So I'm in the market for a car and I've been looking at a lot of different things like Mazda 3s, MINI coopers, and Taurus'. But the Volt has really been sticking out to me and I'm starting to lean more towards it but I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about things like what its like to drive, the maintenance, and general ownership insights.
High voltage battery only had half a charge when I started running the inverter, but it got us nearly 12 hours of use before the gas engine has kicked in to keep it topped off.
I tested the inverter with our chest freezer first, it worked on the first go, then I swapped over to the full size fridge along with the house fans. Tried to switch over to the chest freezer this morning but it keeps popping the GFCI on the inverter, even as the only device, so I guess we're just gonna have to cross our fingers and throw the most important stuff in the full size fridge. Better than a total loss. Won't have power until at least tomorrow evening, if our worthless power company is to be believed.
Oh great the portable 120v charging port adapter - the ground pin broke and is there a way to fix this?
Do I need to replace this with completely new cable now or can this be fixed?
What are prices these days if I need to get new one?
I bought a 2018 volt used. Love the car!!!
I am moving to an apt that does not have charging abilities.
Is there a way to commercially charge?
Do I have to do anything special?
Any info would be greatly appreciated
I ve had solar PVs and a residential wind turbine since 2011. The systems have been effective for providing ALL of our household Electric needs, but when I later got Electrified Vehicles (cars, riding mowers, e-bikes, etc), my surplus went away.
I got some quotes on expanding my systems, but I would never come close to Capital recovery. Instead, I bought 900 Watts of portable solar panels and a Power Control Unit that can charge EVs with 110-Volt or 220-Volr.
Even though 900 Watts is a relatively small amount of power, I am able to get most of the power for the vehicles. There is one real advantage to a portable unit. It can be directed at the sun throughout the day. For example in the morning and evening, if I don’t change the orientation the panels will only put out about 20% of available power.
My overall point is that, if you don’t want to spend a lot, this is a great alternative. It helps to be retired, where I can go outside to reorient 3-4 times per day! I also don’t drive daily. Last point - Ir’s a nice retirement toy!
2012 Chevy Volt
I have something a little bit strange going on. I check my oil almost every month, I always see the oil usually lighter when I get a oil change and then it progressively gets a little bit darker within a few months but this time something new has happened which is very confusing to me. I got a fresh oil change along with the filter 2 days ago and I waited to drive the car about a hundred miles on the engine before I check the oil. I noticed that for some reason there is this black little bits that are in the middle of the dipstick. I checked the oil a few times and I noticed around the middle of the dipstick, I mean the actual middle not the middle between the lines. There's these dark little pieces that are on the tissue, I took a picture of it to show but I don't know if the picture does any justice. Does anybody know what this is? Once again, my problem isn't the color of the oil at all, it's just these little black bits that I'm seeing on the middle of the dipstick
So I have a 2018 Chevy volt LT. had her 2 months and put around 4K miles on her. I saw the check engine light come on and took down the codes.
Any advice? She had a Tranmisson fluid change done about 60k miles ago according to carfax. Was gearing up to have that done here in a few weeks now thag km near 120k.
I bought it for the price/ease of having both options (I live in California) but I'm very new to the car and hybrids in general. Any advice specific to driving a hybrid? How do you/can you choose between using only gas or only electric(ity)? How do you switch in between? How doees using one affect the other? Is there a mode that uses both and if so how? (I'm going to google to try and get a good understanding but thought it might be helpful to personally ask around on here.) Any advice is appreciated :)
My 2017 volte have this. Maybe I should send it to dealer to repair.
Now no AC.
Got T boned in a snow storm and said goodbye to my 2014 Cruze. Despite the head injury, I'll call this a net positive. $5/mo to commute and Ive filled 3 tanks in 4 months. Queue peter griffin: "why are we not funding this!?" Chevy marketing team dropped the ball. I picked it up with 70K Km and an obsessive maintenance record. I hear wierd noises under the steering column, like autobots transforming lol and when I plug in my phone the voice commands don't work- my phone notes that it's plugged in for charging only. Android Auto does work. Any ideas? When I click it to read my text messages it says voice commands are disabled.
My 2019P stopped blowing cold air. Fan still blows. No DTCs. There's a noise, like air in a tube, coming from the dash. And the noise persists with the AC/fan off. Since the noise persists, I'm guessing it's the system still running since I'm in Florida. Anyone with any experience with this? Since the air isn't cold, and it noise continues with the AC off, my first guess is compressor? TIA
Update: the hissing noise has stopped and we have a P0534
Spotted around 8pm today at the Cadillac dealership up in Shoreline. We have no idea how this even happened.
Anyone done it themselves? Thinking about trying to limp some more miles out of my volt and quite confident the pump is blown. No metal in oil, ran minimally (less then 10 secs) after failure.
I have the service manual but trying to find someone who's actually done it to confirm if the sump needs to come off or if it can be done without removing that.
Temp tag suggests novice rider went through a fence and onto this parked car in Seattle.
Photo from a post by u/PenguinBZH
2017 Chevy Volt. I think the regenerative braking has had a louder whining sound when slowing down. Over the past weekend I was driving highway speeds of around 60 mph. I heard and felt a thump under the car. A slight loss of responsiveness with the pedal but then within seconds it cleared up the check. Engine light did come on but the car ran just fine for the remainder of the day. This happened during the gas engine running as I had depleted the battery already. By the time I got home that day, the check engine light turned itself off. P0A46 Was the fault code that came up on my reader
The next day I drove about 20 miles out from my house to home Depot. Still running on battery power. When I was pulling out of the parking lot I felt and heard that thump again and this time I lost all propulsion forward or backwards. This time I was probably only moving about 7 mph. Very stressful situation as I was right in the middle of the main traffic in front of the store. I could not even figure out how to shut the car off. The push button was not responsive and all I saw was a shift to park message. AI suggested disconnected a negative cable for 10 minutes which I did and that seemed to let the car run as normal and I made it home just fine. The car has been parked ever since.
Digging through the internet and AI questions. It's pointing to the bearings in the drive unit which is ridiculously expensive. From what I hear. I have an appointment at the Chevy dealer next week but they want to charge $250 per hour to diagnose. I don't follow the vault community much. But you think I'm wasting my money getting this diagnosed. I'd hate to throw $500 away to find out it is the bearings and they have to replace the entire unit which is way more than I'm willing to pay. It's a shame that a $35,000 car only made it to 115,000 miles. I probably enjoyed this car more than any car I have ever purchased but I am not afraid to trade it in for something else.
Thanks for your time
Since version 2.0.0, released about a year ago, I've been constantly asked to make Voltage available to iOS. Now the wait is over. You can get it here
About using adapters:
Bluetooth: Due to Apple's restrictions, apps can only support Apple-certified Bluetooth adapters (MFi). Voltage currently supports: vLinker MS (not MC) as well as ObdLink MX+. Both adapters have SW-CAN support, which is necessary for full compatibility with the app.
WiFi + BLE: No restrictions here. Owners of the vLinker MC+ can select the vLinker MC-iOS in BLE devices, and the VeePeak BLE works too.
If you run into problems, there's an option in the menu at the bottom — Send logs / Report a problem.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/voltage-volt-ampera-bolt-obd/id6774315064
It seems to be coming from inside this section of the rear hatch. Does anyone know how to remove the plastic here?
Saw a (cheap) 2011 f/s that caught my eye but passed on it because battery health was sketch--I mean, it's a 2011 that's been used like it should. But it did get me wondering how long these early Volts realistically last.
Numbers:: not plugged in, at "empty" for weeks on the lot (around 20%) first read 29.3 Ah, around 65% capacity. It had a Weak Cell #80 showing up under load during a full throttle test, down to about 2.7-2.8, 26% SOC.
Delta at 20% SOC was 197 mV; but under heavy load, popped to 400+ (no PPR though). HV battery isolation was great, 3000, and module temps all reported stable 31-33 c. When the SOC was in the 30%+ all deltas were at 49mv, which is acceptable.
So even though I didn't buy it, I was just curious how long these 2011s survive. Anybody still rolling one with the OG HV battery?
The other day I went to get into the car and it only said "shift to park". I think got it to allow me to drive it after turning on and off a few times with "reduced propulsion". Then it would only let me drive it if the motor kicked on. I cycled it one more time and it would never come out of the "shift to park" code. I got photos with my little code reader saying "P3042, P1FD1, U2619, U2620, U2621, U2622, U2623, U2624 and P1E00.
Based on what I have found on forums, it seems like this is a bad BECM. I took it to my local Chevy Dealership and they stated that they are certified to work on EVs. They told me the first day that they couldn't find anything wrong with it (the app said I to service the litium ion battery and the electric drive unit.) I haven't obtained what they got on their computer when hooking up to the car.
They called me today and quoted me $13,000 dollars to replace the battery pack. I have insisted that they check on the BECM and to check on Special Coverage N232432680. I have filed a case with GM today and will be asking that they look into this further.
Is there anything else I can do?
Bought the car from Carvana a year ago. I have been getting normal battery function before this happened. Unfortunately 13K isn't going to work for me.
Also the car shows as PZEV warrenty but my dealership says the Special Coverage for the BECM isn't attached to my VIN.
Thanks in advance.