Learn me used Chevy Volt

Besides AT and CL, I searched Chevy dealer websites in 50 mile radius and there were no used Volts listed. Further out at 65 miles there was only one Premium I may be interested in. Gotta be more, maybe they don't even bother listing 'em?

Autotrader? 45 used within 100 miles of me.

You can tinker on regular cars yourself. The Volt is going to be MUCH harder to work on and find parts for to GET to 200-300k miles.

Well not that you're asking but i can damn well tinker on a Volt too if i want too. How many people in this thread other than me have even held any PART of a volt battery pack? Ive taken apart Toyota and Honda hybrid packs and put them back together. It's a new-ER skill, but honestly with high-voltage packs having been in cars in the US market for 15 years now, it's about time we all get used to the idea of touching them without dying.

In reply to Vigo:

It's just like in the 80s when all this EFI was making it so nobody could work on their own cars anymore.

Scratch that. People on certain sites still bitch about new cars and pine for the days when all you needed to reset the points on the old Nash was a matchbook. Completely missing the point that 99% of modern cars need nothing more intensive than gas, tires, and oil for the first five years of ownership. And the tires may not even by worn out by then. A far cry from the days when intensive tuneups were a 2000 mile interval and the head may need to be off every 10-20k for a valve job, and a bottom end that made it to 100k was something to be noted.

In reply to Vigo:

Agreed. High voltage batt. Packs aren't that scary if you follow instructions, use proper safety measures where needed. I've serviced multiple units from Toyota. Prius guys have been modding their packs for years. Adding capacity, adding plug in charging, adding EV only modes, modding for higher speeds during EV. There's a lot to tinker with!

The irrational fear of the battery pack needing replacement and breaking your bank account is far to common still as well.

just for nits and niggles … how much do replacement bat. packs cost ?

I'm on the GM volt forum and I've never seen anyone post about replacing one but searching around it looks like less that $3k

mfennell wrote:

Chris_V wrote: When doing this and driving down the highway, the gas engine will not be driving the wheels for anything, as there is enough charge in the batteries to do acceleration runs and climb hills.

That's not how it works. Under low load conditions when in hold mode or with the battery depleted the car will clutch in the engine because it's more efficient to do so. Under really high demand, the engine is decoupled and permitted to wail away at whatever RPM is necessary.

That's backwards. The engine does NOT drive the wheels in hold mode or at light loads. It simply does not. I OWN one, I know. I've been studying them since 2006.

Under heavy loads or climbing mountain, the engine is coupled though the drive motor to help power the wheels, but this is rare.

When driving down the highway ion hold mode, the engine revs at whatever rpm is necessary to maintain battery charge and will actually shut off at times as it's not needed (or has charged the batery over what's necessary to maintain speed. You'll see this by the battery charge bar going up above the red "hold" line and turning green again. The engine will then shut off until the battery charge comes back down to the red line on that graph).

TGMF wrote: In reply to Vigo: Agreed. High voltage batt. Packs aren't that scary if you follow instructions, use proper safety measures where needed. I've serviced multiple units from Toyota. Prius guys have been modding their packs for years. Adding capacity, adding plug in charging, adding EV only modes, modding for higher speeds during EV. There's a lot to tinker with! The irrational fear of the battery pack needing replacement and breaking your bank account is far to common still as well.

Volt liquid cooled and heated battery packs are NOT like Prius battery packs, which ARE relatively easy to service at home. You're comparing apples and ranges here. You don't just run down to the local AutoZone and buy replacement battery pack parts for Volts. And agian, if a USED battery pack is $3k (new ones are $8k+) you're still talking about a substantial chunk of money right after you've finished paying off your 5 year loan on what is an 8 year old car at that time. Which is my whole point about buying vs leasing. It's going to cost you either way, and leasing makes you at the leading edge of the curve in tech, safety, and not buying a car that costs you a good chunk of change even if you TRYT to work on it yourself. Maybe in a couple decades when the tech is ubiquitous and standardized, like EFI got, your assertion will be correct. But not now and not in the next 5 years.

EFI got easy to work on. But not for years after it was introduced, and things like Megasquirt didn't come about for decades. Before Megasquirt, standalone or even piggy back EFI controllers were HUGE money (like Wolf and Haltech). Sure, you're not making payments on a new car. Instead you're paying thousands on replacement parts. Where's the benefit again? Been there, done that. That's why I leased the Volt and why I leased the MINIs. It's a fixed operating cost and no surprises or huge out of warranty expenses in money an/or time.

Chris_V wrote:

mfennell wrote:

Chris_V wrote: When doing this and driving down the highway, the gas engine will not be driving the wheels for anything, as there is enough charge in the batteries to do acceleration runs and climb hills.

That's not how it works. Under low load conditions when in hold mode or with the battery depleted the car will clutch in the engine because it's more efficient to do so. Under really high demand, the engine is decoupled and permitted to wail away at whatever RPM is necessary.

That's backwards. The engine does NOT drive the wheels in hold mode or at light loads. It simply does not. I OWN one, I know. I've been studying them since 2006. Under heavy loads or climbing mountain, the engine is coupled though the drive motor to help power the wheels, but this is rare.

I'm sorry but it's you who has it backwards though I will amend my statement to be a more precise at low loads, and high enough speeds, the engine clutches in. I leased VIN 777, not that you can easily tell from the driver's seat what's going on. I also know the guy who did the EPA calibration for the car. Several guys on the gm-volt forum have documented the behavior with an OBD2 app (can't remember the exact one).

You don't have to take my word for it, watch this YouTube presentation from Pamela Fletcher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9-9atMw6Zs

Pam (~24:40): "at higher vehicle speeds ... we change the power flow"

At ~29:45, she shows it all with an animation.

""

Chris_V wrote: When driving down the highway ion hold mode, the engine revs at whatever rpm is necessary to maintain battery charge and will actually shut off at times as it's not needed (or has charged the batery over what's necessary to maintain speed.

If you hook an OBD2 scanner up that can read PIDs live, you'll see that the first half of your statement is false. At regular highway speeds, the engine will spend most of its time at two points over a wide range of vehicle speed - 1700 and 2100rpm to the best of my recollection - with the throttle wide open or close to it. This puts the ICE at ideal BSFC points. The planetary system is able to juggle load and MG2 RPM to maintain those ICE targets.

I remember GM releasing butthurt statements about how the ICE would NEVER directly power the wheels.

I also remember thinking how that was an aggravating marketing ploy that pandered to ignorance since if you COULD couple the ICE directly to the wheels, you absolutely should. And im 99% sure it does, even if they don't want to admit it. The guys who designed the car are not stupid.

They were being pedantic. Because it's a planetary system, you can argue (weakly IMHO) that the ICE never "directly" powers the wheels.

You don't have to be "99% sure". Simply watch the video I linked. It's a detailed description from the Lead Powertrain ENgineer.

I can't help but think these cars could be more efficient if they knew their destination.

You don't have to be "99% sure". Simply watch the video I linked. It's a detailed description from the Lead Powertrain ENgineer.

Well, i was trying to leave at least SOME room between what i claim to know, and what the actual designers of the car know. Even if, in some cases, they are the same.

belteshazzar wrote: I can't help but think these cars could be more efficient if they knew their destination.

This was discussed with the calibration guy. He said that - unbelievably - once you incorporate something like the NAV into the behavior of the ICE, it becomes part of the emissions system! That brings regulatory burdens that they do everything in their power to avoid.

Very interesting!

Also, Volt Trivia: Alldata claims 5.4 hrs to change the battery pack. Easier than some timing belts..

Cool find. My car was one of the early ones that had an additional plate installed to protect the battery in the case of a sideways hit at just the right spot. I wasn't going to bother but my dealer kept bugging me about it so I let them install it.

Installation required battery removal. The dealer had built a cart specifically for removing Volt batteries. IIRC, GM supplied plans and the tech built it from 2X4s but my memory may be faulty on the details (now that i repeat it, it seems unlikely to ask the techs to be carpenters but I know for sure that they did build it themselves, "officially" or not). Anyway, the car was lowered down to the cart, the battery disconnected, and the car lifted back up. The tech seemed pretty efficient about it but I didn't ask him how long it took.

So you got an early one that didn't have hold mode and you're trying to tell me what MY car does in hold mode? I can tell you the gas engine completely shuts off when it raises the charge above the "hold" line. And it changes rpm completely separately of what I'm doing with the throttle pedal, but with everything to do with the state of charge at that moment. If it was powering the wheels, it would in fact not shut the berkeley down when driving. That's why i like the '13-14 models better than the '11-12 models.

I've also taken mine up to 90+ mph and not had the engine turn on at all. Which is one of the things I love about the Volt that won't happen in any of the other 'hybrids" out there.

Yeah, one of the less-obvious things about the Volt versus a 'PHEV' is that the Volt can give 'full performance' without necessarily running the ICE. I'm not aware that any PHEV can do that.

As for lowering the pack onto a 2x4 cart, sounds totally plausible. A lot of shops have big wooden carts they've built to put engines on since the standard procedure for engine replacement on many cars is to lower the car onto some form of engine dolly, disconnect everything, and then lift the vehicle off and roll the engine dolly around.

Multiple people on the diyelectriccar forums have found listings for new volt packs for sub $4k. They have been told you cannot buy one without owning a Volt. Anyone here on the Volt forums that knows of someone actually buying one?

In response to the packs not being like Leaf or Prius packs: yes you cannot break them down nearly to the level of the Prius or Leaf packs, but they can be broken down into multiple modules (4-6?) that could be replaced with good used modules if needed.

Chris_V wrote: So you got an early one that didn't have hold mode and you're trying to tell me what MY car does in hold mode? I can tell you the gas engine completely shuts off when it raises the charge above the "hold" line. And it changes rpm completely separately of what I'm doing with the throttle pedal, but with everything to do with the state of charge at that moment. If it was powering the wheels, it would in fact not shut the berkeley down when driving. That's why i like the '13-14 models better than the '11-12 models.

Jesus. It only behaves the way you say below 35mph. Above that it clutches the ICE in if load is low enough. Since you don't believe me, why don't you surf over to gm-volt.com and explain how YOU think Hold mode works. It's exactly the same as normal Charge Sustaining. Pay attention to WopOnTour (an engineer @ GM) and saghost.

You don't understand how the planetary system works. ICE RPM is independent of vehicle speed whether it's clutched in or not. It varies ICE and MG2 rpm as appropriate. Varying rpm is NOT an indicator of declutched operation. Again, there is no fixed speed/rpm relationship when the ICE is clutched in.

Unbelievably, it can power the wheels AND also shut off. It has a CLUTCH for such a purpose. When it raises the SOC beyond target at highway speeds (which happens because they're running WOT most of the time), it de-clutches and shuts the ICE down. Have you ever noticed a lag when you floor the pedal at highway speeds in Hold or Charge Sustaining modes? That's the time it takes for MG2 to spin up and the ICE to de-clutch. It does this because the effective gearing of one motor operation offers much better acceleration.

Finally, magically "hold mode" does nothing except change the SOC target. It existed from the beginning. It just wasn't enabled in US cars.

MrJoshua wrote: Multiple people on the diyelectriccar forums have found listings for new volt packs for sub $4k. They have been told you cannot buy one without owning a Volt. Anyone here on the Volt forums that knows of someone actually buying one? In response to the packs not being like Leaf or Prius packs: yes you cannot break them down nearly to the level of the Prius or Leaf packs, but they can be broken down into multiple modules (4-6?) that could be replaced with good used modules if needed.

The Volt pack has 3 modules.

There is a bunch of mis-information on pack pricing and I'm not sure anyone ever got to the bottom of it. I suspected they would not sell a full pack to anyone for $4k (I had actually heard $3k!). One of two things come to mind. 1) That's not REALLY the full pack but just the housing. 2) The price is set artificially low to make warranty claim costs look better. I have no idea if (2) is realistic. I'll bet they won't sell you a loose pack even if you do have a Volt. It must require a core return.

I am going to look at a couple Volts and have questions. Can it be charged on 110v everyday? I'm not going to get a charging station anytime soon. Is there a limit to how long a cord I can use? The driveway is a bit away from the house. How has the rest of the car been holding up? Struts, front ends, ect? Is it normal small car bits or fairly fragile?

A friend charged his from a 110v socket for the first year and a half. He said it took all night to charge to full. He bought a level 2 charger at home depot for $500 and that takes about 3 hours to charge. I looked at the level 2 and it has a stub to plug into the wall and a cord to the car thats about 20ft.