[hotgrips]

I'm new to www.GM-Volt.com and find this site a great source of information as I search for a new Chevy volt. I'm ready to commit to this new White Diamond Tricoat with Beige interior and dark accents (leather) 2013 Volt at $33,985. delivered to me from out of state (including the dealer docs fees) equipped with Prem. Trim Pkg, 17" 5 spoke polished AL wheels, MyLink w/Navigation, Prem. Bose sound, Safety Pkg. 1 which original MSRP was $44,945. I do understand a similarly equipped 2014 would be 5k less at $39,945 MSRP, and then there are area dealers discounting of 3k from that for a 2014. The absolute largest discount I've come across is $5k off MSRP on a 2014, but in a color I don't want to own.

So I'm struggling with whether or not to get a 2013 at an effective -$5,960. as opposed to a 2014 at -$3,000. My question is this: Is the later resale value of a used 2013 Volt likely to be lower than a 2014 by that kind of differential: $2960. ($5960-3000) The other factor that I am having trouble sorting out is whether or not in view of the 2016 2nd Generation Volt announced to come out in the 2nd half of 2015 is worth waiting for, since I haven't committed yet to my first electric-gas car yet.

One thing I am convinced of, is that the Chevy Volt features, the 6 mile road test, and the competition specs all point to the Chevy Volt being what I want. I absolutely want a range extender engine in my car, as I couldn't stand to run out of battery power as an absolute electric like the 2014 Ford Fusion Electric would do to me. The Toyota Prius doesn't have enough electric only range in any of their models to satisfy me, nor do the others. I like the Tesla but I understand they have a waiting list. And If I was in that price range I'd prefer the Tesla AWD model X which is way off in the future in terms of availability.

Can any of you comment on the price I negotiated (with several emails and phone conversations with the sales mgr.) for the 2013? Should I stay away from the 2013 for any reason (other than the leather covered steering wheel that I understand is on the 2014). Does the 2014 have anything else going for it over the 2013?

Thanks to all of you in advance. If you can respond tonight, that would be great, as I'd like to proceed in the morning with the purchase if you all think this is a good choice in terms of price and model year. BTW, the Federal tax credit remains intact for me to use, but there are no GM incentives of any kind available to me at that price. I am purchasing, not leasing nor financing.

 

[Scarlett]

That sounds like a pretty good deal to me. And if it is coming from a ways away, the delivery charges that they are absorbing could add to the deal for you. I'm not sure you will do much better. If it is the car you want with the options you want, then jump right in. The water is fine.

Not sure what you mean about the leather steerinf wheel. That should be on the 13 also, I think. There are a couple of changes for 14 that have been discussed here. The charge door opens with a push on it rather than a bush button inside the car. And the radio is aparently more smartphone friendly. Others here may know of more.

You have to make the decision on waiting for the 16. You won't have really solid information on what the 16 will offer for a while. Lots of teasers and a bunch of speculation. Solid infor is harder to come by. Bottom line- if you get the 13 now, you'll start saving now.

Good luck and let us know what you end up doing.

Steve

 

[llninja]

Sounds like a good deal. At the end of 2013 I got a GM 5K rebate, $1.5K from the dealership and a $2.6K we pay your taxes deal before any other tax credits, state rebates, and GM card rebates. My white diamond tricoat appears to be a twin to what you are thinking of buying.

 

[Fred_B]

If the 2013 is new without a significant number of miles on it, that price is pretty good for all the options it has.

You are correct about not having to worry about running out of battery range, you really get the best of both worlds, the fun and economy of being able to drive all electric most of the time, with the security of knowing you have no range worries. Yesterday I took a freeway drive after going to and from work, about 80 miles or so. I reset the trip odometer when I switched to hold mode on the freeway. After 40 miles or so it indicated I was getting just over 50 MPG! So even just burning gas, the Volt gets great mileage.

 

[flyingron]

Forget the stupid 2013 MSRP, that same car is just under $40K if it were a 2014 model.
Still, the bottom line looks good if this is a new or demo model rather than used.

As pointed out, unless you go to paying three times as much for a Tesla, you'll be hard pressed to find something that works as well as the Volt. None of the other pluggable hybrid offerings will do what the Volt does and run exclusively on batteries for the first 40 (+/-) miles (I'm not going to quibble about ERDTT). Except for making a 1200 mile trip in mine, I've not put gas in it. I ran around for the first month I had it with still 3/4 of initial fill up the dealer gave me.

I looked at the Toyota, Ford, and Honda offerings. They're sort of things that preload your hybrid battery which gives you some better mileage numbers but not the ability to run for extended times gas less.

 

[hotgrips]

2013 loaded available in Mass.

Thank you for all of your input. I am going to pass along the location of this 2013 in White Diamond Tricoat Volt and VIN so one of you can take advantage of the opportunity. $33,985. equipped as described in my first entry, with the $7500. federal tax credit still available if you can use it). Original MSRP was 44,945. After all of this negotiation with the dealer, I learned that GM would not permit the accumulated $1190+ Earnings dollars from my wife's GM Earnings MasterCard be applied to the price. So I decided to walk away from it. The VIN ends in 140848, at the Auburn, MA dealer, and sales mgr. is John Shea.

Jim

 

[Scarlett]

That sounds stupid on their part. Did they say why? Something to do with it being a 13?

 

[hotgrips]

They gave me some double-talk about not being able to give me the GM card "Earnings Dollars" because of the GM promotional "buy at supply price" or something very lame like that. Since this directly contradicts their website promotion of the use of the GM Earnings MasterCard to "further discount your purchase price of a new GM vehicle by using your accumulated GM MasterCard Earnings Dollars after you negotiate your best price with a dealer", I just could not let them get away with it. They did NOT say it was due to it being a 2013 rather than a 2014 model. They could just as well have claimed it was because the car was white... i.e. there was no validity to their rationale. The GM Card representative said that if I would like to give up some other discount incentive then I could use the credit card Earnings Dollars. Total Deception in my opinion, as we could have been using some other card that actually gives you a 2% cash-back, instead of the 2% "Earnings" toward a new GM car. It caused me to wonder about GM standing behind their vehicles with their warranty, what is to prevent them from failing to honor that as well. Between my wife and I we have bought 9 GM cars and trucks from 2001 to 2014, so this is no way to treat a good loyal customer.

 

[llninja]

They gave me some double-talk about not being able to give me the GM card "Earnings Dollars" because of the GM promotional "buy at supply price" or something very lame like that. Since this directly contradicts their website promotion of the use of the GM Earnings MasterCard to "further discount your purchase price of a new GM vehicle by using your accumulated GM MasterCard Earnings Dollars after you negotiate your best price with a dealer", I just could not let them get away with it. They did NOT say it was due to it being a 2013 rather than a 2014 model. They could just as well have claimed it was because the car was white... i.e. there was no validity to their rationale. The GM Card representative said that if I would like to give up some other discount incentive then I could use the credit card Earnings Dollars. Total Deception in my opinion, as we could have been using some other card that actually gives you a 2% cash-back, instead of the 2% "Earnings" toward a new GM car. It caused me to wonder about GM standing behind their vehicles with their warranty, what is to prevent them from failing to honor that as well. Between my wife and I we have bought 9 GM cars and trucks from 2001 to 2014, so this is no way to treat a good loyal customer.

Way to stand firm. I was able to collect on $3500 with my GM card last oct, and I have one of the older GM cards that ears 5% capped at $500 per year for 7 years. Alas that means I've only bought two GM cars over the last 14 years using this credit cars. I don't thing the dealer is trying to pull a fast one. I've seen other special GM incentives geared towards giving the public employee pricing that doesn't allow the GM card. But if you stand firm, you might get a call from the dealership of some new incentive that might entice you enough to buy the car. Believe me, with the fuel savings I'm getting from my commute, the volt is well worth it.

 

[jehrler]

They gave me some double-talk about not being able to give me the GM card "Earnings Dollars" because of the GM promotional "buy at supply price" or something very lame like that. Since this directly contradicts their website promotion of the use of the GM Earnings MasterCard to "further discount your purchase price of a new GM vehicle by using your accumulated GM MasterCard Earnings Dollars after you negotiate your best price with a dealer", I just could not let them get away with it. They did NOT say it was due to it being a 2013 rather than a 2014 model. They could just as well have claimed it was because the car was white... i.e. there was no validity to their rationale. The GM Card representative said that if I would like to give up some other discount incentive then I could use the credit card Earnings Dollars. Total Deception in my opinion, as we could have been using some other card that actually gives you a 2% cash-back, instead of the 2% "Earnings" toward a new GM car. It caused me to wonder about GM standing behind their vehicles with their warranty, what is to prevent them from failing to honor that as well. Between my wife and I we have bought 9 GM cars and trucks from 2001 to 2014, so this is no way to treat a good loyal customer.

Did you get the 1,000 private cash offer available via suggestions on this forum. We did and it came right off the top of the best deal we could get.

 

[hotgrips]

$1000. private cash offer discount???

I haven't heard of it, so I guess not. I had several emails with the general sales manager, then after a lull of a few days, he emailed me that he had some dealer certificates he could apply to the price and that I could buy it for $33,985.

The problem with the GM MasterCard "Earnings Dollars" is that the inability to apply it was a total surprise and not expected to be an issue, as I had twice in the past used them to buy a new Gm car. I recall that in 2008 I bought a Chevy Aveo and applied over $2000. in GM card Earnings dollars to it, even though it lowered the price of over $9,000. at the time to about $7000. The bottom line price was so low that even now many years later, if it had 48,000 miles on it Edmunds.com prices it at dealer retail of $7500.

The pricing conflict on the Chevy volt was somehow tied into what they call their promotional "Supplier Price" discount.

After I cancelled on the car, a strange thought went thru my mind about the Volt. For some reason I saw the Volt's purchase as merely saving me a maximum of 3/4 of a gallon of gasoline (in terms of dollars saved over the cost of utility company $.17 kWH) each night, and that would only be if I plugged it in each night and then exhausted the battery the next day. Since gasoline currently in central NH is about $3.60/gallon, that translates to $2.70 daily. Yes, it could be more if I had an opportunity to plug in at work, but I don't have that option. The prospect of having to replace the large battery at some point in the future bothered me too. Bottom line is that I realized there are probably better values in an Electric car with an extended range ICE engine just a few years away. There seems to be a considerable engineering efforts taking place both in the automotive world and in battery chemistry. I realize thoughts like this run counter to the excitement most of you feel on this forum, and I WAS looking forward to the Chevy Volt, but for engineering reasons rather than dollars and cents justification.

 

[bro1999]

I haven't heard of it, so I guess not. I had several emails with the general sales manager, then after a lull of a few days, he emailed me that he had some dealer certificates he could apply to the price and that I could buy it for $33,985.

The problem with the GM MasterCard "Earnings Dollars" is that the inability to apply it was a total surprise and not expected to be an issue, as I had twice in the past used them to buy a new Gm car. I recall that in 2008 I bought a Chevy Aveo and applied over $2000. in GM card Earnings dollars to it, even though it lowered the price of over $9,000. at the time to about $7000. The bottom line price was so low that even now many years later, if it had 48,000 miles on it Edmunds.com prices it at dealer retail of $7500.

The pricing conflict on the Chevy volt was somehow tied into what they call their promotional "Supplier Price" discount.

After I cancelled on the car, a strange thought went thru my mind about the Volt. For some reason I saw the Volt's purchase as merely saving me a maximum of 3/4 of a gallon of gasoline (in terms of dollars saved over the cost of utility company $.17 kWH) each night, and that would only be if I plugged it in each night and then exhausted the battery the next day. Since gasoline currently in central NH is about $3.60/gallon, that translates to $2.70 daily. Yes, it could be more if I had an opportunity to plug in at work, but I don't have that option. The prospect of having to replace the large battery at some point in the future bothered me too. Bottom line is that I realized there are probably better values in an Electric car with an extended range ICE engine just a few years away. There seems to be a considerable engineering efforts taking place both in the automotive world and in battery chemistry. I realize thoughts like this run counter to the excitement most of you feel on this forum, and I WAS looking forward to the Chevy Volt, but for engineering reasons rather than dollars and cents justification.

Sounds like you'll be better off waiting for Volt 2.0. If the rumors are remotely true, 2.0 will improve on 1.0 in just about every way, and may even be cheaper as well. Or wait to grab late year '15 Volts....those will probably be heavily discounted once the '16 Volt is officially announced.

 

[Sandybestdog]

They gave me some double-talk about not being able to give me the GM card "Earnings Dollars" because of the GM promotional "buy at supply price" or something very lame like that. Since this directly contradicts their website promotion of the use of the GM Earnings MasterCard to "further discount your purchase price of a new GM vehicle by using your accumulated GM MasterCard Earnings Dollars after you negotiate your best price with a dealer", I just could not let them get away with it. They did NOT say it was due to it being a 2013 rather than a 2014 model. They could just as well have claimed it was because the car was white... i.e. there was no validity to their rationale. The GM Card representative said that if I would like to give up some other discount incentive then I could use the credit card Earnings Dollars. Total Deception in my opinion, as we could have been using some other card that actually gives you a 2% cash-back, instead of the 2% "Earnings" toward a new GM car. It caused me to wonder about GM standing behind their vehicles with their warranty, what is to prevent them from failing to honor that as well. Between my wife and I we have bought 9 GM cars and trucks from 2001 to 2014, so this is no way to treat a good loyal customer.

It doesn't sound like double talk to me, it sounds like single talk. It's very simple, you can't use certain cards in conjunction with the GM supplier discount. I'll bet if you post your card member agreement, it will say exactly that. Your issue is with GM. Don't blame the dealer, this is GM's policy and one you agreed to when you got the card. The dealer would not be getting the kickback from GM for using the supplier program so therefore their cost on the vehicle is higher. If you want to combine your earning with the supplier/employee discount, you need to get the GM family card which, coincidentally comes with lower earnings amount.

https://www.gmcard.com/faq

*Earnings may not be used on the purchase of any vehicle sold with some private offers and discounted sale programs. Please refer to the BuyPower Card Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for more information.