I bought my 2013 new and now have 65000 miles on it. If I could change just one thing on it, or figure out how, I'd do it in a heart beat. Change the two knobs on the center counsel to dual stack knobs on each. The top knobs would be for the radio settings: tune & vol and the lower knobs for temp control & fan speed or vice-versa. It is a royal PITA to change the climate control settings. It just a preference of mine to adjust the climate settings with a little more ease. Has anyone out there being able to hack into the programming or thought about doing this. I do not want to buy a Gen II. Merry Christmas everybody.
My 2013 Volt is the best car I ever had, but....
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Highly unlikely. Best just get used to it, and don't forget that there are hard buttons on the centre stack for both temperature up and down, as well as fan speed up and down - you only need the actual HVAC menu to change vent positions, or change modes. Sometimes I forget the hard buttons are there and I just want to adjust the fan speed and end up going all the way to the HVAC screen needlessly.
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Some of us like to live dangerously by changing the radio station every few years.
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ELR makes navigating the cars systems a little more difficult than a Volt.I like buttons on the stack,but the center console of the ELR is really good looking.
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You should maybe investigate your other radio options. I hear they came out with an 80's AND a 90's station TOO!
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And (gasp!) controls on the steering wheel so you can control the radio without having to take your eyes off the road.You should maybe investigate your other radio options. I hear they came out with an 80's AND a 90's station TOO!
I have had the 2012 Volt for almost 4 years now. Every single day during the winter I curse the designer of the climate controls. I still do this as I have never warmed to the controls, although now I know where stuff is and what it does.
It is too slow to turn up and down quickly due to polling rate of touch controls (or some sort of delay in them). Impossible to switch between comfort and fan only without going to Climate Screen. Once on the climate screen the buttons are hard to press without hitting the wrong one while driving concrete with bumpy expansion joints.
Auto is terrible in the winter, it only puts air out at my feet and on the windows making for a cold ride and hot feet. Summer isn't so bad as I leave the climate off 90% of the time, as I prefer windows down and AC off. Only for highway cruising do I turn it on where wind noise is too much. Actually, Auto mode on the Volt isn't good at all, most cars I am okay with Auto AC/Heat and tweak the temp occasionally.
It is too slow to turn up and down quickly due to polling rate of touch controls (or some sort of delay in them). Impossible to switch between comfort and fan only without going to Climate Screen. Once on the climate screen the buttons are hard to press without hitting the wrong one while driving concrete with bumpy expansion joints.
Auto is terrible in the winter, it only puts air out at my feet and on the windows making for a cold ride and hot feet. Summer isn't so bad as I leave the climate off 90% of the time, as I prefer windows down and AC off. Only for highway cruising do I turn it on where wind noise is too much. Actually, Auto mode on the Volt isn't good at all, most cars I am okay with Auto AC/Heat and tweak the temp occasionally.
yep, the cool weather HVAC is terrible, with no way to keep the AC from coming on. As I've said before, with our other car, I never have to touch the settings--AC is off and won't turn on until late spring when I turn it on. I'm always having to fiddle with the Volt, otherwise, it blasts AC at me if the sun warmed the cabin to 75 degrees even though it's 40 outside because I have it set at 70. Ugh.
My radio complaint is that it the volume level isn't "sticky." I mostly listen to one station, at one volume. But each time I get in the car I have to adjust to my preferred volume.
My radio complaint is that it the volume level isn't "sticky." I mostly listen to one station, at one volume. But each time I get in the car I have to adjust to my preferred volume.
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I never use auto mode, to many times I’ve tried it and seen it doing questionable things with regards to energy consumption that didn’t make much sense to me.
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The AC comes on to remove moisture from the air. It’s more efficient to remove it before it condenses on windows and then requires a lot of heat (WAY less effecient) to remove it.
And the AC is almost certainly on in your other vehicle in cool/cold weather more than you realize it, it’s just that most cars (unlike the Volt) are not so upfront about tellling you it’s on in those scenarios...but if you use defrost setting in the winter on an ICE vehicle....the AC compressor kicks on for moisture removal.
upgrade to Gen 2 Volt... They all have control knobs and buttons for the most important things in a car, and I control the radio and media player on the steering wheel buttons without taking eyes off the road.
I would say that the majority of the complaints I read here are for functions that work the exact same way in any other vehicle - it's just they have no idea that's how it's done because it's not as obvious as the volt makes it out to be (or the volt gives you more options you never had before in another car - but doesn't mean they need to be used).
Of course, some are unique to the volt (ERDTT) and those are valid. But the AC for defrost works the same as other vehicles of the last decade or two. And no brake lights when driving in L. etc.
And knowing that "fan only" works exactly like any other vehicle when you turn on the fan - if the engine [or rather, coolant] is hot, it can provide heat. If it's cold, it can't. The volt just adds two bonus modes for some electric heat and lots of electric heat without needing the engine at all.
If you wanted to fire up the engine and let it warm up for heat like any old car, you can.
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I did this, and was looking forward to the buttons making HVAC life "easier."
Unfortunately, Gen 2 got rid of some useful HVAC information from the Gen 1, which makes no sense. For example, you don't know if resistive heat or A/C is running (unlike Gen 1). Also, they killed the real-time energy consumption "%" on the climate screen--which I used most cold/hot days to get the best balance between comfort and energy usage. You can sort-of "figure it out" in Gen 2 by monitoring MPGe, looking at kWh usage at a stoplight (although this can be misleading as the Gen 2 system cycles), and checking the "info" screen. Again, none of this is as "real-time" as the Gen 1.
So pick your poison--but I would stick with the devil you know. While some things were improved in the Gen 2 (range, range, range!), many other things were not. Some of those "other things" may not make your total experience any less frustrating with Gen 2.
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Yep, and it's no wonder GM removed a lot of these indicators on the Gen2 as they surely dealt with a lot of issues like this from customers complaining about things they didn't understand. I'm sure the very first winter in 2011 there was no shortage of people at the dealerships complaining "Why is my AC running in the middle of the winter!!", only to (case in point here) have no idea that's completely normal.
Now, Gen2, it's still a smart car, it just dumbs things down more for the person behind the wheel as a result of all this.
As I said in my post, the most annoying times are when the interior temperature is higher than the set temp and much higher than the out door temperature. The ac tries to bring the temp down, not to reduce moisture. Yes, I know how defrost/ac/moisture reduction works in almost all cars. That’s not the situation I was describing
I wasn’t describing a frost reducing situation. And it’s condescending to assume I don’t know that ac compressors turn on during defrost in almost all vehicles. The Volt is trying to cool the cabin because it is slightly warmer than the set point. My other vehicles have never done that because I have the ac set to off and don’t have the defrost set to on in those mild weather situations.
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