I’ve got a 2015 Volt, which I really like. I like the size & the pep. I’m going to have my daughter drive it and I’m going to get something new.

What’s a good next step after the Volt? Something similar in size, maybe full EV or hybrid plug-in. There are so many ugly sedans and SUV’s…

This community has been awesome to be a part of. I’m sure I’ve saved thousands on repairs by your DIY knowledge!

I think I may have found what the engine noise is, is that the serpentine belt? Seems like it may be damaged seeing how when it oscillates you can see different parts.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong though. Car is still able to drive mostly fine, but I’m sure driving it isn’t a good idea.

I have a 2013 Volt with a little over 100k miles on it. I got it from a salvage auction for very little and it's been working great for the last two years. It's ugly, I replaced the front bumper cover, the left rear quarter was damaged at some point, along with other minor damage, but it's been a great car nonetheless and owes me nothing. A full charge shows around 36 miles on average.

When I got the car, one of the trip meters hadn't been reset for about 60,000 miles and the mileage displayed on the trip meter was low, somewhere in the 20's. I assume that someone never plugged it in and ran it primarily as a gas car. My question is this, with more than half the miles on the car from gas, in general is that good or bad for the battery? Thanks!

I currently have a Nissan Leaf that's in for a buyback due to the battery failing. For the amount of $ I will get a nice EV is not an option. The Volt looks like an attractive option.

From what I'm reading on here the Becm and battery failures appear to be the main issues? A quick search online shows aftermarket options for these parts if GM stops supporting or making these (or maybe already has). If I'm ok with these aftermarket options in case of a failure is this perhaps a nice car for me to look at it are there many other parts etc. out of warranty that are also problems?

1. Good morning. I got a hole in the coolant hose going from the reservoir container down to a T fitting. It’s the one back by the firewall so it’s the engine/cabin heat loop. Is there something special with this vehicle that has a different process of purging any air than another vehicle? I filled it back up, it’s been an operating temperature for about 20 minutes idling now, everything seems to be working just fine except for I’m still getting ice cold air coming out of the vents. It just won’t make heat. Everything is set to max. As far as I know the system should purge out any air itself like any other vehicle. I do have one other HVAC issue, it’s the air conditioner but I’m pretty sure that’s a bad sensor that I need to replace. But I doubt that would cause any heat issue, and it worked fine before even with the AC issue Thanks

Hello all!

Dumb question for you guys:

My workplace turned off all the level 2 chargers because they say it should only be used for workplace assets (fleet vehicles etc.) and told us we can only use the supplied outlets to plug into that the ICE cars use for their block heaters.

These outlets are on a timer where they turn on and off every 15 ish minutes. My question is can I plug my level 1 charger into these? Will it damage the charger / car with the 15 min cycling?

I’m not worried about gaining range as I live close, it’s more for battery management for when it gets down to below -20 C outside.

Thanks for your advice!

Crazy question, but does anyone else find themselves planning their activities around their EV only range? It's not just me right?

Ever since I've gotten this car (2015) I've become kind of obsessed with seeing how long I can go without using gas at all and just relying on the EV range, it's like a fun little game, given how short a range it has compared to when we owned a full EV I also have found I tend to want to patronize places I can conveniently plug in more. It started after the first week of going to work and back all electric, i bought it thinking I was going to be using it as a hybrid quite a bit, but now it seems so easy not to, it seems like I only use gas if I have to leave Chicago proper, otherwise I don't miss out on anything and just EV around.

I’m experiencing a clunk-clunk sound at low speeds and initially thought it was my hatch until I got on the ground and noticed my underbody panel was hanging off, which has to be the actual source of the noise because my latch and bump stops are all tight on the hatch. One of the areas I could see had bent backwards away from the bottom of the car. I have a 2019 Premier. Anybody got any experience with this issue?

I'm currently car shopping. I've got a 2024 Corolla Hybrid. It's a great car, but my commute is disappearing and I'd rather get something that's already depreciated. I found a 2017 Volt with 56k miles for $11k, but after reading all of the nightmare stories, I basically gave up on Volts all together. Are Gen 2's even worth it at this point? I can't imagine spending $11k just for it to become a brick.

2012 volt. Is there any solution to this without taking this to a body shop or mechanic?

I get this notif almost every time I start the car, and sometimes while driving. I was out of the country a couple of months ago for a semester, my dad killed my battery and got it replaced, now this keeps popping up

I turned over my 2017 Premier to my son several months ago ...who has been driving it error free until last night.

1. Was on the highway and suddenly the car died and he pulled over. (Electrical all working, just no EV or ICE power)
2. He recalls seeing 20mi of EV when he started his trip (5mi trip home from the gym) and when he pulled over, EV range was 0.
3. Could not move the shift knob - held the power button for 10 seconds, opened/closed the driver door and restarted - now can move the shift knob
4. Tried to restart the car, put in D,N,R,L...all get the "Initializing", then "Shift to Park" when moving the shift knob...but no propulsion.
5. Oddly, when he powered-off the car, it would try to automatically restart/reboot.
   
6. I did notice a "Replace Battery in the Remote" message after AAA schlepped it home for us.

Services I've performed in the last 12 - 18 months:

• Shift to Park relay replaced - GM warranty (actually 2 years ago)
• Battery Section replaced (I assume this is BECM) - GM warranty
• EGR valve cleaned - DIY cleaning, worked great

I have a code reader, but this was all 1:00 to 3:00 am last night, no time to read codes until later tonight.

The 12V is original from 2017 - I've put it on a recharger at least once before - about 3 years ago. No issues since and my son drives the car every day - short strips so almost exclusively on EV.

If it's the 12V, what codes should I expect; if BECM, what codes would that throw?

2012, ~108k km. Started as an optimistic project with 2nd Gen battery conversion, but life went sideways and I'm not the least bit interested in finishing it. Been sitting two years on jack stands.

Located in Southern Ontario, Canada. $2k for everything - the car, both sets of batteries and the set of aluminum wheels.

Our 2017 with 117000 miles just got the BECM failure.

It's at the dealership and they are saying they looked into it, but it's not going to be covered. It falls into the originally CARB but now registered in non-CARB state loophole.

Has anyone been successful getting GM to help with this? I plan on calling tomorrow and trying to appeal. It's ridiculous that they can change a warranty after a car is sold.

If anyone has any tips on how to approach this, I'd appreciate the assistance.

I've had this car for three years. There was rust obviously, I live in New York state, but I had no idea how bad it was. It was in the shop to try and find the source of/fix a small evap leak. They call me, and apparently the entire bottom of the car is rusted out: some of the jack points they use were just straight up gone. I've included a pic showing the car where it was normally parked, and the rust stains it left behind on the concrete. The whole thing seems very similar to a post someone made on here about a month ago, and the consensus there was that the car was a goner.

So the car is dead. Now what? I got it for about $9K in 2023, and unfortunately still have $4K left to pay on it. It's obviously not fixable, but the going rate of $500-$700 for a scrap car feels highly inappropriate in this situation. Except for the chassis obviously, this car is full of perfectly good or even nearly brand new parts. The battery was/is getting at least 30 miles a charge consistently with no bad cells that I could see on any of the diagnostics. The entire coolant system was replaced last year because of leaks, so that's new. It literally just came out of the shop a month ago to repair a front-end fender-bender, so the whole front fascia is new. Has anyone had any success parting out these cars, or better yet, found a service to do it for you? It just feels frankly negligent to just take this car whole and crush it, considering that parts for these cars are already in short supply, and the situation is only getting worse. This Volt demands a much more dignified sendoff than the average clunker. Any help would be appreciated here.

My friend is doing my oil change. Is this a good one to use? Or what do y'all recommend? Thx

I'm at 113K miles now

I just had my master cylinder replaced with my car and they told me the brake pedal is slipping now and the only fix they know is to now also replace the break pressure modulator valve.

A couple of googles tells me there’s a lot of things that they could have skipped like they performed the bleed wrong or not thoroughly enough.

Does anyone have experience with this set of issues? They are wanting $2800 to replace this part and I’m already $3000 in on this… 2017 100k miles

Got my Volt a couple months ago. used. 69k miles.

I put 195,000 miles on my previous van in five years. Got used to accelerating like a brick.

The acceleration in the Volt is such a joy. Today on an onramp, there was a car poking along 25 miles an hour... to a 70 mile an hour freeway. when a second lane opened. I had a Honda behind me and in my arrogance, I thought that I would leave the two of them in the dust very quickly.

A few seconds later, I merge into traffic doing 80, set my cruise control, and notice that the Honda has been with me the whole time. He slowly passes me waves and then pulls in front of me... I see the happy word hybrid on his back bumper.

So much fun to drive. ❤️

So recently I have noticed that when the car is charging and the green light is on, the car will occasionally make a quick horn chip sound and I notice the green light turns orange but then within a few seconds it will start charging again and green light will come on.
As if someone disconnected it and connected back.
Not sure if I’m explaining right.
Is this normal and if it what’s wrong?
No errors or codes in the car. DTC is clear. No check engine light and nothing.
Car gives 33mpg.
2012 volt.

Original post

https://www.reddit.com/r/volt/s/zPHdlKxmSG

Here is my broken factory bearing with the cracked plastic races.

It is possible to successfully do this at home without the 800.00 of specialty GM tools. It does require some tolerance for messy, borderline damaging processes to get the original bearing off.

This was by far the most helpful video out there on the process, there is one other where the guy lists part numbers that is also good.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P6yrXDK7X58&t=155s

Tested the transmission out with a 200 mile drive. No sounds, no leaks, repair appears successful by all metrics as of now.

If anyone is getting fucked around by the dealership and is thinking about doing this themselves, you can do it, but it requires gumption and a decent tool chest. Also some mechanical experience. DM me if you have questions or get stuck.

Worst steps are a) shimming the frame mount to get enough room to remove the rotor cover. B) releasing the rotor cover and then finagling it out of the way and c) removing the broken bearing.

One dealership ghosted us about this issues, the other gaslit us saying “that bearing never fails and we have never replaced one and you need a new transmission”. Fuck you GM.

Cheers, good luck

Hi,

I’m selling my 2014 Volt and figured this sub is the best place to find someone who’ll appreciate it.

The details:

• Mileage: 86,469
• Electric range: Still getting about 40 miles on a full charge. The battery has held up great.
• Condition: Everything mechanical and electrical works perfectly. The exterior has a few minor cosmetic blemishes, nothing major.
• Color/trim: Charcoal gray
• Includes: charging cable and both key fobs

You all know the appeal: most daily driving on electric, with the gas generator as backup so there’s no range anxiety on road trips. It’s been a great car.

Price: $6500 Happy to share charge screenshots, the VIN, or service history. Test drives welcome for serious buyers. Located in southern Connecticut.

Well, I sold my Volt (Gen1, 80k miles) to a local used EV dealership here in Seattle (Revolve Motors in Renton), after buying my new 2027 Kia EV3 three weeks ago.

I have loved my Volt very much. Got a Level 2 charger installed at home and wound up getting gas like once a month, so had already pretty much weaned myself off the crude oil teat. But the transition to full-EV has been eye-opening.

From this side of the fence (full EV, 380 mile range) I can’t fathom why I waited so long. Range anxiety is real … and then completely dissipates in less than a week.

Thanks to everyone here for the help over the years. We have a nice little corner of the internet here with a bunch of class people, and that’s a rare thing.

I’ll miss y’all!

Anybody have any issues with using an extension cord for charging? I know the manual says not to, but I can't see why it would be a problem if we used a suitably heavy duty cord, like a 12/3 or even a 10/3.

ETA: Also wondering, anybody using a level 2 charger? Has the faster charging affected your battery health?