Hi everyone,
I never thought my first post here would be like this. In a nutshell: brand new 2017 Volt died within 12 hours, dealer offered to swap it with an identical car. New car has a few more options and also has an extra $1500 in rebates according to shopclickdrive.com.
Should we ask for the additional $1500 off before doing the swap? Will the dealer pocket it if we don't? Does it even apply in this situation since it didn't apply to the original vehicle we bought?
Any help or insight is much appreciated. Here's some more detail for those who want to read it:
This past Saturday we bought a 2017 Volt Premier for what we felt was a pretty good price - about $5500 off MSRP, including $1000 factory rebate for "Volt Select Market Incremental Consumer Cash Program." We drove it home Saturday evening and plugged in to charge overnight.
Sunday morning the car wouldn't go. Without getting too much into details, it said "Shift to Park" every time we put it in gear, and refused to move. It also said there were 0 EV miles with a full battery. Monday it went on a tow truck back to the dealer, where the service department said it was throwing unknown error codes. They would have to get GM involved.
The dealer offered to swap it for an identical vehicle, which we agreed to. They got one from another dealer and told us it has a couple extra options. We will meet them this coming Monday evening to do the paperwork on the new vehicle.
I did some sleuthing and believe I've found the VIN of the new vehicle (VIN just showed up on our dealer's website, but still exists on another dealer's site; options match what they told us).
My concerns going in:
After the hassle and letdown, my wife is about ready to walk away completely if they don't give us the additional rebate. I'm pretty sure they'll fight that, not sure how much I want to fight for it.
Any thoughts are appreciated. Happy Thanksgiving.
I never thought my first post here would be like this. In a nutshell: brand new 2017 Volt died within 12 hours, dealer offered to swap it with an identical car. New car has a few more options and also has an extra $1500 in rebates according to shopclickdrive.com.
Should we ask for the additional $1500 off before doing the swap? Will the dealer pocket it if we don't? Does it even apply in this situation since it didn't apply to the original vehicle we bought?
Any help or insight is much appreciated. Here's some more detail for those who want to read it:
This past Saturday we bought a 2017 Volt Premier for what we felt was a pretty good price - about $5500 off MSRP, including $1000 factory rebate for "Volt Select Market Incremental Consumer Cash Program." We drove it home Saturday evening and plugged in to charge overnight.
Sunday morning the car wouldn't go. Without getting too much into details, it said "Shift to Park" every time we put it in gear, and refused to move. It also said there were 0 EV miles with a full battery. Monday it went on a tow truck back to the dealer, where the service department said it was throwing unknown error codes. They would have to get GM involved.

The dealer offered to swap it for an identical vehicle, which we agreed to. They got one from another dealer and told us it has a couple extra options. We will meet them this coming Monday evening to do the paperwork on the new vehicle.
I did some sleuthing and believe I've found the VIN of the new vehicle (VIN just showed up on our dealer's website, but still exists on another dealer's site; options match what they told us).
- The new one has everything the original Volt had plus cargo mat, cargo net, and illuminated charge port. So MSRP is technically $395 more.
- The new VIN is about 5,000 lower than the original (139xxx instead of 144xxx) so it's also slightly older.
- As mentioned above, clicking through the dealer website to shopclickdrive.com shows an additional $1500 "Chevrolet Select Model Bonus Cash Program" rebate, for a total of $2500 in factory rebates.
My concerns going in:
- We're not going to pay any extra for the additional options
- Hopefully the age difference in the new Volt isn't large; sounds like it could be less than a month, in which case I'm not sure that I care. I just don't want to swap for one that's been sitting around several months longer.
- We feel like there should be some concession for the fact that our new car died so soon after purchase, and we're without a Volt that we paid for, for the first week.
- I have absolutely no idea if the extra $1500 rebate should still apply to the new Volt in this case. I'm sure the dealer will say no, especially if that means they get to pocket the cash from GM. If anyone knows how this works, and whether it should apply to us in this situation, that would incredibly helpful.
After the hassle and letdown, my wife is about ready to walk away completely if they don't give us the additional rebate. I'm pretty sure they'll fight that, not sure how much I want to fight for it.
Any thoughts are appreciated. Happy Thanksgiving.