[bro1999]

Now that Bolts have started landing at dealers in numbers, it's time to start posting about your purchase experiences! Post as much (or as little) as you want about pricing, terms, dealer experience, etc...
This post is not intended to be for advertising for a particular dealer, or throwing a particular dealer under the bus, but just honest experiences posted by new Bolt owners. Or people that tried to buy a Bolt, but ended up not for whatever reason.

I'll start. I haven't actually taken physical delivery of my Bolt yet (the gods must be teasing me or something as the dealer I purchased from got a dozen Bolts yesterday...but none of them mine). I ended up purchasing my Bolt (Premier, fully loaded minus expensive paint) from Rydell Chevy. Texted the sales rep (thanks Ladogaboy) at Rydell, and basically ended up agreeing to purchase the car exclusively through text messages. I asked "What's your price?", he responded "$1k off MSRP", so I said "Deal!".

No incentives were available....not lease loyalty/conquest/farm bureau...nothing (except my GM card earnings, though there was even a snafu redeeming those, as I'm getting a check from the dealer instead of the earnings being taken off the purchase price). GM is certainly pinching the pennies for the initial rollout. As most dealership allotments are already sold out, not really surprising they are skimping on incentives.

They FedEx'd the paperwork overnight since I an in MD, I signed them over and FedEx'd them back in the pre-paid envelope they gave me the next day. No BS fees or add-ons or anything, just a $80 doc fee and registration fees were charged in addition to the price of the car, which ended up being $42,510 for a MSRP $43,510 Premier Bolt.

Now just need my Bolt to show up (hopefully today) so they can ship it out to me in MD!

 

[Ziv]

I am going to post a "glass is half empty" thought yet again.

The Bolt started deliveries 16 days ago, and so far, a handful of people have actually gotten their Bolts. GM has been building Bolts at a pretty decent clip, nearly 2,000 have apparently been built since November. This isn't a delay caused by shipping them by train, this is something else. Whether it is regular QC or an unforeseen problem, not even GM would bungle the delivery of a brand new BEV like this if there wasn't a real problem. This doesn't mean the Bolt is a bad car, but it means that yet again, GM has botched the delivery of an electric car. But we are more than 2 weeks into the delivery schedule and Cars dot com has 80 Bolts in the entire North American market, and not one of them actually has a photo taken by the dealer on site. Not one. More than 2 weeks after the first deliveries. Just 800 December Bolt sales would have allowed GM to brag about breaking the record for first month sales of an electric vehicle. They didn't bother to do so.

I used to be a Chevy guy. I love my Volt. I really respect the engineers at GM but I think that GM's management doesn't really want to deliver electric cars in any quantity. I won't sell my Volt but I am beginning to think that if you like electric cars, you should be backing an American company that really wants to sell electric cars. The only company I have seen that REALLY wants to sell electric cars is Tesla. I don't like the III as its prototype looks today, but I like the way the company is attacking the market.

I have followed the Volt since 2007 here on GM-Volt dot com and I have been a Chevy guy since I inherited my older brothers Chevy Silverado way back in the day. But Chevy really isn't a company I respect that much any more. Penny wise and pound foolish, Chevy has a lot of the problems that make American corporations a shadow of their former selves.

Sorry for the negative look at the Bolt and Chevy.

 

[llninja]

Bro, why in the world would you pay nearly MSRP for a vehicle? It's always downhill from there. You were doing so well getting great deals and even selling them for more.

Anybody buying a bolt right now will be paying too much. Wait until the end of 2018 when there will be deals to be found.

 

[Sean Nelson]

The Bolt started deliveries 16 days ago, and so far, a handful of people have actually gotten their Bolts. ... it means that yet again, GM has botched the delivery of an electric car.

Good grief.

 

[bro1999]

I am going to post a "glass is half empty" thought yet again.

The Bolt started deliveries 16 days ago, and so far, a handful of people have actually gotten their Bolts. GM has been building Bolts at a pretty decent clip, nearly 2,000 have apparently been built since November. This isn't a delay caused by shipping them by train, this is something else. Whether it is regular QC or an unforeseen problem, not even GM would bungle the delivery of a brand new BEV like this if there wasn't a real problem. This doesn't mean the Bolt is a bad car, but it means that yet again, GM has botched the delivery of an electric car. But we are more than 2 weeks into the delivery schedule and Cars dot com has 80 Bolts in the entire North American market, and not one of them actually has a photo taken by the dealer on site. Not one. More than 2 weeks after the first deliveries. Just 800 December Bolt sales would have allowed GM to brag about breaking the record for first month sales of an electric vehicle. They didn't bother to do so.

I used to be a Chevy guy. I love my Volt. I really respect the engineers at GM but I think that GM's management doesn't really want to deliver electric cars in any quantity. I won't sell my Volt but I am beginning to think that if you like electric cars, you should be backing an American company that really wants to sell electric cars. The only company I have seen that REALLY wants to sell electric cars is Tesla. I don't like the III as its prototype looks today, but I like the way the company is attacking the market.

I have followed the Volt since 2007 here on GM-Volt dot com and I have been a Chevy guy since I inherited my older brothers Chevy Silverado way back in the day. But Chevy really isn't a company I respect that much any more. Penny wise and pound foolish, Chevy has a lot of the problems that make American corporations a shadow of their former selves.

Sorry for the negative look at the Bolt and Chevy.

The Bolt trains (well, at least the train my Bolt...and several hundred other Bolts were on anyways) was delayed by bad weather in the Midwest. I was literally tracking the train multiple times per day, so I knew where it was the whole time. It got stuck in Toledo, Ohio for at least a week....around the time that area got slammed by winter weather.
If not for that delay, the first "real" Bolts (first 3 sold were purely for PR) would have landed a week earlier (around the 16th of December), and literally hundreds of Bolts would already be on the roads. GM does not control the weather.

Despite the delay, it is likely that almost all the Bolts that have been delivered to dealers (or Bolts being trucked to dealers) have already been sold, like mine, so the sales will count towards Dec 2016. I think the Bolt still has a shot in beating the Prime's 781 number for biggest debut month.

Ok, anyways, let's get back on topic.

 

[bro1999]

Bro, why in the world would you pay nearly MSRP for a vehicle? It's always downhill from there. You were doing so well getting great deals and even selling them for more.

Anybody buying a bolt right now will be paying too much. Wait until the end of 2018 when there will be deals to be found.

You can wait another 4 years for a half price Bolt. I am willing to pay to play. Especially since I plan to keep the Bolt a while.

 

[llninja]

You can wait another 4 years for a half price Bolt. I am willing to pay to play. Especially since I plan to keep the Bolt a while.

2018 is 2, not 4 years from now. Plus we've never seen you keep a car for a long time. We shall see.i'll predict right here that you will miss finding a deal and have another car in less than a year... your challenge is to prove me wrong and drive this bolt into the ground without buying another vehicle for 10+ years.

 

[jegund]

Hey, I'm interested in experience of people buying/taking delivery/driving their new Bolts. Can we move the other GM opinions and personal stuff to another thread please. I'm sure lots of readers want to come to this thread to read about what the op intended. please!

 

[NYRob]

Bro, why in the world would you pay nearly MSRP for a vehicle? ...Wait until the end of 2018 when there will be deals to be found.

Being that we don't know other forum members financial positions- unless they offer it up- there's no reason why someone can't get a newly released vehicle at full boat if they're willing to pay.

If everybody waited to purchase 2 full years after a new vehicle was introduced- it would literally wreck the auto industry.

 

[BAZINGA]

Someone has to buy first year vehicles. Looking forward to your first drive review.

 

[stuart22]

Bro,

Wouldn't it have been possible for you to have bought it through the California dealer, but instead of the dealer having it shipped to CA, the dealer could have arranged to have had an 'agent of theirs' pick it up directly from the factory? Lots of wasted time and unnecessary shipping costs with what you are doing.

When I was real young, my father bought a Pontiac and picked it up back wherever it was made and drove it back to CA. And I had a friend whose parents bought a VW, then went over to Europe and picked it up and drove it around for a few weeks before getting it shipped to the US.

 

[stuart22]

I am going to post a "glass is half empty" thought yet again.

The Bolt started deliveries 16 days ago, and so far, a handful of people have actually gotten their Bolts. GM has been building Bolts at a pretty decent clip, nearly 2,000 have apparently been built since November. This isn't a delay caused by shipping them by train, this is something else. Whether it is regular QC or an unforeseen problem, not even GM would bungle the delivery of a brand new BEV like this if there wasn't a real problem. This doesn't mean the Bolt is a bad car, but it means that yet again, GM has botched the delivery of an electric car.

Sorry for the negative look at the Bolt and Chevy.

You are way too harsh on Chevy/GM. Shipping delays with rail do happen for many reasons. I've got my own horror story regarding this kind of thing...... in September 2014, I special ordered a Ford Transit van from a local dealer who told me it would take around two months to get it. As the factory for the van was in Kansas City, I figured I'd have it at least by Christmas. Long story short, it finally arrived in March of 2015. The excuse that was given was that the rail lines had very few of the special rail cars available to ship the taller roofed Transit vans, and mine being a special order from a tiny dealer, things got way stretched out beyond what would seem to be reasonable.

 

[bro1999]

Bro,

Wouldn't it have been possible for you to have bought it through the California dealer, but instead of the dealer having it shipped to CA, the dealer could have arranged to have had an 'agent of theirs' pick it up directly from the factory? Lots of wasted time and unnecessary shipping costs with what you are doing.

When I was real young, my father bought a Pontiac and picked it up back wherever it was made and drove it back to CA. And I had a friend whose parents bought a VW, then went over to Europe and picked it up and drove it around for a few weeks before getting it shipped to the US.

Nope, that wasn't an option. Plus, GM does not get full ZEV credits if a vehicle is not physically delivered to a dealer in CA...they get 1 credit just for it showing up on a CA dealer's lot. So definitely no way to pick up or arrange shipping from MI.

 

[llninja]

Nope, that wasn't an option. Plus, GM does not get full ZEV credits if a vehicle is not physically delivered to a dealer in CA...they get 1 credit just for it showing up on a CA dealer's lot. So definitely no way to pick up or arrange shipping from MI.

Today... but come 2017 (right around then corner) there should be a number of Bolts shipped nationwide, maybe Spring (given the delays of Bolts shipping to CA and OR. I'll wait to test drive one when it arrives at a local dealership in IL. I doubt I will get one, but maybe the size of the vehicle will surprise me. I was definitely surprised when we piled our family of 4 into a spark, and it was deceptively roomy inside. It still looked like SUV bait though, and we opted for a slightly bigger CUV for my daughter.

 

[Geohec]

I am going to post a "glass is half empty" thought yet again.

The Bolt started deliveries 16 days ago, and so far, a handful of people have actually gotten their Bolts. GM has been building Bolts at a pretty decent clip, nearly 2,000 have apparently been built since November. This isn't a delay caused by shipping them by train, this is something else. Whether it is regular QC or an unforeseen problem, not even GM would bungle the delivery of a brand new BEV like this if there wasn't a real problem. This doesn't mean the Bolt is a bad car, but it means that yet again, GM has botched the delivery of an electric car. But we are more than 2 weeks into the delivery schedule and Cars dot com has 80 Bolts in the entire North American market, and not one of them actually has a photo taken by the dealer on site. Not one. More than 2 weeks after the first deliveries. Just 800 December Bolt sales would have allowed GM to brag about breaking the record for first month sales of an electric vehicle. They didn't bother to do so.

The G2 Volt is my 1st GM vehicle coming over from mostly fords so I'm not a fanboy but I'm happy with my Volt and looking at buying a Bolt within the next year if it fits my needs (and butt) . I don't what makes you think this is a botched roll out. Most early TPW for Bolts were for the last week of November and first real deliveries the last week of December. I think 4 weeks from production to the dealership is pretty good for a G1 Bolt on a new platform. In addition, deliveries near the end of the year near the Xmas and New Years is also going to have a little bit of drag. The early deliveries in the Bay Area a couple of weeks ago was a publicity stunt for some free advertising which had most of those cars going to dealers as demos as reported here on the forum by Jeff Cobb (http://gm-volt.com/2016/12/21/bolt-sales-now-fully-open-in-california-and-oregon/). I think your negative outlook is unsubstantiated and unwarranted. Let's keep this positive especially for those here on this thread looking to buy one soon.

Sorry to add to the derailment of this thread but hopefully a few people will start posting their deals, dealer experiences and reviews on their new bolts. Happy Holidays!

 

[bro1999]

Good god, 14 responses (some mine) and not a single deal posted outside of what I posted originally. I may need to restart this discussion with a new thread.

 

[Cord]

This is a Volt group ?

Well, I for one will NOT even think about exchange my Volt for a Bolt unless I side a picture of a Volt with a Llama in the background.

 

[nik.taylor]

Good god, 14 responses (some mine) and not a single deal posted outside of what I posted originally. I may need to restart this discussion with a new thread.

I'll bite! I got mine today with the Costco discount for $600 under invoice for a fully loaded Premier. There was still about $1k of advertising costs on the invoice so it wasnt as cheap as I hoped but bearable. Apparently I managed to grab a Costco number before they took it out of the program but they still honored it.

 

[bro1999]

I'll bite! I got mine today with the Costco discount for $600 under invoice for a fully loaded Premier. There was still about $1k of advertising costs on the invoice so it wasnt as cheap as I hoped but bearable. Apparently I managed to grab a Costco number before they took it out of the program but they still honored it.

Ok, so what was your final price before taxes+registration? Was the final price around $1k under MSRP?

 

[nik.taylor]

Ok, so what was your final price before taxes+registration? Was the final price around $1k under MSRP?

$1,326 under MSRP