Moving on to a Volt

Nothing definite at this time.

DBCassidy

 

The Volts have held up very well over five years.
While we haven't had ours for that long, it required less maintenance in three years than either of our Prius did, and fewer trips to the gas station.

I haven't followed the maintenance of them for the last couple of years, so things may have changed.

GM has more than its fair share of lousy dealers. More than any other manufacturer. But most of what you ran into was the dealer, not corporate.
I've also seen phenomenal GM dealerships, lousy Toyota dealerships and so on.

The dealership model, in general, is lousy for consumers. It is a broken system built on taking advantage of consumers and protected by laws which should never have been created.

As for this particular case, I would have taken the dealer to court under the lemon law.

 

The Pip was a nice entry level to Plug ins, not with the best price/criteria.
Soon after the introduction of the 2012 Pip, where presented to the marked better quality vehicles with more available EV range for almost same price and better Federal and/or States incentives.

 

The PiP worked as a stepping stone for me, but while at the Chevy dealer, a salesman asked me if I wanted to take a Volt for a test drive. I drove home with it that night.

 

OK KV thanks for letting us know. Be interesting to see sales price for that PiP at the dealer. I am thinking your dealer might be my dealer too. Don't know if you're following this site, but some of us are wondering if the PiP2 will show up as promised this Fall. PiP1 has been out of production since June.

 

fling it into neutral as you coast out of the garage . . . that'll keep the ice off for a few extra seconds . . . . I find I can go stealth past at least 6 to 7 houses when I pull out (we have really narrow lots)

.

 

yes, but you live in utopia, i'm stuck in ice land.

 

I picked Prius Plug-in because I knew the reliability would be excellent.
Four years and 84,000 miles later, and here's the list of what broke:

1) ...

Pretty long list, huh?
Just regular maintenance items: Tires, wipers, bulbs, fluids, floormats and filters.

 

That's pretty impressive for an engine to last 84k miles without an oil change!

 

I counted oil as a fluid.

 

utopia? - don't know about that . . . . last Christmas season, it was so cold we almost had to wear long pants ! It was crazy ...



ever try to pound 32oz margaritas when it's only 78 out on a lake?

.

 

The brain freeze must be unbearable.

 

Break out the mittens.

 

lol, nice legs, dude. Shouldn't get trashed when it's that cold out though!

 

As a recent PiP buyer, for kicks I looked at CarMax (where I got my PiP) and lo and behold there were TONS and TONS of Volts for sale! (When I decided to pursue a PiP, it took me a month, and the listings were limited-I had mine transferred from out of state.) Since the Volt was originally way more expensive than a PiP, I was surprised to see them selling (comparible yr and mileage) for the same, or less than my PiP sold for. So it looks like many buyers had "buyers remorse" after getting a Volt. I have seen people claim a Volt is a Hybrib, but it is unlike the PiP-- It simply becomes an (inefficient) electric generator when its EV range is depleted. The listed mpg is 38-40! (Don't know about the newer Volts, maybe this has changed, but these were only 2-3 year old models.)

The smart thing to do is do due diligence --and wait-- research and decide what is best for you. Learn from the experience of others!! By waiting a couple of years after the PiP and Volt were introduced, I was able to get an almost new car (15K--in fact it still has the new car smell!) for half what the original buyer paid. Most of my trips are within a few miles of home, but my other main usage is long road trips, at which my old Prius excelled at. So now I can charge my PiP at home, and run daily errands and use almost no gas, and still have 58-68 MPG with the option to have up to 5 people in the car on a long road trip; all while almost eliminating my pollution footprint. Yeah, the PiP is not a sports car, but is solid. It has the features I want. I know there are always those who have to have the newest thing...thanks for the bargain.

 

Congrats!

I got my PIP from Carmax as well.

Mine was a 2012 Blizzard Pearl w/ 37k miles for $14,998 over two months ago.

I currently have short trips as well, but I have to improvise when it comes to charging (I live in an apartment with no access to electricity), but I am running, so far, mostly on electricity and still on my first tank of gas.

As you can see, I am almost currently at 900 from the tank with 1/3 of gas left, and I sit in traffic a lot at an average 13 miles per hour lol!




iPhone ?

 

Leased. I've found the same thing with PIP's on carmax. Also, sometimes it's rental company unloading old stock. I just did a PIP search and 14 out 15 of the 2012's on the first page alone were flagged as fleet, rental, and/or lease in their history reports.

Edit: did a similar check on 2012 Volts and the flag results were about the same.

 

Interesting conclusions.
My take would be, there are a ton more Volts available nationwiide and it has been selling nationwide for over 5 years.
Much higher supply means there will be more on CarMax.
Used Volts benefit from the larger rebates available on new Volts, so the price is close to parity.

You also have a lot of people trading in their old Volts for the second gen Volts.

The Volt has a very high customer satisfaction rating, much higher than most cars (including the Prius).
Buyers remorse happens, but it is very uncommon with the Volt.

 

The Volt isn't a serial hybrid, but a parallel/serial one like the Prius. The gen1 Volt got poor fuel economy for a hybrid because of costs and passenger cabin comfort. The ICE was an off the shelf part with little changed to it; that's the cost portion. It could have been run at more efficient settings, but this had negative impact on NVH(noise, vibration, and harmonics). Bad NVH can make a car unpleasant to drive and even ride in.

 

Sounds like our plan in 5-10 years. At the risk of being rude, what did your Volt cost?