This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
While starting vehicle for commute back home, the on board diagnostic warning popes up saying that profusion peer was reduced. The gasoline engine then turned on even though battery was approximately 75% charged. While driving I noticed that the vehicle had difficulty with acceleration as well as deceleration; as a result, I elected to take the side streets instead of the interstate
While on the highway and the main high voltage battery is depleted, I have a sudden reduction in speed and zero acceleration. I get a dashboard alert "propulsion power reduced". "reduced" is an understatement! the gas engine tries to keep up with speed by ramping up the rmps. The sudden loss of speed forces other cars to avoid me and I cannot increase my speed if needed. I expect I will be rear ended or lose control when this happens again. Engine revs extremely high. I usually pull over and turn off vehicle- sometimes a restarts fixes it. I have also waited (5 mins?) with the engine running at high rmps hoping the battery would recover, but no. I also fear the gas engine will overheat. The car can no longer drive at highway speeds safely after depletion and cannot accelerate sufficiently even in a 30mph zone. This is a continuing issue and has happened for the past several days. The dealership says the high voltage battery is bad, but the main battery charges and drives fine until it is depleted. I now don't drive farther than what the ev battery can achieve. (all other current recall issues, software updates have been addressed)
2013 Chevy Volt stopped accelerating and received a low propulsion while driving on a state route in Ohio. Our son was driving the vehicle and could have been killed if this was on a highway. The Volt would not move and he had to try to glide off the road since it had no power. He pushed the car off the road so it would not be hit. If this situation would have occurred while driving on the highway, our son could have been killed. This problem has occurred to other Volt owners if you look this issue up on the internet. Why hasn't GM fixed this issue so people are safe when driving this vehicle? we brought our Volt into the service department, this car is now going on 3 weeks and we still do not have our car back. They first said it was a short in the electrical module, and replaced parts. Now they are stating that it did not work and it is the transmission. I am not sure they know what is really wrong with this Volt. They are now asking us to pay $3661 to have this transmission replace and GM will pay 2000 or it would be 5661. This car is not even worth that much at this point has 83000 miles on it and the transmission should have never went out. GM tried to say it was the short, now they are saying it was not a short. I do not care what it is I just want a safe car for my son to drive. It seems like they are back pedaling to try to not pay for something that they (GM) should pay for. Especially since this issue is not a new issue for the Chevy Volt. GM needs to stand by their products and fix this vehicle.
Volt has minimal propulsion when stomping on the accelerator in electric or hybrid mode. It has lost 60-70 percent of its power since new. It is a safety hazard when pulling onto a highway or needing to accelerate to avoid a accident. Chevrolet says nothing is wrong and refuses to acknowledge the issue not wanting to honor electric warranty.
On Sept. 5th 2018 I hit the center island while turning on the city street at about 15mph. The impact was so slight that the air bags didn't even deploy. I was able to get it to the dealers on it's own power. My insurance company sent their appraiser, jeremy, to inspect the damage. I had to get some items out of my car before that. The mechanic had the car on the rack so he could show me. The only damage I readily noticed was the radiators were crushed, a 2 1/2" square frame cross member had a 1 1/2" dent where it had impacted the island, and some panels- noticeably the front underside and driver side front wheel well were damaged. Later jeremy called me and told me the car was a total loss.he said the entire frame was bent out of shape. I couldn't believe it. In his report he itemized the parts but about the propulsion system he wrote, conditions exist that the electrical motors could start up the gas engine and flood the passenger compartment with co. Well if that's the case, why don't they simply replace the components that would lead to that condition or if it was inherent in the car, why doesn't the dot declare the car a road hazzard and recall all vehicles" ln consumer reports they declared the Volt scored 5 out of a possible 5 rating on collision survival. What? the car running at 15 mph getting totalled by hitting a bump is a 5" I think Mr. Jeremy is padding all his estimates and should have an independent appraiser review the car. Either he is lying or the car is actually a lemon. I would like your advice on what legal course I should take.
- San Leandro, CA, USA
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The car reduces speed without advance warning on hwy and decreases to 30-40 mph in a 65-70 mph zone. The air conditioning stopped working, some safety electrical components malfunction mid drive and resume working
I've brought my 2013 Chevy Volt to the dealership 4 times because it dies suddenly while driving. It has put my family in danger multiple times. One of the "fixes" was a software update that ended up as a recall because it causes the engine to die suddenly (it's recall #N172130460, which came out two days before my latest incident, but I didn't receive the recall notice in the mail until 7/28/18...6 weeks after my last incident). The most recent time the car died (6/16/18), I was on a mountain highway and I was lucky enough to not get hit as I pulled the car to the side. There was no signage there except for the "caution bear xing" sign. After towing my car to the nearest dealership (in carson city, nv, an 8 hour ordeal), I had expenses for lodging and transportation (including lyft to South lake Tahoe to rent a car because no rental car offices open on Sunday in carson city, then flying to reno and taking a lyft to carson city to pick up the car because Chevy refused to ship the car to me even though I said that I was afraid and didn't trust the car in the mountains). Chevy customer service and concierge services refused to reimburse me because I had the car towed myself instead of calling their "concierge service" to tow it because that's "policy." How about the safety of their customers so that they may live to drive another day? I'm not asking for anything more than the expenses incurred from the last adventure: $1040.72, which I can itemize. Other times that my car has died include: While making a U-turn in a busy intersection (in 2016), it died and started back up as if nothing happened 20 minutes later and a separate time was when the car wouldn't start at all but then started up again two hours later as if there was never an issue.every time this happened, I had a "power propulsion reduced" warning on my dashboard. I see online that many have had this issue.
Driving in traffic, multiple lanes.." reduced power" message appears on dash..car shuts down immediately...no steering assist...brakes okay...stuck in middle lanes with no propulsion...luckily a firetruck happened by and was pushed off the road...car towed to dealer. Informed multiple Volts towed in for same issue. Also informed extreme backorder for repair battery across U. S. told approx 2 month wait for battery section...once this battery fails while you are driving, you are dead in the water...no power steering and unable to move in or out of traffic...if this dealer has 3 cars, how many unsafe cars are there across the country?
The contact owns a 2013 Chevrolet Volt. While driving for more than two hours over 75 mph, the "propulsion power low decrease speed" message displayed and the speed decreased to 55 mph. When the failure occurred, smoke was present inside and outside the vehicle and the odor of fuel was present. The contact indicated that the failure occurred on multiple occasions. The cause of the failure was not diagnosed. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 30,000.
While driving down a road in indianapolis at 35 miles per hour, my car suddenly slowed down and a message reading " engine not available - service soon" appeared on my hud. My car only has 32,800 miles on it and a clean title. Nothing about my driving changed to cause this issue, it was sudden and without apparent cause. I had the car taken to the mechanic, and GM just reset the codes. It is driving ok for now, but a reset of codes is a temporary fix to the issue, and I've read extensively about many, many other Volt owners with the same issue. It is extremely dangerous to have your engine shut off while driving, especially if I had been on the high way during rush hour. This is something that needs looked into, and I feel that GM is trying to bury it with resets which aren't working for most people.
While entering in the highway the car started to decelerate regardless the fact the gas pedal was pushed several times. The car decelerated and then stalled. The car has been rear ended by the car behind. This could have been a much more serious accident and it was a vehicle failure.
A warning message appeared on the dash, which said "propulsion power is reduced, " followed by, "engine not available. Service soon, " as well as a check engine light. I pressed the onstar button to find out what was wrong but they had never heard of the error message and could not establish communication with the vehicle to perform diagnostics. While on hold with onstar, the vehicle began to spontaneously decelerate very rapidly despite my attempts to accelerate, in the middle of fast highway traffic. I made it over to the side of the road safely, limping along at 3-10 mph, with the help of a good samaritan who blocked traffic for me. This is a spontaneous occurrence, with no maintenance negligence to explain the event. The car was towed to a dealer, which has yet to determine the source of the issue.
The incident occurred on 8/27/14, and resulted in my wife me taken to the hospital and treated for carbon monoxide poisoning. The incident occurred at our home. The Volt was parked in the enclosed garage on 8/26 around 7pm. The 240 Volt charger was plugged in as usual. I did not notice anything unusual after plugging in the charger, and the Volt was left unattended until the ems arrived around 11am the following day. The ems personnel found the engine running, very high levels of co upon entering the garage and even higher levels inside the car. The inside of the passage compartment was described as hot. The front exterior of the car was to hot to touch and the car rear warm. The temperature under the car hood was described as "red hot". the engine had consumed around 5 gallons of gas during this time period. Distribution of the co throughout the house was probably caused by the A/C air handler which is located inside the garage. Data dumps revealed power and starting batteries were exhausted, and no fault flags dropped. I believe the incident has revealed: -the temperature levels reached under the hood probably exceeded the safe operating levels of the digital systems solid state junctions rendering any data collected (or not collected) as unreliable. -the lithium ion and starting batteries were totally w/O charge. How can this happen when the sole function of the gas engine ( which was running when discovered by the firemen ) is to charge these batteries unless a failure occurred. Note: All personal info stored in the car entertainment hard drive system was lost. -how can the car outside surface get that hot? one possibility is the body is temporarily used as a return ground passing very high levels of current because of a failure.
I received the following message on the car dash display: Propulsion reduced-engine not available. This message came on while I was driving in the carpool lane. I called GM thru on star and was told that I had a catastrophic error and needed to get my car into repair with 24 hours. With only 6 miles left on the battery, I told the GM rep that I better get the car to a Chevy dealer. I immediately drove to the dealership in culver city. The minute I pulled into the driveway of the dealership, my car stopped and would not restart. This could have been a disaster if the car had stopped in the carpool lane. I have read of other complaints on google and yahoo. I was told by the dealership that they were going to replace the engine module, which they said would take 8 hours to repair, but when I picked up the car, they only replaced the transmission module. Since the incident, I only get a full charge of 32 to 34 miles, where before the incident I was getting a full charge of 42 to 44 miles per charge. This is definite safety issue as GM blames the driver for the problem. GM needs to replace the engine module on my car.
The vehicle has repeatedly shut down while driving/failed to start since June 2013. The vehicle has been in service due to repairs = 42 days in the last 10 months. GM continues to replace/recall parts on the hybrid battery as well as other parts concerning secondary problems. I am afraid this vehicle will shut down again while I am driving causing an accident hurting me or others on the road. Clearly, it is a potential death trap.
My Chevy Volt was at a car wash and the attendant was able to turn the car off while still in "D" gear. The car is able to roll and move while in this gear. I was surprised so I tested it for myself, and sure enough you're able to turn the power off and exit the vehicle while still in 'd'. every car I've owned (automatic) forces you to shift into P or N before allowing the key to remove. This is a great concern for me, so I called my Volt advisor today and was informed that other customers rolled into their garage, and the behavior was by design and normal.
Car gas engine started, (engine running due to temp). Ran for just a few seconds, then shut down and went into "service mode" - killing both the gas engine and electric motor - without touching any buttons on dash.
I leased a new 2013 Volt on Friday and drove it to work and home on Monday. The battery display showed it was at minimum, zero miles remaining. The Volt was running with the internal combustion engine. As I pulled out of a parking lot, "'propulsion power is reduced"', "'engine not available"', and "service stabilitrac" displayed on the driver information center. After going about 500 feet, I stopped at an intersection to make a left turn and the Volt stalled. I turned on the flashers and attempted to restore power by pressing the brake and the power button. The displays lit up but the instrument cluster continued to display "'initializing-wait to shift"'. I turned the Volt off by pressing the power button again and attempted to restore power several times with the same result. Cars behind me were attempting to pull around on the left side but were blocked by cars turning onto the two-lane street. I pushed the on-star button and requested assistance. Soon, a Volt specialist came on the line and said she suspected the security system or the 12V battery. She had me turn everything off and walk 200 feet from the car. When I returned and tried to start the Volt, it started briefly but shut down. She said the 12V battery might be low and they would have the tow truck driver bring booster cables to charge the battery. I had managed to push the Volt to the curb and got some cables to boost it. The Volt initialized and the displays looked normal. I drove to the next intersection and stopped for the light. When the light changed, it stalled again. I was able to continue to my house on battery power but it would not go up the slope of the driveway. I tried to charge it but the charge cycle would not start. The next morning, it had "'plug in to charge" light on. I started the charge cycle. It goes to the dealer tonight.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- San Jose, CA, USA