What else "cut" for the 2014 $5k MSRP drop?

5830 Views 34 Replies 10 Participants Last post by Fyodor, Nov 29, 2016

VoltenRock

Discussion Starter · Nov 25, 2016

Found a NEW '14 sitting on a dealer's lot locally. With a motivated dealer, running the numbers could make me owe LESS after tax credit than what's left on my '13--wouldn't mind getting paid to drive a new car! It's also a later build date, so it may have the 17.1 kWh battery. Getting a few extra EV miles is not bad either.

However, my '13 is solid and I'm wondering if anything else was "cheapened" on the '14 Volt for the $5k MSRP drop. I couldn't get a solid answer from searching besides the following:

--eliminated automatic charge door opener (actually like this, but can deal with it)
--eliminated two-tone accents on the leather seats (a personal preference I really like, and will decide in-person if I can part with my ceramic white accents--fortunately this particular '14 has the white center stack)

Anything else? Is the gas door still locking?

I know GM shaved costs somewhere and am wondering if there are other things "unseen" that may make the car less reliable or less of a keeper than the solid '13 I have now.

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canehdian

· #3 · Nov 25, 2016

Nothing significant has come to light.
There were additions, too, though.
2014 adds updated 12V battery maintenance profiles, not just when charging (a definitely plus with the premature issues some people have been having).
Infotainment also supports text message readouts and voice passthrough via bluetooth.
Possibly ~500Wh more, as mentioned.

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canehdian

· #8 · Nov 26, 2016

edk-austin said:
On 2014;
Gas door still locking.
Clock is auto updated for DST.

Well.. it's supposed to

http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?204914-Automatic-Time-(DST)

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canehdian

· #12 · Nov 26, 2016

Fyodor said:
An interesting thread - I didn't see any real conclusion though. FWIW my 2012 has a button on the centre stack for adjusting the time. I have had the 4G upgrade and it still didn't alter the clock. I expect the chip is programmed for global use and doesn't know where you are or if and when DST kicks in. England and Europe, for instance, are a week ahead of North America.

My conclusion is that the car is syncing regularly, but whatever the source is, it's not (always) accurate.
My guess is onstar, because that's the only thing that's changed since getting the car. And it changed on the correct day to the correct time for the first few changes. Only broke after the upgrade of onstar to GSM/WCMDA.
It knows where you are (GPS) - or at least has the capability to, if they would program it that way.

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canehdian

· #21 · Nov 27, 2016

Fyodor said:
Your car is two years newer than mine. I have a quite different entertainment and nav system, ( with the HDD and no MyLink) so the car might know where it is but it doesn't seem to tell my clock.

Programming that capability in, using the location and the date, might get a little complicated. It would be easier to pick up the local time externally. Even pushing a button twice a year is not a big problem.

It's actually easy, time and position is provided in the GPS signal. It's the DST offset that is not, which is probably the issue with the system (if GPS is the source of time), and it waits for onstar to give it that info instead of try to calculate based on position and date.

llninja said:
So I think to summarize the 2014 got rid of the remote charge door unlock button, added battery life, added some sort of talk to text feature in the mylink. The removal of under carriage panels and the sticker cover swap were done in 2013.

In short, if the decision is between a 2013 and a 2014, get the 2014. 13's had quite a common problem with heaters, mostly fixed for '14. The significant changes happened between 2012 and 2013 years and not 2013 and 2014.

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canehdian

· #23 · Nov 27, 2016

Fyodor said:
It's really not a big deal to someone brought up with spring driven clocks that had to be wound.

I agree it's not a big deal. But it's a feature my car shipped with (an extremely simple one, at that), and should continue to work.
The simplest of alarm clocks can do it on the correct day without a data connection at all, so should a vehicle with an exponentially more complex computer and radio system.

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canehdian

· #25 · Nov 27, 2016

Preaching to the choir, there

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canehdian

· #28 · Nov 28, 2016

Fyodor said:
I think you and I have differing ideas on what is simple. Those clocks you are talking about have considerable computing power built into them and chips with thousands of transistors.

My $10 alarm clock has more computing power than the volt computer? Definitely not. It reads the time signal from FM, something the volt can probably already do (similar to other data streams from FM, e.g. current song playing) - they just didn't program it that way. Thousands of transistors is basically a pencil and paper compared to today's computers with millions and billions of transistors.

Sorry to OP for hijacking his thread with all this DST BS.

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