DrD123

They are plastic pop rivets, unfortunately. (part no. 905920045)

You should drive a little and go to South Main Auto in Avoca and have him make a video for us! (looks to be a bit of a drive for you, but it's fun watching EricO fix stuff!)

So by controller, you mean the resistor, right? (I've had mine for a bit, but haven't gotten around to installing them yet) - where did you mount the resistors? I was looking at putting them on the brackets and have them attached to one of the headlight mounting bolts, but need to pull the bumper to get to it (or slot the bracket... I might do that) - weekends have been tied up for a bit, so just haven't had a chance!

Yup - it's due! About right for mileage and into "overtime" for time. (I'd do belt, tensioner, idlers, water pump, thermostat, and plugs - also replace the serpentine belt since it has to come off to get the timing belt) I'd just buy the parts and change everything out as it's due - at 75k miles a few months ago, the belt on mine definitely looked tired (they don't really "fray" per se - there was definitely wear on the teeth, though - idlers were still in decent condition (no real play) but the tensioner was definitely weeping fluid)

Agreed. Tyranny is a bit strong, but it's certainly not good. I guess I'd say welcome to government driven by the extreme left. Biden basically does what they want. If a private company wants to enforce rules, that's their business. The government should not be strong arming private companies so that they do things the government wants, but lacks the will/ability to do on it's own. My thought is that companies should encourage vaccination, and perhaps have policies to monitor those who don't (frequent routine testing, etc.) or even incentives for those that do, but a mandate in most cases is not the way to go. I do feel there are exceptions, such as healthcare workers, caretakers for elderly or other medically fragile people, and things along those lines, though - the exposure conditions there warrant mandating vaccination, in my opinion.

Definitely call SoA - I would be pretty surprised if they didn't offer some assistance - if the issue was documented back before the extended warranty ran out (it can't be that far out of warranty - wasn't the extension 8 years, 100k miles? so you are just out in time, but still under the mileage)

Maybe this one... you won't be wanting for power! Plus the thing is immaculate! https://delaware.craigslist.org/cto/d/wilmington-low-mileage-400hp-2010/7372209487.html

Sad to see the car go! What's next?

for turn signals, you can use resistors or have a flasher module that can handle LEDs - I have a tapturn module, so they work just fine.

We're back to a mask mandate in Albuquerque that started today... sort of a bummer. Annoying, but what are you going to do. At least the summer is almost over... Had a guy at work that was resisting getting the vaccine after seeing everyone go through side effects from their shots... (basically feeling crappy for a few days) he came down with COVID after a vacation a month or so ago, and was out for 3 weeks (sort of ironic - personally, I'll take a chance at a couple of days of feeling under the weather over getting covid any day). Thankfully, he's doing well and is back in the office. (I have been fortunate in that everyone I know who has had it recovered in short order - none of the horror stories about long lasting effects)

Which ones do you have? I'm thinking of doing the brakes, but don't want to mess with external resistors if I don't have to... I did these for turn signals https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RNCBD72/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and these for the reverse lights https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KFS93PS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and these for all the little bulbs (license plate, puddle, trunk, etc.) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GRVN7R6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I've had the 194 bulbs in for a year or so with no issues - the turn signals and reverse lights are much more recent.

We get them regularly as well - funny thing was though my stats are better now, at first I was batting 1000 for getting the flu every year I got the shot, and not getting it when I didn't (yes, I understand the flu shot is a guess at likely strains - some years they are really good at that, others not so much - I still get the shot) It's hard when you aren't a virologist (most of us here, I would guess) and have to make sense of the various "experts" offering opinions - it's easy to sound confident and be convincing. It's also easy to be "swayed" to present things a certain way when you are someone like the CDC as an example. It's hard to figure out who is right (or maybe "less wrong" would be more fitting?) To me, the vaccine is all about keeping folks out of the hospitals and protecting the vulnerable. Stopping infection isn't really the goal to me - saving lives is. So if someone has the same chance of getting infected with or without the vaccine, and the difference is in the probability of having a good outcome, the choice to get the vaccine still makes a lot of sense to me. I don't think it's reasonable/right to force folks to vaccinate, but I do think it's ok to require they take further precautions (masking, frequent testing if they are going to be near others, etc.).

That's the non-nav headunit - it's basically a double-din unit and there are tons of options for replacements - if you search a bit, someone here even got a floating screen unit which looks pretty cool.

Sadly, if you want to persuade folks to get vaccinated who, left to their own devices, won't do it, you need to have an incentive so that they want the incentive and are willing to get the shot to get it. Folks have been anti-vaccinations since long before COVID, and many of them are pretty set in their ways. I vaccinated so that I would be ok, and wouldn't have to worry about them so much. The mRNA vaccines are extremely effective at preventing infection, and if it does get through, preventing severe disease.

Not sure if you have the nav headunit or not - if not, there are plenty of options - you can get a trim piece to go around the stereo, etc. from crutchfield and others (crutchfield packages most of their stuff with adapter harnesses, etc., or at least they used to) For the flip key, there are options on fleabay - here's one https://www.ebay.com/itm/173106395148?hash=item284df1f80c:g:qJwAAOSw8RRgYYh8

unfortunately, the vaccinate vs. don't vaccinate decision is a largely psychological issue now. My thought is that if you want to convince someone who hasn't vaccinated yet to get the shot, hammering on them with how horrible everything is, how they're just going to get covid and die or kill other people, and how they're otherwise a garbage human for not getting it is much more likely to make them dig in and push back harder than it is to get the result you want. The carrot works way better than the stick

Some cars keep track of which tire is where - maybe that's the issue? I rotate my tires every 10k miles or so - never had a problem with the tpms.

Two solid purchases! I have both, too - really like the shift stop for getting rid of the play past 1st/2nd!

Ok sounds like a plan Another option I came across that is supposed to work for low voltage DRLs is the Morimoto 2stroke 3.0 - more expensive than the VLEDS, but doesn't have the separate resistor. I'm sort of curious what the external resistor does - I imagine it's used to step the voltage, but I am not sure why or what the morimoto does so that they don't need a separate power resistor (I am guessing based on the heat sink, vleds puts a bunch of current through it)

I have one installed as well (for me the departure lights were the thing I wanted - and the tap turn function!) - so with the tapturn or a similar relay, you can replace any turn signal with an LED and not have a problem, or does it let you install LED brake lights as well? Or do you still need a resistor for the brake lights?

Well, I went ahead and got a set - need to install it, but for that need to sort where I want to put the driver and the resistor. For you guys that already are running the LEDs in the high beam, where did you put it - just zip tie it to the light harness? (for the lows, everything fit inside the headlight itself - obviously not something you can do for the highs/DRLs!)

Well, to me if you are saying that in water you need to have oxygen for corrosion to go, and use the example that deep in the ocean you don't have oxygen (but obviously have plenty of water...) that sounds to me like he was talking about dissolved oxygen - if not, then what was he talking about?

very true - most folks don't realize you should replace the anode periodically (sort of a pain, as it's close to the length of the water heater tank, so if you have the tank mounted such that you don't have space above it to pull the anode an insert a new one, replacement really isn't feasible. Water tanks are often coated on the interior as well, which helps, but as with any corrosion mitigation coating, just buys you time. It's the "why" we are looking for here - looking for facts/data, not opinion.

Goodness, if you are going to get in on the fun, at least read the whole thread! He said "Oxygen has to be present for corrosion to happen. This is why boats and planes at the bottom of the sea can be preserved for 100's of years. There is very little oxygen at deep depths." - now, maybe I'm over simplifying, but that sure sounds like water is not the problem, dissolved oxygen is, and that he appeared to be aware of the difference...

Nope. Wrong! Ok - seriously, pick any corrosion text - I even showed you a nice one by Uhlig and Revie you could grab on amazon - there are tons more of them out there. Oxidation refers to the change in the valence state of the material being oxidized - the metal being oxidized looses 1 or more electrons, and the specie being reduced gains electrons. You can reduce water, you can reduce hydronium ions in solution, as well as a myriad of other things - you do not need oxygen (dissolved oxygen in solution) to act as your cathodic reaction. Pick up an actual corrosion book, or read a chemistry text, basically any peer reviewed technical resource on the topic - listening to folks that literally have no clue what is going on just isn't helping you. Oh, this will be fun - define the "electrolysis reaction" as used in that article for me, please. The ASM handbooks are great - you want to actually read them though. Realistically, 13A would be a better one for you as it deals with the fundamentals. I'll go out on a limb and say you didn't cough up the money to actually read it, though. except not in the way you are thinking - they are going to a non-aqueous solution of some sort, which is also a high impedance solution - if you go back to the description I gave you on what you need for a corrosion process to go, in addition to needing an anode (material to be oxidized) and a cathode (surface where reduction is taking place) you need to connect those via both an electronic path (through the metal) and an ionic path (through the solution) - if you can deal with corrosion by eliminating any of those parts - with a high impedance electrolyte, you effectively kill the ionic conduction path, breaking the loop. You can accomplish the same thing with coatings (blocking the surface) and many film forming/adsorbing inhibitors accomplish a very similar effect by adsorbing onto active sites on the active metal surface, effectively coating it. it's one of the things they mention (they actually don't say it's one of the primary things - they say "A number of conditions in a cooling system will affect the degree and rate at which metal surfaces corrode. These include: coolant pH, the concentration of dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide in a coolant, metal surface deposits, metal stress, coolant temperature, acids formed in the combustion", but you knew that... they list a variety of things, all of which can contribute. Dissolved oxygen is important when it's there as a cathodic reaction (it's thermodynamically viable at lower potentials than many other reactions) but it will be rapidly depleted in a closed system with lots of reactive surface around. Once it's depleted, other reactions will become thermodynamically viable (water reduction, as an example) - you really don't understand corrosion. That one was just painful to look at! If you want conference papers, there are a number of conderences out there you could pull from (the annual NACE Corrosion conference (though since NACE merged with SSPC, it's going to be the AMPP corrosion conference), eurocorr, MS&T is adding more and more sessions on corrosion - there are tons of them. Also lots of journals to take a look at - there you'll find actual peer reviewed publications, instead of inane marketing crap (there are tons of them - the AMPP Corrosion Journal, Corrosion Science, Electrochimica Acta, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, etc. - there really are tons of them) - you won't usually find introduction to corrosion papers there, though - your best bet are really corrosion textbooks.