r/BoltEV 8h ago

Pretty proud only my 2017 Bolt EV!

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60 Upvotes

He's older, had him for about 3 years now, got it with 80K miles, have nearly doubled that!

Living in Vermont there's not a lot of charging infrastructure around me, but he gets everywhere I need him too!

I reset the trip at the beginning of the warm season when I got my summer tire put back on, and then ran the last month with studded winters on the rear... (Blown a tire, took a bit to get an appointment). I'd say 4.3 avg over 10,000 miles is pretty dang good! I even live on a dirt road and with a hilly commute!

Pictures taken at 92% charge, plugged in to a free lvl 2 charger.


r/BoltEV 17h ago

Creative charging solutions

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35 Upvotes

Hi everyone I’m the proud owner of 27 Bolt LT and unfortunately quickly came to a realization that home lvl 2 charging was going to be difficult due to needing my entire electrical panel upgraded .
My house is a 2007 build and unfortunately wasn’t future proofed and corners where cut in sizing the capacity of my main panel to grow any further .
I had an electrician come out and I was informed I had no room to expand and a sub panel wasn’t going to cut it . I initially didn’t believe him until I tried to wire a mini split in one of my back rooms and had zero breaker room in the panel to expand !! I ended getting several quotes that ranged from 6-8 grand !!! Since we paid cash for the Bolt my funds are in the process of getting replenished lol!
Luckily with a little research I was able to cobble a work around with my 10-30 dryer outlet and I’d like to share it with you .
I was able to find a variable amp adjustable EVSE and a grounded 10/30 to 14/50 dryer Y splitter with ground . My work commute is 94 miles round trip and I’m getting 23 miles range per hour at 24 amps well below the 10-30 plugs max capacity and that’s only 4 hours of charge time to get back up to 100% nullifying my need to supercharge daily !! The short charge time also didn’t generate any excessive heat at all the outlet was as cool as the ambient air temp .
The entire set up ran me less than $230 bucks and I only charge for a max duration of 4-6 hours while supervising it for any electrical anomalies.
So far I am very pleased with the systems performance and I plan a full 14-50 EV system conversion in the future as funds become available .


r/BoltEV 4h ago

2027 Bolt Review - It's Okay!

28 Upvotes

I bought a 2027 Bolt LT with the comfort package in May of this year, and thought I would chime in with my two cents, as my experience and opinion with the car are a lot less enthusiastic than the majority of the reviews on this sub. Not to say I want to be a downer, but rather that I do believe seeing more temperate reviews on the vehicle could be helpful for those considering a purchase.

The Good:

  • Charging
    • On the balance, I've had an incredibly easy time finding chargers and topping off my car without a hitch. I live in an apartment, so I don't have access to home charging, so I rely on the local network to keep the Bolt up and moving. Luckily, due to the NACS port on the vehicle, I have plenty of options available to me in my ~500k metro area.
  • Backup Camera
    • Coming from a 2022 Civic, in which the backup camera was generously 420p, the Bolt's backup camera is phenomenal. Largely displayed and with great clarity - works extremely well.
  • Blind Spots
    • The Bolt does a great job of minimizing blind spots, and is arguably one of the best cars I've driven period with regard to sightlines.
  • Built-in Google Assistant
    • I cannot understand how, despite the rest of the infotainment being abhorrent (more on that later), the built-in Google Assistant is so great. It's incredibly fast, has basically never misunderstood my commands, and is genuinely a joy to use.
  • Space in the Cabin
    • GM did a great job making the cabin feel extremely open and providing more storage than I know what to do with. Being able to keep several things within an arm's reach while out and about is a great luxury.

The Meh:

  • No Soul
    • This is subjective, so I'll put it in the meh category, but the Bolt really does not provide any sort of joy to drive. Again, I'm not trying to compare it to anything special, but my previous 2022 Civic just felt so much more fun and exciting to get in. This is entirely personal preference, but the clean, econobox of it all is not my favorite part of the car.
  • The Rearview Mirror
    • It's simply placed too low! I am not the tallest person in the world (~6ft), but myself and my 5'7 partner have both had the same experience with needing to crane our neck down to get the right angle and see behind us while driving. Unless I am comically slouched or actively moving my head, I can barely see half of what's behind me while using the mirror. It's not the end of the world by any means, but certainly it is annoying.
  • The OnStar of it All
    • I've only (luckily) had to call OnStar once after my infotainment stopped working for several days. While it wasn't fun or enjoyable, it was at least an average level of annoying to deal with. I've seen some worse stories, but I can at least report my time with them was as frustrating as customer service usually is - nothing more, nothing less.
  • Turning the Car On/Off
    • 95% of the time, the car's automatic on/off feature works exactly as intended and I have no problems. However, occasionally, if I don't get out of the car normally (like when trying to install a software update), the car will get out of sync with itself and become a huge pain in the ass to get it to turn off. Real duck season / rabbit season stuff. I get in the car - it turns off. I get out of the car - it turns on???? Again, this is a very rare issue, and only happens when I am doing something out of the ordinary, but it does happen and is incredibly silly when it does.

The Bad:

  • The Infotainment
    • You've seen it everywhere, but I'll say it again - GM's proprietary software blows. It frequently crashes, tells me I don't have an internet connection, and refuses to cooperate. Easily the single worst part of the car; I thought I could look past it when I bought the car, boy was I wrong.
  • Traction Control
    • I do not understand what it is about my driving, but at least every other week the traction control safety mechanism will activate while I'm driving on perfectly dry ground and cause me to studder around, until it thinks it's safe. I wish I understood what I was doing wrong to trigger it, but I'm quite frankly out of ideas. I think it's just tuned incredibly poorly to be hypersensitive to any sensation it reads.
  • Safety Suite & Automatic Braking
    • Speaking of over-sensitive, the safety suite in the Bolt is beyond nannying. If a manhole is too dark, the red lights on the dash will scream at me as if I was about to run over a toddler. I had to, at a certain point, entirely turn off the auto braking feature due to the number of times the car would slam on the brakes to 'protect me' from absolutely nothing. It overreacts to anything it deems even potentially unsafe and is a massive pain in the ass to cope with. The degree to which it overreacts to things makes it a lot harder to feel safe and confident in using features like adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist, because what if it similarly freaks out at highway speed? It's a nagging feeling that will not go away and really puts a damper on my enjoyment of the car.

Summary

It's okay! In some ways, I regret buying the car. In others, it's just fine. On the balance, would I say I like the car? Not really. However, liking it isn't why I bought it. The lack of maintenance comparable to a ICE vehicle, the overall cost of electricity compared to gas, the promotional rates and pricing from GM, and a general desire to move away from ICE cars anyways are what led me to the Bolt. In those ways, it's exactly what it needs to be. However, if I had the chance to do it over again? Might do some more critical thinking and weigh in the emotional experience of it all a bit more and pick something I feel a bit more attachment to.

I hope this review can help shed some light on some experiences with the Bolt you're only going to get once you've been in it for a while, and I hope it can help make your decision to (not) buy a bit easier!

Thanks for reading.

edit: fixed some formatting


r/BoltEV 21h ago

Convert Bolt to Buick velite 7

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17 Upvotes

Anybody bold enough to convert their Bolt to a velite 7?
Will the panels swap? 3d printing? What's the move


r/BoltEV 6h ago

Looking to buy a new 2027 Bolt, haven't bought a car in 15 years. Want some advice.

15 Upvotes

So I am in need of a new car and the Chevy Bolt 2027 model looks to be my ideal car at the moment. I want an affordable EV and this one looks to be very good in terms of pricing, features, and quality.

My main question is I don't really understand how to negotiate for a new vehicle. I see the list price is around $29-30k, I went to an online quote maker for the dealer I'd be going to and came out to around seeing I can get a Costco discount and it ends up being around $28k. Does this mean the dealer will need to be talked down to this cost, or does it *start* there and I could theoretically haggle it lower than that?

I'm also looking to do a down payment of $10,000 on it, should I withhold this info and raise the number to sweeten the deal?

I'm honestly just not sure how this process even works anymore, any advice from folks?

Also I suppose in general is there anything I should know that isn't immediately apparent about these vehicles that would be good for me to know? I've done a lot of research and I'm aware of base level things like no car play and such, but should I be aware of any possible problems this model may have?

Thank you!


r/BoltEV 8h ago

2023 Bolt EUV - Dealer says they can’t check battery health

9 Upvotes

Eastern Canada here. I am considering purchasing a 2023 Bolt EUV Premier with a little under 70,000 KMs on the clock. I have only seen it with 50% charge so far. I am going back tomorrow to see it with 100% charge.

I asked the Chevrolet dealer if they can do a battery health check giving me capacity and state of health. Since I have read that this is the most important thing to check when buying a used EV.

They said that they are unable to check the batteries on 2023 Bolts. They can do for up to 2022 Bolts but not after that due to an incompatibility between their system check facility and the vehicles.

Is this true? How can I get a battery health check? The dealer said he could charge it to 100% and see what the max range says as proof of battery health.

Other than the battery is there anything else I should be looking at or checking with this vehicle? Any common issues to check?

Any advice would be appreciated.


r/BoltEV 23h ago

Looking for tire recommendations anything to help quiet the ride

4 Upvotes

Also has anyone done a 1 in lift and switch to gas shocks? I use my bolt for doordash and food delivery on chef. I live in Austin and if I was to make a bet I'm sure they're competing with Oklahoma on roads.


r/BoltEV 32m ago

2021 Bolt issues

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Upvotes

Hi everyone,
Hope you all having a good day.

For me, I got a nail in my tire this morning before work. Got it fixed and my boss let me work from home 👍

And when I checked my app, these issues pop up. I don’t want to take it to dealer or even call them because last time they wanted to charge me $320 for checking out my car. I rather ask the community and hopefully someone else can benefit from this post too.

Has anyone ran into these issues and what I should do? I am thinking of taking my car to my guy, not dealer this Labor Day weekend. Thank you 🙏


r/BoltEV 9h ago

The dreaded clunk: a saga

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2 Upvotes

Video is before the axel work. The dealership could not find the source of the clunk for several hours, incorrectly said it was the brakes (when it was in one pedal drive), then said the right axel has play, needs replacement.

They said the anti click washers were not the problem

I go to replace it at another garage ave they say they nothing wrong with the axel, they had disassembled it and put it back together. But the clunk sound was way better! It was reduced like 85% and what i could hear was just on the left side.

I take it to car max and have them remove the front wheel and tighten the 32mm nut that's just behind the tire (a suggestion from this subreddit). This made no difference.

I ask the same garage to do the same thing to the left axel and check the anti-click washer. The washer was broken so they replaced that part and reassembled the left axel.

The clunk sound is now like 95% better. It is less frequent and less intense. The car accelerates smoothly almost always, with a minor C link sometimes when going from deceleration to acceleration or vise versa.

TL/DR clunk has stumped mechanics and has incidentally improved with axel disassembly and one of the anti click washers replaced.


r/BoltEV 18m ago

Anyone else have recent Infotainment freezing/issues on 2017+ Bolt?

Upvotes

I have two 2017 Chevy Bolts, and within 24 hours they have both separately experienced unusual infotainment freezing (i.e. stuck on a screen, unresponsive, and one of them got stuck on the all around camera view). Anyone else noticed this? Has there been some kind of OTA update? Or maybe Apple/Carplay updates might be at fault?