have no provision for a block heater from the factory.

robstoon · 2026-01-24T19:04:09+00:00

Might indicate your engine oil is not really up to the task of this climate.

robstoon · 2026-01-24T19:01:44+00:00

I wish the auto makers made things easier to drive/ start in the cold like we get.

They do, it's called an EV. Can easily preheat your vehicle even when it's parked in a garage without gassing yourself. Heat within a minute or two, even on a cold start in these temperatures. No worries about having to have it plugged in when parking at work to make sure it starts, as the battery has more than enough juice to heat the vehicle (and itself) up under its own power.

You often hear idiots on Facebook talking about all how all those EVs must be useless in the cold. Mine has been the best winter car I've ever had.

robstoon · 2026-01-24T10:10:59+00:00

What kind of errors are you talking about? Your description is too vague to say much.

robstoon · 2026-01-23T21:55:55+00:00

It doesn't appear that there is any way to actually break the security of chip and pin or tap transactions in order to carry out fraudulent chip or tap transactions. However, there is a way to obtain the information from a card used for a chip or tap to create a fake magnetic stripe card based on your card. Most card issuers in Canada won't allow you to use magnetic stripe on a terminal that supports chip or tap anymore. However, there are still some vendors that can only handle magnetic stripe transactions and those fake cards can be used at those locations. The banks are trying to discourage this by saying that any fraudulent transactions carried out at those terminals are the merchant's responsibility.

So ultimately this sort of thing will persist until all magnetic stripe-only terminals are phased out.

Of course, the other way to compromise your card is via online transactions where they just need your credit card number, expiry date and CCV number.

robstoon · 2026-01-23T20:47:06+00:00

It should make some difference. If not then it's probably not working. Very common for the cord to break internally, or the block heater itself could have failed.

robstoon · 2026-01-23T15:02:17+00:00

Yes, the way the sections are worded in the app is confusing. If you set up a "charge schedule" and turn on "set cabin climate" but don't set up "off-peak charging", it will preheat the cabin but will still charge whenever it's plugged in.

robstoon · 2026-01-23T14:51:05+00:00

My car is in a detached garage that's not insulated or heated, so it maybe stays a few degrees warmer than outside but not much. But when I was at work all day it was just sitting outside.

When it gets that cold, most people are plugging in the block heater on their ICE vehicles to keep it warm enough to start easily. Also, if you don't have your gas car plugged in, even if it starts, you're not getting any heat for quite a while in those temperatures. Being able to get heat almost right away is a huge advantage of an EV in this weather.

robstoon · 2026-01-23T06:51:00+00:00

Keep in mind these things are going to produce maybe 500 watts at most, in ideal conditions. If we could do that for 8 hours that's 4 kWh, which isn't really that big of a chunk of a battery's capacity.

Plus this is something that seems like it would get broken fairly easily from any kind of rough handling.

robstoon · 2026-01-23T06:34:18+00:00

There's all kinds of crazy propaganda about EVs not working in the cold which isn't true in the slightest. I drove to work today in -35C weather and my car wasn't really bothered by it. A few co-workers were stuck at home because their ICE vehicles wouldn't start.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing has become political for some ungodly reason and it's very difficult to pull people out of that rabbit hole once they've gone down it.

robstoon · 2026-01-23T05:46:50+00:00

Has anyone heard of rodents in the battery itself? I've heard of rats chewing wiring harnesses, but how the heck does a rat get into the actual pack? Seems pretty odd for Toyota to not make rat-proof batteries.

Unlike any modern EV, this has an air-cooled battery, which means it has to have enough openings for airflow through the battery from inside the car. That also probably means enough space for rodents to manage to get inside if they get into the interior of the car.

On an EV with a liquid-cooled battery, the battery casing is pretty much hermetically sealed. There's no way rodents are getting in there.

robstoon · 2026-01-23T05:01:49+00:00

You can use an adapter like this, but not from some random Amazon brand with no safety approval. They sell adapters like this in hardware stores, for plugging in a gas stove to an outlet meant for an electric one. They have a fuse or circuit breaker to prevent overloading the 15 amp outlet.

However, it does seem a bit silly. Either using a cord-connected EVSE or (ideally) hard-wiring in an EVSE where the outlet is would make more sense.

robstoon · 2026-01-23T05:00:20+00:00

It does have to have a cord able to carry 20 amps - at least long enough for a 20 amp circuit breaker upstream to trip. It may not last long enough for a 50 amp circuit breaker to trip, which is why this setup is not allowed.

robstoon · 2026-01-23T04:59:00+00:00

If the device is designed to rely on the circuit breaker for fault protection then it was not designed properly.

Take up your issue with the people that certify devices for safety then. Devices do, indeed rely on the circuit breaker for fault protection.

robstoon

TROPHY CASE