rikonium

I’m a car dork, I also sub here for all the reasons this place exists but I’m assuming I’m lumped in with the “car-brained douchebags”. This is a misinformed take by OP picking on one of the “less-bad” pickup body-style vehicles one could pick because it… shares bits with a minivan? That’s the point of it - While it straddles the segments a bit with almost full-size width and mid-size length, it’s still going to net superior fuel economy (comparable the Odyssey too) than pretty most any gas-only crew cab, short bed pickup and he’s picking on it because it’s not “as useful” but that means more weight, using more fuel, etc.

It brings car benefits to a pickup shape and I much rather this exist than another full-size pickup with a chest-high pedestrian-wacker hood line or trying to convince a pickup buyer that they ackshually want a minivan because good ol’ American ego already struggles enough with accepting a unibody pickup. (cue truck-bro “NOT A TRUCK” and “LOL PILOT WITH BED” comments)

they also can’t be lifted as much (as easily) due to their suspension design so you might appreciate that too

Fuelly has the Ridgeline averaging 20 MPG with its competitors around 17-19 (likely bigger gap if you compare to full-sizers but will vary depending on powertrain) and the gap will likely be larger cruising so its fuel economy for a pickup is solid save for the newer and smaller Maverick (especially in hybrid guise) and Santa Cruz - their beds are shorter though at 4.5 and 4 feet I believe.

Gas V6 minivans are pretty similar too at around 20 MPG as well real-life.

Comparing crew cab short beds directly, the F-150 (not counting mirrors) is ~2 inches wider and ~20” longer.

But I agree on width though, I was considering a Passport and the 78.5” width of the Honda midsize family (also Pilot, Odyssey) is a turn-off although in minivan land the others are also chunky. Rather not shove an extra four inches into a parking spot if I can avoid it.

Honestly I’d commend a Ridgeline buyer for getting one as the “responsible choice” if it meets their requirements since that or the Santa Cruz are probably the least “I’m tough!” looking pickups.

It’s a different set of compromises. It’s actually pretty funny reading this because the Ridgeline is the odd-duck in pickup land with plenty of “not a real truck!! lol minivan!” derision.

Yea it’s not a body-on-frame, tow anything, crawl anywhere vehicle. But it’s a vehicle with an open bed for those with use for it and better fuel efficiency, interior space, comfort than its midsize competitors. It’s the truck most folks can likely do just fine with. Maybe someone wants AWD rather than part-time 4WD, a less trucky ride, etc.

Ignoring HyunKia engine quality and EZ theft, my Sorento can be considered a shit car since it’s not as good off-road as a 4Runner, not as nimble as an Accord, has less space than a Pacifica, uses more fuel than a Prius, cost more than a Mirage and tows less than a Frontier.

But on the flip side, it’s also better off-road than the Accord, seats more than the Frontier, uses less fuel and is smaller than both the 4Runner and Pacifica (gas) and tows more than the Prius. All about the point of comparison and compromises picked, maybe the Ridgeline will make more sense compared to a Tacoma - plenty of potential uses cases out there too that an open bed would be handy for, if you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s objectively dumb. (but not me at this time, except maybe a bed would be neat for my bike or trash.)

I think the styling is fine too, it’s just a basic pickup shape, no need to be so dramatic. Have you seen the first gen, or an Avalanche, Santa Cruz, Baja? I prefer this to the Silverado’s base front end too.

Yea I bailed after they nerfed exclusions and whatnot but not like the others are slam dunks

We had petitions for everything, Windows Phone, you name it a decade ago. That won’t do jack shit unless it somehow comes with some large sum of money (how much? who knows) for Microsoft or some bean counter decides “hmm, maybe the environment shouldn’t take another for the team” and gets the company to change course before they are canned.

In the meantime, let’s continue to plot our off-ramps.

You'd have to check, my personal X1 Extreme Gen 4 has the toggle but my new work T14 Gen 3 does not.

Not weird at all, I loved it's left-turn into generational trauma, nihilism and absurdism (not unlike how I enjoyed Barbie's unhinged nature) but would definitely say a lot of it would resonate more with Millennial/Gen Z children-of-immigrants like Bao, the short.

Countering this is very make-specific and you can have options ranging from calling in (opt-out) to pulling fuses to messing with dash wiring.

Make/Vehicle-specific forums will likely be a good resource to start with but naturally you'll have to deal with the "you have phone, lul" defeatist idiots anywhere.

Considerations include age (Models with 3G radios are disconnected anyway most likely), trim (maybe only certain trim levels got a cellular radio), and features. (Hotspot, OnStar, an SOS button indicate the presence of such a telematics system)

Varies widely, sometimes you can call in and opt-out, boom done. It will naturally take the cellular features like hotspot, app stuff with it. It will be very make/model specific. You can do it on Toyota's by pulling a fuse if calling don't work and you only lose the microphone.

I used iCloud Drive for a while since it was a two-fer with iPhone backups and end-to-end encryption.

But for some reason the Windows Store client is garbage. I've done the reinstall, etc. dance but it keeps hanging while attempting to sync and ballooning logs to hundreds of MB.

So I have no cloud storage. I instead just plug in my phone to iTunes for it's periodic local backup and drag-and-drop whatever files I want to have on my phone then.

I'm sure you tried but the definitive option would be a BIOS switch to change it. Sometimes is says S3, sometimes it says Linux sleep (like my personal ThinkPad)

But if you don't have that toggle at all, the firmware probably dumped S3 entirely - especially if it's a relatively new machine and you'll have to lean much more on Hibernate like my new work ThinkPad.

I would investigate whether an older BIOS version still has the S3 toggle since some BIOS updates have removed S3 I believe but a search of forums would probably turn up enough complaints to hit your radar.

If y'all remember that Kia Soul that got launched by a wheel, it’s a more dramatic example but a potential downside to what amounts to a spacer. It’s certainly a cool proof-of-concept but I can’t see it taking off since I doubt it’ll be as efficient as a factory hybrid and the upfront cost, labor, troubleshooting, explaining it to a mechanic will eat fuel savings.