I bought a used Chevy Volt - and you probably should too!

[DaLanMan]

Hmm, without actually seeing it not a lot I can offer. I will say I have successfully modified a couple dozen cars over the years for various reasons.

reason 1) Ford and the crap anti-theft system that is better at defeating owners than thieves. General answer besides ripping it out and putting in a jump kit, manually wiring the chip to the antenna in the ring will allow you to use a replacement key that at least makes people work a little to steal your ride, and won't leave you dangling in a parking lot.

Reason 2) while I was in the Army I had a side gig doing repo's, a lot of the cars lived on the lot for a long time til banks/etc came to get them, our yard was teensy, so I ended up rigging cars to be startable and moveable without needing to be hooked up and dragged. Turns out that when you bypass the anti-theft system in a mercedes, when mercedes see's how you do it they REALLy want to find out how you did it...

Generally if the stock one sucks, you can find enough wiggle room to resolve it, often you can bypass the controller portion of the key and use it as a column lock, and wire in your own push to start...

Just a few idle thoughts, let me know if there is anything else I can ponder on...

 

[neptronix]

I think buying an abandonware car today would be a bad idea. I'd much rather have a recent generation Prius ( ~200 HP ) instead!

 

[classicalgas]

Used EV costs have come down a lot, with lots more choices, since this thread started. Even in a small city, I can find a half dozen choices, any week, of used EV's under ten grand. Some weeks there are a few choices under 5K. Very often the battery warranty has 30-50k miles left on it.

My son picked up a five year old Fiat 500E, seven grand, looks almost new, still 100 mile range. Perfect for a college kid, costs nothing to run.

 

[99t4]

In fact I did just this last March-- bought a 11 year old Chevy Volt, mostly based on this thread*, as it made logical sense to me and appeared to satisfy most of my vehicle transportation needs.

Low purchase price, state subsidized $0 sales tax, required some minor repairs, spent less than $50 in gas so far.

My area suffers from continual gridlock and it feels so much better not to be burning fuel idling in stop-n-go conditions.

So far so good, hoping the battery keeps most of its range.

*Thanks ES!

 

[JackFlorey]

My area suffers from continual gridlock and it feels so much better not to be burning fuel idling in stop-n-go conditions.

Yeah, I have an 8 year old Prius Prime that gets me to and from work without gas. I went all of 2024 without getting gas (not recommended.)

 

[Logic11]

I live about 12 miles from my current job, and my wife is retired...so we are ideal customers for a Nissan Leaf / Chevy Volt-Bolt.

I have a coworker with a Leaf, and I am impressed. My son has also purchased s Chevy Volt a few years ago, and I am also impressed with it.

I am a huge fan of the Volt, and I was deeply disappointed when it was discontinued. My ideal configuration is a Chevy Volt, where the backup engine is a series-hybrid bio-diesel.

When the combined fuel mileage is only a few gallons of diesel per month, then bio-diesel (*made from soybeans?) Becomes very viable, and it has the capability of divorcing US foreign policy from oil in the middle east...

Agree; plug in series hybrid is the way to go at this point.

You might like the BYD cars.
Series Hybrid 98% of the time and a direct drive (no gearbox) for constant speed highway cruising.
Coupla other ecomodder tricks.
81 mpg.

What’s the secret to the fuel-saving capabilities of BYD’s latest hybrid system? | KrASIA

The latest generation of BYD’s DM hybrid system slashes fuel consumption while extending EV driving range.

kr-asia.com

 

[jonescg]

Well akshully....

Being an EV guy we actually tried a 2nd hand Volt, and a used 2012 Leaf, because in 2020 these were about the only affordable second hand EVs or at least EVish cars on the market. The Volt was okay, but Australian stealerships don't want to service them anymore and the service is famously expensive.
The used Leaf (at the time) was still a $20k car, and it barely had the range to get me to work and back, at the time 80 km.
So for $50k we dipped into the mortgage buffer and bought a 38 kWh Hyundai Ioniq with 300-400 km range and we charge it about once a week. 103,000 km later it's rock solid.
Of all the used EVs in Oz, these seem to hold their value because they're so damn efficient, and you can still work on them yourself, or take it to a dealer who also knows how to work on it.