[kgvickers]

Picked up a nice used 2013 Volt from Freeman Mazda in Irving, Tx, on Saturday. Loving it so far. Immediately after buying it I found a used Level 2 charger, the Duosida, on OfferUp, sweet! Already had the 20 amp 240 outlet in my garage for my air compressor so that made it even better.

This morning I made her happy with some fluid changes: brake and transmission.

A few questions - Seems I have to press the handle button twice to unlock the doors ... shouldn't it work with a single press?

When Level 2 charging, the cooling fans come on and I'd think the air circulation would be better with the hood open. Comments? (I searched for related discussions but didn't find any).

Cheers,

Keith

 

[AZ EV Driver]

If the vehicle is ON and NOT in Park, then it takes 2 pulls on the door handle. With the vehicle in Park the door locks will unlock, then only one pull on the door handle will open the door.

No need to open the hood, the batteries are under the vehicle and the coolant radiators are designed to cool the the coolant through the front grille area. Opening the hood would change the air flow characteristics.

VIN # B0985

 

[LANMAN]

Pressing the drivers door button once unlocks the drivers door, pressing it twice unlocks all the doors. Pressing any of the other door buttons once unlocks all of the doors.

The car uses the AC system to cool the battery while charging in the hot Texas heat.

 

[PrivatePilot]

Cardinal rule with the Volt - don't try to outthink it. The engineers really did think of almost everything with this car.

Congrats.

 

[freshcut]

If you play around in the config menu, there is a setting to unlock all doors or just driver with a single push of the button. I believe it's in the "vehicle settings" then "convenience" but not 100% sure. Just press "config" on your center panel to bring up the menu with all sorts of customization options.

Agree with leaving the hood closed. The fans don't usually run at a high RPM and just need minimal airflow so opening the hood really isn't needed. It's really a well thought out design, and many have stated it's seriously over engineered. I bought a '13 last year with 93K on it and have had no issues to date except a failed window regulator and have managed to add an additional 17K since. Pending any catastrophic failure, I really expect the car to last me several years.

I find that letting the car do it's thing and not try to out think the things it does works best. There are so many computers running in the thing that it may do things that seem quirky at the time, but make complete and total sense, and it's usually for simple reasons that one tends to overthink.

 

[Sean-a-Tron]

Congrats on your purchase and welcome to the Cult of Volt.

By default, the driver side door button will only unlock itself on first press. This can be changed in the vehicle settings menu.

The cooling fans bring in cool air from below the car and exhaust it through the grill. Opening the hood would disrupt the air flow. Not a big deal, but also unnecessary.

Tip: Set the Volt to charge around midnight when the ambient air is cooler. This will make the charge cycle more efficient as less temperature conditioning is needed. This is also the time that most power plants are idling, meaning that a lot of power is being wasted. Using that power to charge virtually eliminates your pollution cost (Assuming fossil fuel power plants feed your power).

 

[mvanzanten]

Your door unlock issue may be caused by a faulty button. My driver door handle button, and both rear door buttons have failed. I had the driver door replaced (cost me $250) and it works better than when it was new. It should be a nice light touch to the button to unlock the car. If you have to mash the button, it is failing.