[JuneBug]

Erick Belmer has informed everyone on FB that 'ol Sparkie, his 2012 Volt has given up the ghost at almost 477K miles. He has sold it to someone who hopes to bring it back to life. Erick says it's been the best car he's ever owned, but said it was time to say farewell.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2623533711009635&set=p.2623533711009635&type=3&theater

 

[Tacoma]

Wow. Amazing story. It would be great if someone here on the forum bought it and brought it back to life and posted about it.

 

[Qinsp]

A legend indeed. The number of lithium battery cars with that many miles is probably 0.

 

[N8XWB]

What did he say happened? I can't see. Posts past 2014?!

 

[Qinsp]

It has a Service High Voltage System error. And a half million miles.

Would you fix a car with half a million miles? I think he got his money's worth out of it.

 

[supchrgamx]

I would throw a used battery in it, if it was the battery and use the bad battery for a solar system and go off grid for the low price of what 1500.00

 

[randl]

Nearly 500,000 miles.

Our 87,000 mile '14 hasn't hit adolescence. Five years down, and five to go. Long live RrrAstro!

 

[El Dobro]

I Say, I Say, I Say, Sparkie!!!

 

[Smitten8r]

Sparkie helped motivate me to buy my 2017. I'm definitely going to try running mine for as long as possible, but I doubt I'll see the kind of mileage that Sparkie achieved.

Thanks, Sparkie!

 

[dannycamps]

What did he say happened? I can't see. Posts past 2014?!

There was a recent YouTube video posted here by the owner who explained that the car developed a coolant leak and would not charge anymore so he was using it primarily as an ICE.

From the condition of the car's interior (buttons/steering wheel wear), it showed that this car was driven HARD which is an even bigger testament to how many miles it lasted.

 

[martik777]

His video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBsNmMWcuZE

Betcha it would have broken 500k+ if it wasn't for the accident with the semi truck tire.

Those repair costs he mentions are astronomical - makes we want to trade in before warranty expires.

 

[BAZINGA]

Surprised GM didn't offer to buy it and tear it apart.

 

[emg77]

Sparkie is one of the reasons that I was confident enough to buy an off-lease 2014 Volt almost 2 years ago. I figured it had to be a pretty solid car to handle all those miles. So far so good.

Sparkie may have sold more Volts than GM advertising ever did.

 

[Manitoba Keith]

Sparkie may have sold more Volts than GM advertising ever did.

Did GM ever advertise the Volt? Possibly only in California, but I have never seen one. That would be one reason they never sold enough.

 

[Synovialbasher]

Did GM ever advertise the Volt? Possibly only in California, but I have never seen one. That would be one reason they never sold enough.

They had several commercials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3iEQ9TIMhs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0GiSiOJIuE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcP_J5iW2G0

In my opinion they made it seem too techy or complicated for the average consumer.

Of course, we can never forget the Chevrolet Volt "Dance"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF072W52fc0

Most of the advertising "push" (if you can call it that) happened in the first couple of years, and then nothing. I've personally never seen a Chevrolet commercial with a Gen 2 Volt in it, ever.

 

[Eagleco]

They had this ad in conjunction with the release of the movie, Tomorrowland, which also featured a sneak peak of the gen2.




https://youtu.be/nFC7LFASnP8

 

[bjrosen]

They had several commercials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3iEQ9TIMhs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0GiSiOJIuE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcP_J5iW2G0

In my opinion they made it seem too techy or complicated for the average consumer.

Of course, we can never forget the Chevrolet Volt "Dance"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF072W52fc0

Most of the advertising "push" (if you can call it that) happened in the first couple of years, and then nothing. I've personally never seen a Chevrolet commercial with a Gen 2 Volt in it, ever.

Those ads aren't bad, better than the usual Chevy ads where they give themselves phony quality awards, but they never ran them outside of CA and I bet they didn't run them for very long. I've never seen a Volt ad, and the only Bolt ad that I've seen is from VW not GM, the Jetstones ad which annoys me because they get the name of the dog wrong, Elroy is George's son, Astro is his dog.

 

[Neromanceres]

The Gen I Volt was also in the Transformers movie in 2009 before the car was in production.

https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Jolt_(ROTF)

 

[FI Spyder]

Where's my bugle, want to play Taps.

 

[Eagleco]

And George Clooney got in on it too, as the star of Tomorrowland. They should have sold millions of Volts just on his smile.

It probably didn't help that the movie bombed at the box office.

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