Quote:
Originally Posted by cowmeat
I love the Volt, which really is an amazing car, but . . . . .
In reality both of my Volts have had catastrophic issues that not only left me stranded, but if they weren't covered under warranty would have put me thousands of dollars in the hole or sent them to the junkyard due to the prohibitively expensive parts & labor.
Mt first Volt suffered a failure of the big battery which luckily was covered under the Voltec warranty. My son bought it from me when I got the new one but I've already warned him he needs to look for something else since it's now beyond the warranty period. While it does have a brand new big battery in it, another failure would be the end of it
My new Volt suffered the dreaded "shift to park" message, which is now probably the most common issue with the Gen 2 Volts but can be triggered by a myriad of different causes. Unlike a lot of them mine required a complete transmission change out with less than 10K miles on it, and it sat at the dealership for three months while they waited on parts. I don't drive it hard, it was just some faulty bearing which caused it. It left me dead in the water on the side of the road (twice) and the second time it died when I hit the off-ramp of I-4 at 70 mph - it loses brake pedal, power steering, etc . . . not a fun experience and not one I'd want me wife to ever have to survive.
I'd stick with the Prius since it's more proven and parts are way more readily available
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I somewhat agree here, it's a fair amount of risk because the repairs are so expensive, similar to buying a 100k mile bmw or merc. My gen1 volt is a wonderful vehicle and besides one big issue covered under warranty (faulty coolant sensor that basically requires a non-GM bypass to eliminate the problem) it has been completely trouble free for 60k miles.
Luckily the car is now so undervalued as a vehicle that if it did crap out on me, I could sell the HV battery and part out/scrap the rest for about the value of the vehicle.