A UK Volt haunted by ghosts of Chevys past....

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Vike

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 10, 2012
Messages
402
Location
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Transport Evolved is a UK web site that follows EVs, showing up on my radar because of their occasional mentions of an i-MiEV staff car (even gets a passing mention in this piece). Here they write up recent problems experienced with another staff car, a Volt purchased just last year:

https://transportevolved.com/2014/11/04/staff-car-report-2013-chevrolet-volt-reliability-takes-dive-becomes-haunted-halloween/

I don't think I'm alone in saying that the Volt's pedigree has always made me vaguely nervous. Toyota's Prius has been rock solid for over a decade, but it's easy to forget that there aren't really any "old" Volts yet, leaving open the question of what these vehicles are going to be like after 5 or 10 years. This TE article brings up some of my worst fears, telling us that their 2013 Volt's "Problems have included a misbehaving pre-heating system, broken thermostat, lost charge port cover [admittedly not a manufacturing defect, but design-wise, why is this even possible?], stuck entertainment system, interior rust and most annoyingly, an intermittent alarm problem." It all sounds like par for the GM course.

The last thing the EV cause needs is a car with the Volt's visibility turning out to be a 1980s-style Olds diesel debacle. A few glitches do not a disaster make, but this does seem consistent with a non-Toyota-like lack of attention to details, exactly what worries me with a beast of the Volt's complexity. Given the stakes, I'll keep a happy thought and hope that this was just bad luck with one flaky car. The alternative is too depressing to contemplate.
 
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