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New here, looking at buying used.

12K views 48 replies 18 participants last post by  chuckcrj 
#1 ·
I have a 56 mile round trip commute. I have not asked my boss if I could plug it in during the day ;)

I have been reading a lot of threads here and have a good understanding of the car by now.

This car is a 2012 with 95,000 miles. That is getting very close to the end of the battery warranty, should I be worried about that? If you figure it out it comes to 848 miles per week (Vehicle in service date was 5/12/12). Figuring a 7 day week that would be 121 miles per day. 6 day week 141 miles per day.

So would you agree that a very small percentage of those miles was in EV mode? Is this a good or bad thing?
 
#2 ·
Welcome, Chuckcrj. I've never heard of a Volt with that many miles on it. The car will tell you how many miles are electric and how many are from the engine (ICE).

There are many on this forum who will give you excellent advice. Because of the holiday weekend here in the US, a lot of folks are not on their computers as much. Hang in there and you will find out about whether you should be concerned about the mileage or not.

Is this a private purchase or from a dealer? Also, there are a lot out there to choose from. Are you getting a really good deal because of the high mileage? Just curious why you are considering THAT one.

Do you know if the seller on this forum?
 
#3 ·
Thanks for the welcome!

Can you tell me how to access the specs on how many miles were in Electric mode?

This is from a Chev dealer. They have only sold one or two Volts before and just picked this one up from a lease. I guess the answer to why this one, is the price will be under 15K and that is the only way I will be able to get into a volt at this time.

I am doing some research first and the dealer has agreed to let me have it for a day to see how well the battery performs. Since they have no experience and couldn't answer all my questions, I turned to a forum ;)

I will keep watching this to see future replies.

Happy Independence Day!
 
#4 ·
Regarding how many miles on gasoline verses battery - If you can gain access to this Volt's OnStar account it will show you total miles and electric miles. Also if this Volt is on Volt stats, you can look it up there. If you cannot get to either of these you can get a rough idea by using a little math and pulling the numbers from the center stack energy screen. It shows lifetime MPG, which is miles driven divided by gallons of gasoline used (assumes electric miles are free). Assume 40 MPG when running on gasoline, so lifetime MPG of 80 would be 50% gas and 50% electric, MPG of 160 would be 25% gas/ 75% electric and so on.

As for concern over the battery degredation, on the drivers screen it shows the estimated range. So with a full battery charge it will show how far the Volt estimates it go on that charge. Many variables go into this calculation which can cause it to vary a bit, but it will give you a rough idea of how well the battery is doing. Good news is that few if any Volt drivers have reported noticable battery degradation, even with high milage.
 
#6 ·
If lifetime MPG is 38, that would mean that the owner probably never charged it and only used it in gasoline mode (like a Prius). This could be a good thing, the battery has not been used much and was maintained at a low state of charge (also a good thing). Sounds like this could have been a corporate lease, where the company reimbursed the driver gasoline but not electricity (yes there are some of these out there).

Since you have the Volt on loan, if you can keep it for 24 hours ... fully charge the Volt, this will reset the battery energy used to zero on the center stack energy screen. Then drive it around until the battery is drained and the engine kicks in. For a new 2012 the battery energy used should be in the high 9.x area. This is just an estimate by the volt so it varies a few tenths. I have a 2013, which has a bit more battery capacity, maybe someone with a MY 2012 can give you a better expectation of what a good number on this screen should be.
 
#7 ·
Unless I burp the battery I consistently only get 9.2 to 9.6 Kwh on my 2012 that only has 16K miles on it about 90% electric. I wouldn't worry about it if you get ~30 miles per charge driving on a freeway at 65+MPH. Absolute worst case a replacement battery is $2.6K (plus labor) with a good core.

Actually, I'd be more worried in this case the condition of the ICE which does now have about 95K miles on it. How well has it been taken care of?
 
#8 ·
Under $15,000 for a Volt sounds like a good deal, regardless of the miles. That is assuming the car is otherwise in good shape, hasn't been in a serious accident, etc. I also concur with Desert Volt. If the lifetime is 38 mpg, then the battery has hardly been used at all. Sounds as if this car has always been run on gasoline. Volt batteries are also known to be very reliable so far. There have been virtually no reports of battery issues.

Still, it would be a good idea to take advantage of that 24 hours and charge it up and drive it until the battery is used up. That way you can find out what the current range is. For best results, don't use the highway much during the test.
 
#11 ·
You'd have to unload 2 or 3 volts to get that ELR. In fact even if I unloaded my entire fleet of vehicles, I don't think it's enough to buy an ELR.
 
#10 ·
An ice engine with 90+K miles on it averaging 38 mpg sounds like the person driving the volt had no clue they had an electric car. I'd run away from this car despite the suspicion that the battery is fine, the ICE is very worn. Usually volts are the opposite, ice is rarely used and the battery is well used with Lifetime MPG at 70 MPG or higher (even much higher, some are getting thousands).
 
#14 ·
This is ridiculous. If 90k on an ICE is 'very worn' then heaven help most American automobile owners, because the average age of American vehicles is 11.4 years and most drivers actually keep their vehicles well past +100k. The Volt, supposedly, was designed to exceed 200k on the Voltec system.

Unless the Volt engine is made in Austria of paper mache, I would expect that it, compared to most vehicles, will be just fine at 90k as long as the oil was changed as recommended, and low-knock premium fuel used. And, perhaps the air filter, coolant, changed, etc. After all the Volt engine is actually controlled by a computer, not a standard throttle, and all the speed settings are determined by algorithm. I don't think the computer could abuse the engine as could, perhaps a person with a standard ICE flogging the engine.

There may be other issues with the car of that mileage, shocks, cv joints, fuel injector deposits, etc., but worn out piston rings, timing chain, and valves, etc., I highly doubt it at all. The Volt engine should be as sound as a dollar even at that age.

Whether the ICE water pump can take 100k well that may be a question to ask. Changing the coolant earlier than required may help. Same with the EV trans fluid. Definitely check the one drive belt for wear and check the engine for any signs of leaks, but if everything appears ok with no abnormal noises or leaks, its all likely just fine.
 
#12 ·
Two points:

1) I didn't know you could get 95,000 mile lease. Must have been one heck of a payment.

2) At 38 lifetime mpg and if the original owner was from Wi, there could still be some charging.
Last Summer to Fall I babied my driving to get 40 mpg CS. Throw in driving "normal" and Wi winters and the CS mpg would be much lower. (My current lifetime CS mpg is ~22)
 
#13 ·
The way I understand it, they said the lifetime overall mpg was 38. Not CS mileage. I don't believe that CS information is available unless you have an active onstar account.

This brings up a question I have had for a long time. How does one know how many miles are on the Volts engine when you buy used? Nothing in the car will break that down.
 
#15 ·
That price sounds fair to me. Wouldn't worry about the battery myself, no one knows how far they will go on average, at this point. I'd give the car a good looking over to be sure there is no collision damage or mechanical problems and if good, buy it and enjoy. Bet your boss will be ok with charging at work, you won't need much to get full ev mileage with your trip, just charge it fully at off peak. Good luck.
 
#17 · (Edited)
I wanted to make a couple points.

1. It is not true the battery has not been used much. Anytime the generator is on it generates a charge for the battery which drives the electric motor. So there is never an instance where the electricity goes directly to the electric motor. I'm sure WOT can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm sure I'm right. Regardless I wouldn't be worried about the battery

2. Just push the onstar button and if it works they should be able to tell you right then and there ev vs ice
 
#18 ·
1. It is not true the battery has not been used much. Anytime the generator is on it generates a charge for the battery which drives the electric motor. So there is never an instance where the electricity goes directly to the electric motor. I'm sure WOT can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm sure I'm right. Regardless I wouldn't be worried about the battery
True.. but there is a difference between this scenario and a daily deep-cycle. One is obviously better on the battery than the other.
 
#19 ·
If they rarely plugged in, do you think they rarely got oil changes? maybe. Could make a good car but who knows.

Ask for detailed service records. The problem with the car is if it was taken care of poorly by say the driver who I have to imagine was a GE employee doing long sales routes, then the car could have long lasting issues if oil changes were not done regularly by the fleet management. If you can get it for $14,500 and have good oil change history then it may be ok. But the cells in the pack have not been balanced much and you may be in need of a battery replacement if things go bad in a few years. Cell balancing happens during charging, not driving. I would buy it if I could get it for less than $14500 because I could give it to my son for his 3-4 year in college in 2015 onward. I am keeping him from having a car on campus in his 2nd year next year.
 
#20 ·
I was all gung ho to buy a off lease GE 2012 volt with 108k on the clock but missed out, I guess the new owner has done over $2000 in mechanical repairs so far and the way the dealer talks its a basket case.

I recommend checking if this car was owned by GE, they apparently have employees that know how to damage cars.

I guess take it with a grain of sand though since this is only the 2nd GE lease car basket case.

Also it appears there was some sort of accident on the record (even though car fax showed nothing)

NEVER buy a repaired Volt that was in an accident, local grease monkeys never get them right.

Also what dealer are you dealing with?

I only know of 2 high milers in wisconsin but 90kish doesn't sound familiar?

Good Luck
Ryan
 
#31 ·
#24 ·
As you can see, I think you are getting all sorts of opinions, but since few have a car that has been driven as you describe, I think we are all guessing. My vote is that a battery that is rarely charged up and brought back down isn't good, but if that was done at least once a month, then that's probably enough to keep the battery flowing. I don't like the fact that the ice has so many "miles" on it, but as another forum member mentioned, it isn't as heavily pressed for service acting as a generator. The bottom line is when you buy used (and in this case heavily used) you just never know whether the car is going to hold up. You are in uncharted territory like the pioneers who ventured west on stagecoaches. If you are the adventurous type, buy it and report back how the car is doing over the next few years.

Are you the type of person who buys a used car and drives it forever, or do you swap cars every few years? I used to buy 2-3 year old used cars and drive them into the ground, but now I've joined the group who buy new for the warrantee (can finally afford it), but still drive them into the ground. I hate trading in cars as the salespeople get you coming and going.

For me the decision to buy a volt was financial. Paying $250-350 per month in gas feeding a gas guzzler that was given to me for free used to be the cheapest way to go (yay, no car payment). But as soon as GM dropped the price by $5K, the fed tax credit and the discovery of a 10% IL state EV rebate bade the volt a bargain. The amount saved in fuel pretty much covers the new car payment. The old car needed $2-3k in repairs which instead went towards the volt. Now it's just a matter of how well the car holds up and how much I need to spend on maintenance.
 
#26 · (Edited)
I thought exercising was something that was needed with the Ni Cad battery and was to prevent a memory effect. I have not read anything about Li batteries needing to be exercised. And just like the Volt takes care of the fuel if you don't use it, I would guess it also takes care of the battery. Does it say anywhere that you need to charge the battery every so often? I thought these batteries were rated in charge cycles, a full charge cycle wears more than a partial charge cycle. I have read that these charge cycles cause the cells to deform and breakdown over time. As a matter of fact the battery is best stored without a full charge. The battery is actively acting as a storage buffer in CS mode. As far as I am concerned this is like a battery that has been properly maintained in storage. Like new. I This is my opinion.
 
#28 ·
A poor choice of words. Replace "exercising" with "using". So, the question remains "Does one full discharge and re-charge (~10 kWh) cause more wear and tear than a multitude of little charges and discharges adding up to 10 kWh?
 
#27 ·
If you read the instructions from Apple, they recommend discharging all the way down at least once a month for MacBooks. If you keep it plugged in forever and never discharge, it can cause issues for Lithium ion batteries. What I don't know is whether these batteries will be fine never being charged all the way up.
 
#29 · (Edited)
To quote ClarksonCote:

(http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?122905)


"1. Lithium battery charging rate is measured as a function of the battery's capacity, aka a "C" rate. So if your battery is 500Wh and you charge at 500W, it takes one hour and you charged at a "1C" rate. Most Li-Ion batteries are capable of 1C charging, and many are also capable of 2C. By comparison, the Volt's charging rate is 0.2C with 240V, or 3.3kW on a 16 kWh battery (2012). That's much slower (20%) than the standard acceptable charging rate, which is why there is no harm done. If higher current charging hardware were not so expensive (and the car had it), the Volt could charge at a 16kW rate and give you a full battery in an hour without any real issues.

"2. A charge "cycle" is a full charge and discharge. That is not the same as discharging 20% and then recharging it that 20%. Charge cycles are just a measure of battery life, and there are many factors that affect the life of a battery. Battery life is a function of calendar time, heat, charge cycles, and how much time they spend fully charged or discharged. GM took care of the charge cycles and fully charge/discharge issues by only allowing the battery to be discharged to 20% (when display shows empty), and charged only to 80% (when display shows full). This way a full "charge cycle" is actually not as stressful on the battery if it were fully discharged and fully charged, and the battery doesn't also degrade faster by being left at fully charged or fully discharged states. They took care of the heat by building in an active thermal management system to both heat and cool the batteries as needed (unlike most EV makers). The heating part is more for battery performance, they don't mind being cold. All of these measures greatly increase the battery life, and leading chemists (not affiliated with GM) suspect the Volt's battery will last 15-20 years because of all the safeguards."

So, if battery life is primarily dependent upon the number of charge cycles (a full charge and discharge), then it would appear that it makes no difference to the Volt battery if it provides a full charge/discharge cycle at one drive interval, as opposed to that drive interval being powered only in the Charge Sustaining mode (small charges and discharges). The battery in a Volt driven 100,000 miles in its lifetime solely in the Charge Sustaining mode isn't going to be any worse for wear than one driven in the Charge Depletion mode before switching over to the CS mode for the remainder of each drive interval. It's the total energy exchanged, or have I missed what ClarksonCote has said?

P.S. Would GM allow the fleet-driven Volts to be grossly misused by not being plugged in and then allow them to be foisted on the buying public who would soon discover that the batteries were stinko?
 
#30 ·
I got busy and didn't have time to update this thread.

I really appreciate all the good info you guys have posted, thanks for taking the time to type that all up jbakerjonathan! The high miles won't scare me from this car, by most accounts these are reliable cars.

I haven't taken it home yet, my current car is paid for and gets 24 mpg. Taking what I pay for gas per month and even adding as much as 5K for repairs over the next 5 years (car is 10 years old with 145K miles), it still comes out cheaper to just drive the car I have than to buy the volt on a 5 year loan.

We'll see, I haven't given up the idea yet.
 
#35 ·
Stick to it and proudly drive the car into the ground. I drove a free hand me down from my dad for years until the math worked out that getting a new volt was almost the same as paying for gas on my 50 miles per day commute. I wouldn't have done it without the incentives. Alas if your commute is less, it's harder to justify purely with financial reasons. Then you have to think about the bigger picture of the world and trying to reduce your car in footprint and whether you're willing to pay a little for that. Until then, take what would have been your car payment and stick it into a separate bank account to build up for the down payment on whatever comes next.
 
#32 · (Edited)
I am finding it very odd that dealers are pricing the recent high mile volts EXACTLY the same price as volts in the 50-70k miles area from about a month or two ago. High miles is high miles, no way they will get those prices unless they are the gimmick places that have the low monthly payment that lasts the next 20 years.

Anyway...

A very good deal on that car would be about $14k.

I would recommend coming loaded with the 2 or 3 dealer ads (and nada/kbb as applicable) for volts in the same mileage range but at much lower prices, the one for $12,900 and the one in MN for $14,400 are the closest to you and the closest to that cars mileage, the one for $14,400 actually had slightly fewer miles.

Use documentation to ping off the dealer and be persistent, you might well get what you want if the car lingers more than a month.

Also if you have any documentation that the dealer had the car at a lower price earlier, bring it in, should be an instant price match.

Good Luck
Ryan
 
#36 ·
Not sure how this went for you but I started looking at KBB, nada and black book and the retail on volts with 100k or higher seems to be between $8900-$12900 regardless of which one I checked.

I am wondering why dealers are priced 30%-60% above the normal suggested retail price. Many of the volts above 100k take quite a while to sell, just seems rather strange that there is such a large gap and the "low end" price of volts does not seem to be responding even though supply is increasing and is not moving quickly on cars with too many miles.

Ah well.
 
#37 ·
The price difference the dealers are looking for is their profit. (They have a right to make a living, too). The other possible difficulty might be $5K the 2014 model year price drop. When new volts became cheaper, how do they price the older volt? If it is a lease return, the residual on the earlier more expensive volts were pretty high, so they have a tough time trimming that $5K off the value of the car because the leasing company had so much money in it. Although buyers love price drops, it's the people trading in purchased cars that get hurt with their low trade in values.
 
#39 ·
Based on the lifetime average of 38mpg... I would stay away from this used Volt. It has been driven exclusively on the ICE for most of it's life. (Doubt the owner ever charged it.) The battery has most likely spent most of it's life charged to the minimum 30% capacity. (Not good.) Also the KBB estimate is far below the $15K asking price. Seems like this Volt is over priced. (Especially since the lifetime mpg is so low.) Look for a Volt with a lifetime mpg of 80+ in the $10K to $12K range.
 
#40 ·
Also the KBB estimate is far below the $15K asking price. Seems like this Volt is over priced. (Especially since the lifetime mpg is so low.) Look for a Volt with a lifetime mpg of 80+ in the $10K to $12K range.
I can show you over a dozen identical volts, nearly the same miles and also priced far above KBB.

They seem to linger out for sale so I have no idea what the impetus is to try to sell the higher mileage cars at such a high price far above blue book.

Ah well, I will need to wait longer.
 
#41 ·
Chuckcr,
I would avoid the volt with 95k miles. The ICE probably has a lot of wear on it. Check out offleaseonly.com (they are located in florida) . Currently I think there is a used 2013 volt there for under $20k. There is also a 2012 there as well. My brother bought a Nissan leaf several years ago and has been very happy. Another good site is cargurus.com. I am sure you can find a deal on a low mileage 2013 now since the 2015s will be out soon. Good luck.

2013 crystal red, nav, bose, safety pkg 1 & 2, polished wheels. Bought used in Feb 2014.
 
#47 ·
You can thank me for the price reduction :)

I nagged the crap out of that guy with ads for $12,500 & 12,900 for volts with similar or lower miles each time one popped up, I gradually wore him out but couldn't get him below $15k, he must have finally given in :)

Good Luck and push for some type of warranty from the dealer itself.

Cheers
Ryan
 
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