New Volt owner, South Florida

1140 Views 9 Replies 7 Participants Last post by hellsop, Aug 23, 2017

M'header

Discussion Starter · Aug 21, 2017

Good evening all,

I picked up my 2017 Volt on 20Jul, Premier, Pepper Dust Metallic, black&brandy leather, Driver pkg 1 & 2, Navigation, floor mats. Have 917 miles on it so far. 36 mile round trip commute. Battery range started at 53 and has slowly krept up to 68 and has seemed to peak out there. Heavy AC use this time of year, flat Florida, no hills. When I get home from work there is 27-30 miles left. Have not run the battery "out" yet.

I have read that the ICE will occasionally run by itself but hasn't yet. This past Friday I decided to try the "hold mode" and could hardly tell the difference. I could feel a clutch going in and out occasionally. Watching the "Flow" screen, the Volt seems to start from a dead stop on battery power and goes to ICE power at about 16-18 mph. When I got home from work and plugged in, the charge light went solid green in a very short period, so obviously the ICE-gen was replacing battery usage for the entire trip.

This is my first new car in 12 years. Last new car was a 2005 VW Golf TDI, 113,000 miles, 35.8 mpg lifetime, most on surface street, stop and go driving, same commute. The electronics in the Volt is culture shock compared to the Golf, which basically had none. One feature the Golf had that I miss is the ability to raise all the windows with the key in the door, if you forget to raise a window before getting out of the car. Of course, the Volt doesn't use a key, but the remote can lower all the windows but cannot raise them. If I forget to raise the window before getting out, I have to get back in and turn everything on to raise the window. A very small item but I miss it. Is there any way to configure the remote or the outside lock button to raise all the windows if held for 5 seconds?

My Golf diesel had good low rpm torque, but the Volt has MUCH more. This is a fun car to drive.

Still learning to use all the Volt features and hope to learn tips from others through this forum.

Everyone be safe looking at the eclipse tomorrow.

M'header

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hellsop

· #6 · Aug 21, 2017

M'header said:
Watching the "Flow" screen, the Volt seems to start from a dead stop on battery power and goes to ICE power at about 16-18 mph. When I got home from work and plugged in, the charge light went solid green in a very short period, so obviously the ICE-gen was replacing battery usage for the entire trip.

Yup, the kicking on/off of the ICE is unrelated to speed, driving, etc, and is only related to whether the charge level is within a small buffer window of the set point. The "run the battery out" does the same deal, but it's an automatic fixed point for that point instead of Hold Mode's "set the target here". So the speed at which the ICE turns on won't always be 16-18 or a distance or ... well, anything. You could be sitting there with the AC on, use up enough power, and the ICE will come on and charge the battery back up. The window *seems* to be someplace around a half kwh between its high water and low water points, but we don't know for sure.

This is my first new car in 12 years. Last new car was a 2005 VW Golf TDI, 113,000 miles, 35.8 mpg lifetime, most on surface street, stop and go driving, same commute. The electronics in the Volt is culture shock compared to the Golf, which basically had none. One feature the Golf had that I miss is the ability to raise all the windows with the key in the door, if you forget to raise a window before getting out of the car. Of course, the Volt doesn't use a key, but the remote can lower all the windows but cannot raise them. If I forget to raise the window before getting out, I have to get back in and turn everything on to raise the window. A very small item but I miss it. Is there any way to configure the remote or the outside lock button to raise all the windows if held for 5 seconds?

Nope. But putting the windows up even if their closed kind of becomes part of the shutdown ritual just as checking the charge port for a cord plugged it becomes part of the habit of getting in.

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hellsop

· #10 · Aug 23, 2017

M'header said:
Good evening Coppersnowboarder,

I saw plenty of that kind of weather when I lived in Massachusetts, too cold to start, snow plow plowing a 6ft mound across the driveway, snowy, icy roads,.... Been in south FL for 31 years now and have only seen two frosts. In the 12yrs I had the Golf, I never had to use the TDI preheater. I HOPE I will NEVER need the Volt battery heated here.

Just leave it plugged in and the Volt will take care of what it needs. And you won't even notice.

Speaking of that, Saturday I washed the car, unplugging it before washing. It was at full charge. After washing, I plugged it back in and the radiator fans started almost immediately. Occasionally, when working in the garage, I can here the fans starting and stopping occasionally (the car is outside). At these times, the Volt has been plugged in since the night before, so obviously the battery is fully charged. What is up with the fans running? Has it something to do with the battery?

Yup. It also cools the battery when it needs to as well. If it's plugged in, it'll chill down to maintain a temperature between 85 and 72F, which is a temperature at which the battery can give fully. The battery's well insulated and it's a LOT of thermal mass, so it doesn't take a LOT of cooling to keep it at temperature when it's NOT charging (it takes about 8 hours in 115F heat unplugged to raise the battery temp from 80F to 90F), but charging does create a lot of heat that needs to get pulled out, and those heat-producing reactions continue for some time after the charging pe se is done.

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