Atlas

In celebration of the Vernal Equinox today, I've created a new thread. What are you working on? Home/garden, acreage, cars/trucks/campers, boats, tractors, the perennial "honey-do" list, or personal hobbies? Discuss!

Meanwhile, electricity is holding around 15 cents per kWh and gas prices aren't a concern for the EV we put ~20k miles on in the last year. It also never needed an oil change. It did need tires at 25k, as I'd expect any 4-second car in our household to need by then. 91 ethanol-free premium was clocked in at $6.89 last night at the ripoff station as we drove by. Now that the weather is nicer the fun cars will need some of that.

The screen portion on the right can be scrolled/swiped to change what's displayed. See the 3 dots on the right side? Those indicate the different screens that are available depending on what the main portion is displaying. Swipe up or down to change the screen, just like you would on a phone. I'm a Carplay user, but I use XM radio on the right side when the left side is displaying Carplay/Apple Maps.

Probably, but prices are always higher here on the West Coast. And we're over $5 for regular now even at the cheap stations.

Hey @GMCustomerService how about buying my truck back. I don't want it anymore, it's a 2025 3.0 diesel with 2,000 miles and I'm basically waiting for the engine to fail since it's within what appears to be the highly problematic date range for the production run.

Diesel is increasingly high 6's around the Seattle area. Saw $6.89 yesterday.

The "Diesel" sticker on the steering wheel says the 3.0 will probably be a part of the next generation. That's good, I think? (If they've fixed the thrust bearing issues) Not a fan of the new cluster layout where it looks like you're staring down at a computer monitor. Much prefer the inset and shrouded screen of the <2027 trucks. I'm not sure what the hang tag is regarding the physical key usage. Is that for a fleet or police model? Nothing about the 2027's so far makes me wish I would have waited for one.

Any indication that it was about to fail? I've just rolled over 2,000 miles on mine and no issues so far, but I'm nowhere near out of the woods if the typical failure is sometime <10k.

The 3.0's are warrantied to 5 years/100k by default. But yes, if GM is aware of the production run for the affected engines, those engines should be recalled and replaced.

We're getting the tail of the storm here that totaled just over 46 inches of rain in Maui over a few days last week. We've got flood watches in effect. This is also unusual for this time of year as winter turns to spring. I mean, it's often rainy, but this is a LOT of rain. The rain is also how we turn this place into mecca between mid-April and October.

I ended up going with the Auveco 22908 bolts. They come 5 bolts to a box so ordered 4 boxes from Autozone, delivered to my door. It's a near-perfect factory match as far as I can tell at less than half the price. When removing the factory plugs from the rockers, I noticed the factory didn't install plugs on the vertical surface on the right side. Nice job, GM. So I used the extras I removed to plug up the holes that the rocker guards won't be using.

I think....winter is finally packing its bags? After a hard freeze on Saturday night we were back to rain on Sunday and we should hit almost 60 this week.

$4.70 is the cheapest for 87 right now, most stations around are into the 5's for regular. I paid $6.29 for 91 today, highest I've ever paid.

Yep. This kind of unpredictability and off-season severity is exactly the kind of stuff that is becoming increasingly common.

We got 10" of snow here in the Upper Left yesterday and we're passing the 1 day mark without power. Gee I'm sure glad we Doge'd the NOAA and banned climate change because not only was this not forecasted, but it's practically a never-event for the middle of March here. We're expecting a hard freeze tonight. You can tell the birds are like what the hell happened?!. And I'm stuck inside, and providing care and feeding for the generator.

Probably not. But yeah, if you actually owned an EV maybe some of your perceptions would change...

I bet EV's are looking a lot better now that gas prices are going way up again We never saw that coming -- except we did, they didn't. There are plenty of good used EV's on the market at really reasonable prices for those who want them. We're starting to shop for our next EV. Hoping the BMW iX3 is available to order soon.

WTI crude climbing again this morning on headlines. Gas prices never retreated from the previous climb to 120 so my guess is they will only go higher.

Found a set of new take-off GM accessory boards/steps for my crew cab ( 85534568 rocker protectors plus 85554009 (4) removable assist steps). List price from GM is $2845 and I got it all for $100. Everything but the hardware to attach them. The common consensus seems to be the factory thread insert in the rockers requires an M8x1.25x25mm hex bolt with washer for any/all GM boards/steps of this era. I need 8 per side for my crew cab. Double cabs may need fewer. GM sells the bolt as singles, part 11519388 MSRP $10.71 each. They also sell them as packs of 8 with nutsert -not needed for our trucks--, part 22876958, MSRP $65. The GM hardware is zinc/galvanized. Grade 8.8. I can find grade 9.8 black phosphate -finish automotive body bolts, hex head with washer in M8x1.25x30mm (5 mm longer) commonly, for cheap. I'm not sure about black phosphate holding up very well over time in an undercarriage, direct spray from the wheels, environment. I can also piece together stainless hex bolts with fender washers from the hardware store, but these aren't technically body bolts, they're just machine bolts. The closest hardware I can find to the factory bolt, without paying a fortune, at an almost reasonable price is Auveco 22908, which is a M8x1.25x30mm 8.8 hex bolt with washer, zinc coated, dog point. It's actually for a Chrysler application as Auveco doesn't appear to sell the 25mm version in bulk, at least not in retail applications, which would be an exact match for the GM hardware. Probably so GM can try to get $10/bolt. So, Black phosphate Zinc, or Stainless? and does the actual style of bolt really matter, and does anyone actually care for any reason if the bolt is 5mm longer (all reading I've done says they will fit just fine).

Crude futures were trading over $120/barrel this weekend but are back down to ~103 at market open this morning. And it's predicted to keep rising. Wouldn't be surprised if stations were updating their prices overnight to catch that high mark. Yesterday I saw more stations out and about with $6+ diesel.

I misspoke. During a drive into town today, I saw there are several stations where diesel is over $6/gallon now, the highest at 6.19. Six. Dollars. Per. Gallon.

Well it's almost spring (wouldn't know it by the weather, though) and time to let this thread fall to the bottom. Picked up the Camaro from the shop yesterday afternoon after it was there two weeks to have the quarter panel professional repaired and some other work done. It turned out beautifully. I've got a set of mint tail lights ready to put in now that the paint/body work is completed. Replacing both O2 sensors as a precaution (they're original). I'll keep monitoring the weep coming from the cam seal on the rear of the engine. I'm hesitant to do anything now as I want to get more miles down to see if it needs anything else. The remaining to-do items are: Headliner, and diagnosing the sad power driver's window. And that's it.

The ripoff station is just under $6 for ethanol-free 91. It's generally what I use in my gas cars. The discount stations are minimum of $4.50 for 87. Diesel at $5.29.

I don't know, was it illegal? OnStar settled with the FCC on that specific issue, but state lawsuits and consumer class actions are ongoing. When settlements happen no wrongdoing is admitted. Our data is all over including PII. The notion of privacy doesn't exist in the US like it does in other countries, not at the federal level, and at the state level it exists as a nebulous and complex patchwork. Some states have really weak data privacy laws and very lax consumer protections. Rip out OnStar if you wish. Are you going to throw your cell phone in the trash when an app or service finds a new way to market and sell your information? That's where it doesn't make sense to me... Without going completely dark and living off grid and never contacting civilization again, I can't control my information out there. I can only control certain safeguards against it being used maliciously, but I can't control data breaches.

I can't seem to get to the actual article in Grumpy's link. I see the headline but the story is buried somewhere in a mishmash of MSN clickbait. I truly do not like MSN, all their "news" is regurgitated from other sources anyway. I don't understand ripping Onstar or Uconnect out of vehicles, but I don't have to. People are free to do with their vehicles as they wish. I think it's silly, but, here we are. I'd rather the automakers and their hired data firms be punished by law when they do things like OnStar may have done. OnStar apparently sold its data on driving behavior it collects which was supposedly de-personalized. It likely contained data about the vehicle itself, VIN, which insurers gobbled up via 3rd party. They matched the VINs in the data to VINs they insure and created risk advice for those policies based on risky/aggressive driving behaviors observed in the data. While they can't pinpoint WHO was driving the car during the risky behavior, doesn't matter, since they insure the VEHICLE, they felt it appropriate to charge additional premium to the policy holders. Devil is in the details, you are typically passed privacy notices during sale or delivery, or simply USING the infotainment system or the vehicle communicates acceptance of Onstar's terms in some cases, including their various apps. I'm not sure how much of a leg consumers had to stand on in this fight, but the ugliness and bad PR, betrayed trust, caused them to stop selling that data--at least to that broker. The sticky part, which I went through myself, was not knowing I was enrolled in their driving data collection program. It had a name which I forget, and you could toggle the program on or off via the onstar app. I was well aware of it, and was certain I had disabled it. I logged in one day to find it had been re-enabled either intentionally by GM or via code in a software update that defaulted the program to on. I called GM/OnStar at the time and logged a case with them for reasons of documentation and made them confirm the service had been turned off and would stay off. The program no longer exists, at least not under its old name and UI in the app.