Cowmeat learns to drive the Volt

[cowmeat]

Glad to read you have your Volt back! Question for you and in general: Do you ever find a need/benefit to precondition? If so, have you ever experienced an error/failure when asking the vehicle to remote start for proconditioning?

I live in central Florida, so I've never had the need to pre-condition, I wouldn't know how to do it.

Shoot, I wanted to turn on the heat the other morning and couldn't even figure out how to do it, I ended up just turning on the seat and steering wheel heaters

I don't have the app any more since it cost money, it was cool during the free trial period but much like Sirius & OnStar not cool enough to pay for it

[cowmeat]

I never paid much attention to the estimated gas-only miles since I rarely use any gas, but I couldn't plug in at work last week and drove close to 200 miles on gas. When I filled up tonight it gave me an estimated 402 miles of gas-only range

That's pretty decent for a sub-ten gallon tank, and in reality I was averaging 49.2 mpg on fuel so if I ran a couple of more tanks of gas through it I'm sure the estimated gas-only range would be closer to 500 miles

[cowmeat]

I hit something laying in the road on my way home Friday and it blew out the sidewall on one of the rear tires. While I had the rim off I noticed that after 13k miles and a year and a half of driving the rotor still has the scoring on it from the factory and basically looked new.

Thanks to driving in "L" and using the paddle on the back of the steering wheel as my brakes (to put as much juice back into the battery as possible when slowing) I rarely even touch the brake pedal. Occasionally I get stuck at a light I didn't time right and sometimes I tap the pedal just enough to activate the brake light let the driver behind me know I'm slowing.

There are commutes where I don't touch the brakes at all, especially now since there are very few cars around me. I'm pretty sure the original brake pads will last the life of the car

[Ecky]

Pretty cool.

Here in the great white north, EVs often have to do a few emergency braking procedures before going in for an inspection, because the braking surfaces are not allowed to have rust on them. With a constant salt bath in the cold months, the rotors can actually get quite bad.

[cowmeat]

That's so sad, man!

How are you not ready to move back down here yet?

[Ecky]

Honestly, I love it here.

It's 78 degrees with low humidity through most of summer. I leave my windows open 6-7 months out of the year.

I have acres of sugar maples (make my own syrup now), room for chickens, my pristine drinking water comes from a well in front of my house. I pay only for internet, mortgage, and electricity - and have plans to get rid of that last one soon.

During the warm months, everything is an entirely different level of green than I ever saw in Florida. You can practically just throw vegetable seeds on the ground, and the friendly climate takes care of the rest.

Burlington has 40,000 people and it feels too busy to me. And, even there, there are few strip malls, chains or box stores. Food sold in restaurants and markets is mostly locally sourced. People care where things come from and how they're made.

The state is 110% behind "green" initiatives, both in the way of financial incentives and a regulatory environment that's friendly to them.

Most of my neighbors drive compact cars, hybrids and EVs, by preference.

~

Sure, it's cold 5 months of the year, but in my opinion the weather isn't bad starting late January through late March, when the sun comes out and the days start getting noticeably longer. The hardest months for me tend to be late October through early January, when it's cloudy and rainy, and often not all that cold.

[cowmeat]

Glad you like it there! Pics of your place during summer do look awesome, wish I had the room you have without all the snow

Sure, it's cold 5 months of the year, but in my opinion the weather isn't bad starting late January through late March, when the sun comes out and the days start getting noticeably longer. The hardest months for me tend to be late October through early January, when it's cloudy and rainy, and often not all that cold.

Yeah, those 5 months are what made us move from southern Illinois to Florida in the first place. I never liked the cold much after I became a carpenter, but being snowed in the night my daughter was born and not being able to see her for two days afterwards sealed it for me!

We did have killer gardens and great scenery up north, and the changing colors of the leaves were awesome, but spring just takes too long to come around and being in construction was really hard on us since there'd be months at a time I couldn't find work . . . brrrrr

Maybe we'll become snowbirds when we retire and spend summers up there

[cowmeat]

So I got a recall notice from GM on my Volt in the mail. The one for the evap line rubbing something, not anything critical (especially since almost of my driving is EV)

I called the Chevy center where they've worked on it before but I found out they laid off both of the Volt techs. I have to assume all the dealerships are like that and the EV people are probably the first to go in a crunch everywhere

So there's something to think about before any of you guys jump into the EV market

[Ecky]

Definitely something to consider. The Volt's drivetrain seems pretty complex to me.

For just an EVAP line, you can probably figure that one out yourself, but it speaks to a broader issue certainly.

[cowmeat]

For just an EVAP line, you can probably figure that one out yourself, but it speaks to a broader issue certainly.

Yeah, there's probably already a youtube video on it, if it starts throwing a PO442 code I'll check it out. The letter said the entire process could take up to - and I quote specifically from the letter - 50 minutes to inspect and up to 12 hours and ten minutes to replace the evap hose

I've swapped motors out in less time than that!