Reboot of car (after backing up) / "Initializing" on instrument cluster

[Cornan]

(05) Spike from left rear 640w.jpg

Two Saturdays ago I backed out of my driveway, and when I stopped (in the street, to shift from "reverse" into "drive" and continue on my way) my Volt refused to move.

After a few seconds it told me "Shift To Park".

After I did so I saw the word "Initializing" on the "instrument cluster", after which all the indicators turned on for a second as if I had just turned it on.

It all happened pretty quickly and I don't recall pressing the blue button either intentionally or accidentally.

I've never seen "Initializing" at any other time.

By coincidence I was taking the Volt into the dealer that day to address a few issues, and it's not back to me yet, so there hasn't been an opportunity for this to happen again.

Searching for "reboot" found a lot of threads but the word "reboot" wasn't about the car itself (in the subjects and thread I checked).

My 1999 Dodge Durango needed to be rebooted at least twice to clear the idle speed, but that was something I had to do. This seemed to be the Volt spontaneously doing something.

Anybody know anything about reboots of the vehicle?

[saghost]

The Volt has a bunch of different computers in a network architecture. Usually, "Initializing" type messages I've seen mentioned here seem to be about the boss computer not being able to get an answer out of one of its minions. You can also get some weird error messages out of turning the car off and immediately turning it on, I assume for similar reasons. There might be a code stored (not all codes trigger the check engine light.)

[DonC]

Most issues of this type are operator related (note I'm not saying error). Given the touch sensitive stack it's easy to hit a button without realizing it. I've done this at least once myself. Unless it happens again I wouldn't worry about it. FYI the "Initializing" message is standard -- if pops up every time at least briefly when you start the car -- you just haven't noticed it before.