All they had to do is fix the car

All They Had to Do Was Fix the Car

By Charles Jackson

I actually like my Hyundai. I just wish I felt Hyundai liked me back.

After repeated repair visits, recurring check engine lights, oil consumption and more follow-up calls than I care to count, I have reached a point I never expected: I am afraid to drive my own car.

I can smell what seems to be burning oil. I worry about what my children and I may be breathing. The car has stalled, leaving me scrambling to pull over and restart it. I no longer trust it for a trip outside the area. Now, I have parked it.

This is my family’s transportation. It is how I get to work, take my daughters to school and help keep our household moving. When the car fails, the consequences reach well beyond the repair shop.

I originally leased my 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe, then bought it when the lease ended. I also purchased extended warranty coverage because I wanted protection if something went wrong.

Something went wrong. What I have not received is a lasting repair.

The pattern has become painfully familiar: Take the car in. Receive an explanation. Authorize repairs. Get it back. Then, sometimes within days or weeks, watch the check engine light return.

My extended warranty has been billed for repairs, and I have faced charges myself. Yet the problems have continued. From where I sit, the process keeps producing repair bills without producing a car I can depend on.

The calls from Hyundai representatives have become another source of frustration. Someone calls while I am working, promises to follow up and schedules another conversation. Sometimes we connect; sometimes I miss the call. Either way, another week passes.

A follow-up call is welcome when it brings an answer. After enough calls without a resolution, it starts to feel like an appointment to keep waiting.

Meanwhile, I still have a job. I cannot spend every workday coordinating conversations about a car that is supposed to help me get to work in the first place.

Then there is the transportation problem while the vehicle is being serviced. I have repeatedly been told that no loaner car was available. Yet on one visit, I watched another customer leave in a dealership-branded loaner.

I do not know that customer’s circumstances or how the dealership assigned its vehicles. But after being told there was nothing available for me, watching someone else drive away raised a reasonable question: How are those decisions made?

Rental arrangements offered little relief. A preferred rental rate still meant paying for transportation while dealing with repairs, household expenses and time away from work.

During one breakdown around the Coachella festival period, I could not find an available rental car. I rented a U-Haul to get to work. Arriving in a moving truck created another problem at my workplace, but I was trying to solve the first one: showing up.

The costs have also been personal.

We have friends in Orange County we have not visited in about a year because I do not trust the car for the drive. My grandson welcomed a son in February, and I still have not traveled to the Inland Empire to meet my great-grandson. I want to see that child, but I do not want to strand my family on the way.

My twin daughters are 17. I had planned to give them the Hyundai as their first car. That plan is gone. I cannot hand my daughters the keys to a vehicle I am afraid to drive myself.

When one daughter wanted to visit a college campus in the Santa Barbara area, I rented a car. A trip to explore her future became another expense tied to our transportation troubles.

I also sought arbitration through the Better Business Bureau. The hearing schedule conflicted with work, and I did not attend. The arbitrator ruled in Hyundai’s favor. From my perspective, that process ended without resolving the problem that sent me there.

Now I am considering trading the car in. I dislike the thought of this vehicle becoming someone else’s headache, but I need dependable transportation. I cannot keep organizing my family’s life around the possibility of another breakdown.

To other owners facing recurring problems, my advice comes from experience: Keep your invoices, record each breakdown and seek qualified advice early. Do not let repeated promises of another inspection or another callback become your entire plan.

I bought extended coverage for peace of mind. Instead, I have spent my time arranging repairs, finding rentals, answering calls and wondering whether the next drive would end at the curb.

I did not want a fight with Hyundai. I wanted to keep a car I liked and use it to take care of my family.

All they had to do was fix the car.

After everything I have been through, I am still waiting for that to happen.

I originally titled this article as a cautionary tale. If they couldn’t fix it they were obligated to replace it. We all know about the lemon law rules. We also know that if you can stall long enough, you can bypass the lemon law rules all together, because you have successfully outlived the statute of limitations, and you have skirted your legal obligation to

conduct your business fairly.

The Lemon Experience

By Charles Jackson

My car is a 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe with the 2.4-liter GDI engine — the standard engine in the lower trims, the SE, SEL, and regular Limited. GDI stands for Gasoline Direct Injection: instead of mixing fuel with air before it enters the cylinder, the injectors spray fuel straight into the cylinder at very high pressure. It’s efficient on paper. In my driveway, it has been something else.

The engine also has Hyundai’s Idle Stop & Go system. Hold the brake at a light and the engine shuts off completely; lift your foot and it restarts. A few months back I started turning that system off by hand every trip — and my check engine light, a regular visitor before, hasn’t come on in about a month. I can’t prove the connection, but here’s a likely piece of it: this engine’s valve timing runs on oil pressure, and my car doesn’t hold onto its oil.

That’s the real problem. I have to add oil every 7 to 10 days, depending on how much I’m driving. At roughly 44 miles a day on my school runs, that’s a top-up every 300 to 450 miles. Hyundai’s own yardstick says burning more than about a quart per 1,000 miles is excessive. By that measure, my engine is burning oil at two to three times the rate Hyundai itself calls too much.

I’m not an isolated case, either. The 2020 Santa Fe is named in a Hyundai/Kia oil-consumption class action covering 2015–2021 Santa Fes, and the federal safety database is full of owners describing the same story: oil dropping below the low mark every few hundred miles, then stalling, low oil pressure, metal shavings in the pan, and engines failing outright from worn bearings. Oil starvation is what turns my problem into a dead engine, so I keep feeding it oil I shouldn’t have to buy.

Then there’s the other side of this — the waiting game. While my car sat in the shop, I was in rental cars, and it wasn’t accumulating miles because it wasn’t being driven at all. Meanwhile, the legal clocks kept ticking. California’s lemon law deadlines are measured in time, not in how the car was treated, and the recent AB 1755 changes shortened the window further: a claim now has to be filed within a year after the warranty expires, and no later than six years after the car was delivered. Every month spent “waiting on repairs” is a month off the owner’s clock. Whether it’s anybody’s plan or not, delay works in the manufacturer’s favor and against the person still making payments on a car that burns oil.

So here’s where I stand: still driving it, still topping it off, ISG off, and now keeping a written log — date, odometer, and how much oil went in, every time, receipts saved. “It burns a lot of oil” is an opinion. A quarts-per-mile figure is evidence. If you’re driving one of these engines and feeding it oil between changes, I’d suggest you start the same log. The clock is running either way.

Biting The Hands That Feed On You

Biting The Hands That Feed On You

Inglewood’s Battle of the Billboards: What Does It All Mean?

By Charles Jackson INGLEWOOD, Calif. 

— If political signs could talk, Inglewood would be arguing with itself.

Drive around town and there they are: YES on BB. NO on BB. Signs warning about billboard blight. Signs warning about billionaires. Signs supporting candidates, opposing candidates and, in one of the better ironies of election season, signs complaining about signs.

Turn on the radio, television or social media and the argument follows you home.

At some point, voters might reasonably ask a simple question: What exactly are we fighting about?

Measure BB, on Inglewood’s Nov. 3 ballot, is officially called the “Ordinance to Eliminate Advertising on Public Right-of-Way.” It would eliminate the city’s authority to permit most commercial advertising on public streets, sidewalks and certain other public property.

That sounds straightforward.

The campaign surrounding it is anything but.

Supporters of BB argue that Inglewood has become saturated with digital advertising and that public streets and sidewalks shouldn’t become an expanding commercial advertising network.

Opponents argue that those advertisements generate millions of dollars for the city and that eliminating them would punch a sizable hole in city revenue.

Both are arguments worth hearing.

But then comes the part voters should pay particular attention to: Who is paying to make those arguments?

The Yes on BB campaign is backed by interests connected to Inglewood’s major sports and entertainment venues. The opposition campaign has received substantial backing from WOW Media, the billboard company with an advertising agreement with the city. Campaign finance reporting has shown millions of dollars flowing into the competing campaigns.

So this isn’t simply Mrs. Johnson down the street complaining that a digital billboard is shining through her bedroom window.

There are some serious financial interests at the table.

And everybody, naturally, says they are protecting Inglewood.

Imagine that.

City estimates cited in news reports indicate billboard agreements have produced millions of dollars annually for Inglewood, with officials estimating Measure BB could eliminate roughly $6 million to $8 million in current annual revenue.

That’s real money.

But residents who dislike the proliferation of digital advertising have a point, too. The question isn’t merely whether advertising produces revenue. It’s also how much advertising residents want occupying public space and whether the financial benefit justifies it.

Then things get even more interesting.

Some of the stadium interests supporting restrictions on public-right-of-way advertising have advertising displays of their own on private venue property. Opponents have seized upon that distinction, arguing that BB restricts one category of advertising while leaving another largely untouched.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

The argument isn’t simply billboards versus no billboards.

It’s also about whose billboards, where they’re located, who controls them and who collects the money.

And if that weren’t enough, Measure AT adds another layer to the political stew. That measure concerns admissions-tax revenue from major Inglewood venues, including SoFi Stadium and Intuit Dome. WOW Media has participated financially in the campaign surrounding that measure as well.

So the billboard company has interests in a fight involving stadium revenue, while stadium interests have interests in a fight involving billboard revenue.

Everybody got that?

Neither did I the first time around.

That’s precisely why voters should be cautious about allowing campaign slogans to substitute for reading the measures themselves.

A resident can dislike giant digital billboards without automatically accepting everything stadium interests say.

A resident can appreciate the millions of dollars those billboards bring into city coffers without automatically accepting everything the billboard industry says.

And residents can support Inglewood’s economic development while still asking whether City Hall, corporations and private developers are making arrangements that adequately benefit the people who actually live here.

Those ideas can coexist.

Unfortunately, campaign season doesn’t leave much room on a lawn sign for nuance.

Instead, voters get blight, bailout, billionaires, revenue and fair share — preferably printed in letters large enough to read while waiting for the light to change.

The messaging has become so loud that the underlying question is getting harder to hear.

So perhaps the most useful thing Inglewood voters can do between now and Nov. 3 is something considerably less exciting than planting another sign.

Read Measure BB. Read the arguments supporting it. Read the opposition. Read the financial disclosures. And whenever somebody spends a small fortune telling you which side is supposedly protecting you, take another minute and find out who’s paying them.

Because after all the billboards, commercials, mailers and yard signs disappear, Inglewood residents will still be here.

And we’re the ones who have to live with what the fine print actually says.

No Matter Who Is At Fault, A Tent Is Not A Home.

No Matter Who Is At Fault, A Tent Is Not A Home.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters Condemns Trump Administration’s Attack on Homelessness Programs

By Charles Jackson

SHARE:

Congresswoman Maxine Waters has delivered a forceful rebuke of the Trump administration over its latest confrontation with Los Angeles and the agencies attempting to address one of the region’s most persistent humanitarian problems: homelessness.

Waters, who represents California’s 43rd Congressional District and serves as the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, praised a federal court decision temporarily preventing the administration from suspending the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority from federal homelessness grant programs.

At stake is approximately $241 million in federal funding, along with additional near-term funding supporting programs that provide services to more than 11,000 people.

For Waters, however, the dispute goes well beyond dollars.

Los Angeles County continues to face a staggering homelessness crisis, with nearly 73,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night. They are individuals and families already living at society’s most vulnerable edge. Removing services designed to help them, Waters argues, does nothing to solve homelessness. It risks making an already desperate situation considerably worse.

Her criticism of the administration is unmistakable.

Rather than joining Los Angeles officials in confronting the shortage of affordable housing and the complicated causes of homelessness, Waters contends that the federal government has chosen confrontation. Suspending funding would threaten services without providing a meaningful alternative for the thousands of people depending upon them.

That is what makes the policy particularly troubling.

Government certainly has the right—and the responsibility—to demand accountability for taxpayer money. Homelessness programs should be expected to demonstrate results, operate efficiently and correct failures when they occur.

But accountability and abandonment are not the same thing.

Taking money away from programs serving people who have nowhere else to go does not magically produce housing. It does not lower rents, create shelter beds, expand mental-health treatment or provide permanent supportive housing.

It simply removes resources.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter’s intervention temporarily stopped that from happening, a decision Waters welcomed as an important reprieve. Yet she cautioned against confusing a courtroom victory with a solution to homelessness itself.

The larger problem remains.

Americans need affordable housing, stable communities and a federal housing policy capable of recognizing homelessness as something more complicated than people sleeping on sidewalks.

Waters has advocated increased federal investment through her Ending Homelessness Act and has also pointed to bipartisan congressional efforts on housing as evidence that lawmakers with significant political differences can still work toward practical solutions.

Her message is ultimately a simple one: Government cannot claim to be fighting homelessness while simultaneously weakening the programs responsible for helping homeless people find their way back into housing.

The court may have protected these programs for the moment.

But the people sleeping in tents, automobiles, shelters and on sidewalks tonight cannot live on temporary court orders.

They need somewhere to live.

=====================

Ms. Waters’ full text

https://iqconnect.house.gov/iqextranet/view_newsletter.aspx?id=107826&c=CA43MW

A Lifeline for South Los Angeles:

A Lifeline for South Los Angeles: Kaiser Permanente Invests in MLK Community Hospital

By Charles Jackson

In South Los Angeles, where access to timely medical care can mean the difference between recovery and tragedy, two respected health care institutions are joining forces to strengthen a hospital that has become indispensable to the community.

Kaiser Permanente announced Aug. 11 that it will provide a $25 million grant to Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital, along with the use of a modular medical building valued at $7 million. Together, the commitments represent an investment of up to $32 million in expanded emergency care for South Los Angeles.

The partnership is worth celebrating—not simply because of the dollar amount, but because it responds directly to a critical and growing need.

MLK Community Hospital opened in 2015 as a private, nonprofit, 131-bed acute-care facility. Its Hope Emergency Center was designed with as many as 29 treatment bays and an anticipated capacity of approximately 25,000 visits annually. Today, it handles about 125,000 visits a year—five times the number it was originally designed to accommodate.

That extraordinary demand has forced the hospital to triage and sometimes treat patients in temporary tents erected in its parking lot. Kaiser Permanente’s investment will help fund a permanent expansion of the emergency department while providing temporary modular treatment space so patients can continue receiving care during construction.

The numbers tell only part of the story.

As a technician, I have installed and serviced medical equipment at both MLK Community Hospital and Kaiser Permanente facilities. I have seen firsthand that a hospital is much more than a building with beds. It is a complicated, carefully coordinated network of medical professionals, technology, equipment and support systems—all of which must function properly when a patient arrives in distress.

A monitor, imaging system or other medical device may look like another piece of machinery to an outside observer. To a doctor, nurse or patient, however, that equipment can provide the information needed to make an urgent decision. Technology, physical capacity and skilled medical personnel must work together. When any part of that system is stretched too thin, the consequences can affect an entire community.

I am also a longtime Kaiser Permanente member. From that perspective, this partnership demonstrates an important understanding of what community health should mean. Kaiser is investing beyond the walls of its own hospitals and medical offices to reinforce another institution serving people with some of the greatest health care needs in Los Angeles County.

Approximately 80% of MLK Community Hospital’s patients are covered by Medi-Cal. Nearly 95% of its emergency department visits involve people insured through Medi-Cal or Medicare, or patients who have no insurance. The hospital also states that it serves everyone, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.

Those figures help explain why MLK is more than a neighborhood hospital. It is an essential part of the region’s medical safety net.

Despite its financial and capacity pressures, MLK Community Hospital has maintained strong federal quality ratings. Its work is especially important in communities that continue to experience higher rates of chronic illness and preventable hospitalization, along with longstanding barriers involving transportation, housing, income and access to primary and specialty care.

“This gift—the largest in MLK’s history—strengthens our ability to offer care in the safe, dignified setting our community deserves,” MLK Community Healthcare CEO Dr. Elaine Batchlor said in announcing the partnership.

That emphasis on dignity is important. Patients should not have to receive emergency treatment in an overcrowded setting simply because of their ZIP code, income or insurance status. Families in South Los Angeles deserve the same safe, efficient and technologically capable health care environment available in more affluent communities.

Kaiser Permanente Chairman and CEO Greg A. Adams described the investment as more than an emergency department expansion. He said it is intended to strengthen the health care infrastructure Los Angeles families will depend upon for generations.

The partnership also offers a practical model for how major nonprofit health systems can support independent community hospitals. Instead of viewing institutions such as MLK only as facilities handling overflow or serving patients outside a particular membership system, Kaiser is recognizing that every strong hospital contributes to a healthier and more resilient region.

When one emergency department becomes overwhelmed, the effects do not remain inside that building. Ambulances may be redirected, waiting times may increase elsewhere, and patients may postpone treatment until their conditions become more serious. Expanding MLK’s capacity can therefore benefit South Los Angeles while easing pressure across the broader county health care network.

The $25 million grant will help build permanent capacity. The $7 million modular facility will help preserve access while that work is underway. One addresses the future; the other recognizes that people need care today.

For those of us who have worked inside these institutions, used their services or watched family members depend upon them, this investment carries special meaning. It represents confidence in MLK Community Hospital, respect for its medical professionals and a commitment to the people they serve.

The name Martin Luther King Jr. carries a continuing call for justice, equality and human dignity. By helping this hospital expand emergency care, Kaiser Permanente is supporting those principles in a direct and measurable way.

This is what an effective health care partnership should look like: one institution recognizing another’s essential role, responding to an urgent need and investing in a healthier future for the entire community.

 

 

Skunked!

Republic Services Reminds Inglewood Customers to Avoid Overage Charges

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — 

Republic Services is reminding Inglewood residents and businesses that keeping trash, recycling and organics containers properly closed is essential for safe and efficient collection and can help customers avoid unnecessary service issues or additional charges.

An “overage” occurs when a cart or dumpster is filled beyond its capacity, preventing the lid from closing completely. 

Overage conditions also include materials protruding above the rim of a container or bags and other items placed on top of or around the cart or dumpster.

According to Republic Services, overfilled containers create safety hazards for collection crews, slow service routes and can contribute to litter in neighborhoods. Keeping container lids fully closed helps maintain clean streets and ensures waste is collected safely throughout the City of Inglewood.

Customers can reduce the likelihood of overages by:

Keeping all materials below the rim of the container.

Making sure the lid closes completely before collection day.

Breaking down cardboard boxes before placing them in recycling carts.

Upgrading to a larger cart or dumpster, or scheduling additional collection service if containers are consistently full.

Commercial customers should be aware that repeated overages may result in additional service charges. Before fees are assessed, customers will be notified and given an opportunity to correct the problem. Continued overfilling, however, could lead to added charges.

Residential customers with overfilled carts may find their containers tagged to indicate an overage. In situations where an overfilled container cannot be collected safely, Republic Services may be unable to provide service until the issue has been corrected.

Republic Services encourages all customers to properly manage waste volumes to help keep Inglewood neighborhoods clean, improve collection efficiency and protect the safety of sanitation workers.

 

URGENT SIDE NOTE

As a 25 year resident, I have only recently noticed the presence of mephitis, the    the scientific name for the stripped skunk. I spotted one wandering nocturnally, eastbound on west Hillsdale, off of Eucalyptus. A week later my dog  came in the house “skunked”, and I smelled one nearby last week, and my neighbor’s dog was having a fit on his side of the fence. Just another good reason to keep it tidy in and around you trash cans. 

 

Desertion

Desertion

     As of July 2026, 69 voting members of the U.S. Congress are not seeking re-election. This includes 11 members of ,Senate and 58 members of the House of Representatives. 

     That is a big number. Of the 69 total members leaving Congress:

  • ​There are 6 Senate: 6 Republicans (not counting Lindsey Graham, who passed away – placing his seat  in peril. Mitch McConnell will  not return) 
  • 5 Democrats are also leaving, (including independents caucusing with Democrats).
  • ​House of Representatives: 36 Republicans and 22 Democrats, are bailing out.

​In total, 42 Republicans and 27 Democrats are not seeking re-election.

Tariffs played a major role in the last fit of congressional carnage. During the Great Depression, lawmakers did not widely choose to retire or resign in the mid-term. Instead, a massive shift in Congress was driven by voters.

​In the 1930 and 1932 elections, voters overwhelmingly voted Republicans out of office due to the economic crisis, resulting in a historic loss of nearly 150 Republican seats in the House and Senate.

Unless you are a history buff, it’s likely that you are unaware of the identity shift that took place between the Democrats and the Republicans,  mid-century. If you’re one of those died in the wolves this or that, you may not even recognize yourself. Don’t get caught up in CRT, until you do a little reading. Know thyself.

Either the rabbits are scampering to holes, or the rats are deserting the ships.

Stay tuned.

 

Litter bug alert! 

ALERT. Litter bug alert!

While California has not yet authorized standard, automated traffic cameras, to issue citations for litterbugs.

State-level vehicle code only allows automated traffic enforcement systems for specific violations like running red lights, speeding, or illegally using bus lanes.

​. However, there are two related surveillance rollouts causing recent buzz:

Garbage Truck Cameras:

Major waste management companies in California (like Recycling and Waste Management) have recently equipped their residential collection trucks with cameras to photograph and fine customers for overfilled trash bins.

​Localized Anti-Dumping Cameras: Cities like San Jose, Oakland, and Vallejo utilize localized, mobile surveillance cameras hidden at known hotspots to catch and prosecute major illegal dumping, rather than tracking casual littering on standard roads.

BUT Here’s a BOLO Alert.

Those discretionary Cameras on the sanitation trucks only look down into the hopper and at the bins to flag overfilled or contaminated dumpsters. They are managed by the waste disposal companies to assess fees, not by traffic enforcement to issue parking tickets on trash pickup days.

​. However, if a vehicle blocks a trash pickup zone, the driver can still be cited the traditional way if parking enforcement or a street sweeper with automated cameras passes by.

I’ve been known to participate in – let’s call it, the prediction markets, like Kalshi. I can’t help but wonder about the odds that some wise guy in the tech department might not cross connect the trash sweeper and the parking control folks and turn the trash sweepers into an A.I. snitch.

  • Ok. I’ll pause here. I’m headed into the twilight zone…