Problem first presented as Propulsion Reduced error message (no engine light showed up), the generator? started to roar and the car slowed down. I pulled over, waited about 5 minutes for it to stop roaring and then I was able to continue on the road. The same problem happened again two days later. It happened both times after the battery had been depleted and I was running on gas. We took the car to the dealer. Tech had to communicate with Chevy engineer for about a week. Car was returned to us. Drove it for about a week and it happened again. Took back to dealer. Communicated again with Chevy engineer. Chevy decided our battery was bad and needs a new one. The car still takes a full charge and is driving in town just fine, however we no longer use it for my commute to work (140 miles round trip) in the hopes that it will last longer. We still owe money on the car. We've charged it twice a day 5 days a week for the last 5 years. The blue book value of the car is only around $6000.00, not worth the $10,000.00 for a new battery. Really, really, really disappointed considering the price we paid for the car. We were very happy with it before this happened. We were getting over 100 miles to the gallon with it and it rides beautifully!

The Volt Battery Warranty Is Worthless In 2012 I became interested in the Volt. Gasoline was around $5 a gallon and the news was saying gas prices were expected to go Up. Since I had a 64 mile round trip commute to work, I thought the Volt might save me some gas money. I went online and compared the 5 year operating cost of the Volt and another vehicle I was considering buying, and the Volt came out ahead as long as gas went above $5 a gallon. So I bought the Volt. Of course, any savings I might have had went out the window when the price of gas dropped. When I bought the Volt I was aware that replacing the propulsion battery would be very expensive. However, I thought that the Volt 8-year battery warranty would make the risk and the expense tolerable. I would not have bought the Volt without that 8-year battery warranty. I love driving the Volt and I have driven it over 50,000 miles in the over 4 years I have owned it. It’s been a great car and I’ve have very little troubles with it. I was disappointed that the battery range would drop substantially in the winter, but I understand that is an unavoidable battery characteristic, and I accepted that. The battery range would typically drop from 40 miles in the northern Ohio summer (above 70 degrees) to as low as 22 miles in really cold weather (below freezing). However this year (2016) the battery range did not recover after the winter. When summer weather returned, the fully-charged battery range only got up to 34 miles. I took the Volt into the dealership to have it checked. They said nothing was wrong with the battery. I checked the Volt’s operator’s guide and it states that the battery capacity may drop as much as 30% over the 8-year battery life. My Volt’s battery had dropped from 40 miles to 34 miles (15%) between 2015 and 2016. I felt that that was too quick of a drop for just one year. At that rate, the battery range would be down 30% in just one more year. I wanted to know what Chevrolet considered excessive battery range loss per year and what would make the battery eligible for replacement under the warranty. Did it have to go dead before they would replace it? I went back to the dealer, and after insisting on information, the service writer called the service manager. According to the service manager, acceptable battery limits are programmed into the battery monitoring computer (he could not produce any factory documentation of this). According to the service manager, if the battery drops below a certain level of capacity it will trigger an error code. When that error code appears, the battery can be replaced under the warranty. Needless to say, I am very unhappy with that warranty. My Volt’s battery capacity is way down, the value of the car is way down, and my prospects for selling it are way down. And, as far as I know, the battery may have to go dead before Chevrolet will replace it. My suggestion is to avoid the Volt like the plague. The battery warranty is worthless.