Ben Fixes a Chevy Volt

[bennelson]

Hi Friends,

It's been a while since I've been on here, but I wanted to let you know about my latest project.

I've been keeping an eye open for a replacement vehicle for our aging 2004 Prius.

A guy I know (let's call him Cris,) drives a 2012 Chevy Volt.

He hit a deer, or rather the deer hit him.

He got the quote for the body work from the body shop and insurance company, and it came to almost $8000. Since a car like that is worth about $10,000 in my area, the insurance company was just going to pay him. He had the option of buying the "totaled" car from the insurance company for $2750.

So, he called me and asked if I wanted a cheap car with body damage, and I said YES!

Both driver side doors were damaged, along with some dents in the body around the rear door. The airbags did NOT go off, and the car is otherwise perfectly drivable. Cris replaced the rear door window with some plexiglass, as the window shattered.

The front, back, and passenger side of the car were in perfect condition.

[bennelson]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haYVjJQl1bc

[bennelson]

When I picked up the car, it was pretty dirty.

I also really couldn't tell the condition of the back door. The seller said he hadn't even tried opening it yet, as there was concern about the possibility of it not being able to close again.

I had concerns about the back door leaking, and since the car was dirty anyway, I took it to the car wash to find out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjdtHx2QPrM

[bennelson]

The driver's seat had some damage (dog left in the car while the guy ran into a store...) and the seat heater wouldn't work. I pulled the seat out of the car.

The big chore to tackle was removing the doors.

The front door didn't open from the outside (but could be opened by climbing in through the passenger seat and unlatching from the inside.)

It turned out that the read door didn't open at all. The impact of the deer appeared to have smashed the release mechanism for the door latch. Even when I removed the interior door panel, there was still no way to open the door.

So, I cut away at the outside of the door, was able to get at the latch itself, and manually release it. I was then able to completely remove the door.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsuUzAXEQ_c

[bennelson]

Of course, now I needed some new doors.
Would I go dig through a junkyard and hunt some down?
No.
This is where things get interesting...

I ALREADY owned a 2012 Chevy Volt.
The same guy, Cris, had sold me one.
His mother drove a Volt and ran a red light with it, smashing the front end into a pickup truck. I bought that salvaged vehicle with the intension of pulling the battery and other usable parts from it, and then selling the rest. I simply haven't talked about that as I've been busy with other projects and hadn't even gotten started on it.

Although the front was smashed, the driver seat and both driver side doors were in PERFECT CONDITION! In fact, the car only had 17,000 miles on it when it was salvaged!

It was the same make, model, and year as the car I bought. It was even silver!



So, I headed over to the barn to pull the seat and doors from the salvage car.

I already pretty much knew what I was doing from pulling the doors off the other car. With that experience and knowing exactly what tools I needed, I made a pretty quick job of stripping the parts.

One odd thing about the salvage car was that it had a green accent color to the interior. My replacement doors and seat won't match the existing black/black-silver interior of the car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0exCHLghoo

[bennelson]

After that, I installed the new (to me) doors on the car.

They went on pretty easy.

The big disappointment was that they were NOT the same color!

For whatever reason, GM made two different silver colors (plus a gray!) for the Volt. One is a true silver (Silver ICE?) and the other is silver with a little blue/green tint to it, called Viridian Joule.

If you saw the two colors, but just not next to each other, or in different light (or in a dark barn,) you would swear they are the same.

Nope. Right next to each other on a car, they certainly are NOT.

On the other hand at least they aren't glaringly different like blue doors on a red car!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T34kjNypt-c

The car still needs a little dent repair, but overall, it's a great improvement and now totally drivable!


I got the doors on at about 4PM Christmas Eve. We were able to drive it over to relatives for the evening.

The idea is that this car will replace our old Prius, which is primarily my wife's car.
Since she always wanted it, I put a giant red bow on the car. (Thanks, Photoshop!)
Merry Christmas to her!

[oil pan 4]

Yeah I would have done exactly the same thing.
How much were the doors?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Yeah I would have done exactly the same thing.
How much were the doors?

As I understand from reading above, his friend had sold him 2 crashed Volts on 2 separate occasions; so the cost of the doors was whatever he paid for the first wrecked Volt.

[cowmeat]

I had to get the driver's door of my 2012 Volt repaired and repainted the Viridian Joule color after I hit it with a big stick while mowing. I just assumed I'd be able to see the difference in the paint since it's such an odd color, but when I got the car back it matched perfectly and you couldn't tell there had ever been work done on it!

Enjoy the Volt, and take better care of it than your buddy and his mom!

[HaroldinCR]

Lucky you.

I am and have been on the lookout for a damaged Volt to ship down here and convert to a pick-em-up truck. If a car is needing significant work done to it, taxes are cheap to import one.

Shipping down on a banana boat is cheap, also. Electric vehicles are being allowed lots of leeway. Pres wants to BAN all fossil fuel vehicles. Yeah, right.

A rear end damaged car BODY would be what I am searching for, as long as the frame/running gear is straight.

Probably just a dream though.
Thanks for posting, Ben.