# Volt ready for retirement at 467,000 miles



## begreen (Feb 23, 2019)

Had a serious accident around 400,000 and hasn't been right since. I would have gotten rid of it at 300,000  Good car, lousy dealer.


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## therealdbeau (Feb 23, 2019)

+400k that's quite an achievement. Congratulations. I don't know how that applies to a hybrid you know with how many miles went to battery vs motor but nonetheless very respectable life for any vehicle.


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## Easy Livin’ 3000 (Feb 23, 2019)

begreen said:


> Had a serious accident around 400,000 and hasn't been right since. I would have gotten rid of it at 300,000  Good car, lousy dealer.



How many gallons of gas and engine oil did you not  burn compared to the car vehicle you replaced?

What replaced the Volt?


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## begreen (Feb 23, 2019)

Not my car. In the video he says he got a Chevy Equinox diesel. He still drives the Volt, but now only part time and on gas only due to poor dealer service diagnostics.


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## begreen (Feb 23, 2019)

therealdbeau said:


> +400k that's quite an achievement. Congratulations. I don't know how that applies to a hybrid you know with how many miles went to battery vs motor but nonetheless very respectable life for any vehicle.


It sounds like up until the accident he was averaging 42 miles on electric and charged 3 times a day for a 115 mile drive. The electric distance would be drop in winter. The battery is still supplementing on gas as the car is still driven by the electric motor and he kept it in mountain mode which hold some battery reserve power. The gas used is for  running the generator. On the generator he would be getting about 37mpg at freeway speeds.


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## CaptSpiff (Feb 23, 2019)

The Chevy Volt was produced since 2011. Assuming that this is an early model, that's an amazing amount of mileage to accumulate over 8 years. For example, if someone gets 2 weeks vac, then they'll work 50 weeks per year, or 400 weeks in 8 years. Driving a 115 miles daily RT commute makes that 230,000 miles of commuting. That's assuming no sick days. So I think it's amazing that an owner would get back in their car on their days off and nearly double that driving millage again.

If this guy could be cloned he could be the perfect Uber or Lyft employee.


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## DBoon (Feb 24, 2019)

I'm not proud of my 100 mile/day round trip commute and 400 mile round trip drives to my house in Central NY on many weekends. It is what it is. That gets me to 35-40,000 miles per year, and (yeah, you can do the math) about what this guy does in a year...


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## Easy Livin’ 3000 (Feb 24, 2019)

DBoon said:


> I'm not proud of my 100 mile/day round trip commute and 400 mile round trip drives to my house in Central NY on many weekends. It is what it is. That gets me to 35-40,000 miles per year, and (yeah, you can do the math) about what this guy does in a year...


Time spent in the car is inversely correlated with quality of life and happiness, according to the studies that examine such things.  Not news to you, I'm sure.  

When you are an old man and look back at the hours and hours of your life spent on the road, will you think whatever you were chasing was worth it?  

I spent one year of my life commuting over an hour each way.  I decided in that one year that life is way too short for that.


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## Highbeam (Feb 25, 2019)

ED 3000 said:


> Time spent in the car is inversely correlated with quality of life and happiness, according to the studies that examine such things.  Not news to you, I'm sure.
> 
> When you are an old man and look back at the hours and hours of your life spent on the road, will you think whatever you were chasing was worth it?
> 
> I spent one year of my life commuting over an hour each way.  I decided in that one year that life is way too short for that.



Or mowing the lawn, or watching TV, or.... working firewood?


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## sloeffle (Feb 26, 2019)

ED 3000 said:


> When you are an old man and look back at the hours and hours of your life spent on the road, will you think whatever you were chasing was worth it?


I choose to have a long commute because I don't like neighbors. I also don't like the idea of living in a mic-mansion in the burbs and paying 10k a year in property taxes.

Being able to walk out my back door and see the food I'm going to eat walking around makes the 1.5 hour daily commute worth it to me.


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## blades (Feb 26, 2019)

daily commute to my shop 46.5 miles one way.  Unfortunately the local school district decided to go rouge - $2k in school tax on top of property tax. which puts the total at just about the same as the old place in the burbs. Takes about an hour to get to shop which is a bit less than the 15 miles time wise though the burbs it use to take  get here. i do about 35- 40 k a year mileage wise, which is apx 60% less than when I was on the road doing service work.


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## Seasoned Oak (Feb 26, 2019)

Being someone who averages 5500 ,miles PER YEAR for the last 30 yrs i cant relate to you guys. Thats the total miles driven between 3 vehicles. I rehab old houses in a small town were i live, so no commuting necessary.  No desire to spend any more time than that on the road. If i had my building materials delivered, i could cut that in half.


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## Ashful (Feb 26, 2019)

Highbeam said:


> Or mowing the lawn, or watching TV, or.... working firewood?



Pish posh!  You need a better lawnmower, and a faster splitter!

That is an astounding number of miles to put on a car, he’s over 50k miles per year!  Can anyone positively ID the model year?

The service thing is not a surprise, actually it’s entirely anticipated.  With the exception of a few of the largest and most advanced dealerships, one can always expect the service network to struggle with new tech.  Dealer training is always a challenge for manufacturers, between devoting the attention and dollars truly required, and finding technicians who can actually absorb what’s being laid out in those initial training sessions.  My own company struggles with this, I deal with it first-hand.

They will get there, but it will take a few years.  It’s most often accelerated by new people moving into the service network, sometimes the old hands just don’t want to be bothered to learn new tech.


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## Highbeam (Feb 26, 2019)

Ashful said:


> Pish posh!  You need a better lawnmower, and a faster splitter!
> 
> That is an astounding number of miles to put on a car, he’s over 50k miles per year!  Can anyone positively ID the model year?
> 
> ...



I just traded a yukon (owned for 15 years, 230k miles)  for one of these little 4 cylinder suvs with a CVT transmission. The trans is very weird to me. I sure hope somebody knows how to keep the little CVT running! MPG doubled!


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## blades (Feb 26, 2019)

trans no worky- they replace it  $$$$$$ at least that's been the current method.


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## Easy Livin’ 3000 (Feb 26, 2019)

sloeffle said:


> I choose to have a long commute because I don't like neighbors. I also don't like the idea of living in a mic-mansion in the burbs and paying 10k a year in property taxes.
> 
> Being able to walk out my back door and see the food I'm going to eat walking around makes the 1.5 hour daily commute worth it to me.


I totally understand all sentiments you expressed.  

Where I had the hardest time with the long commute was, you so rarely get to walk out your back door during daylight hours to see anything.  Just weekends, and those are frequently consumed with BS that I don't want to do, I felt like my entire life was consumed by everything I didn't like. With only a few moments of doing what I wanted.

This last year was terrible also, as it seemed to rain almost every weekend.


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## lsucet (Feb 26, 2019)

blades said:


> trans no worky- they replace it  $$$$$$ at least that's been the current method.


As they are going more and more with ZF trannys, we are replacing them more and more. Only valvebody are available to us. No parts available for reconditioning. All domestic transmission we have to do 70% sheet. if goes over 70% I replace them, if under, I repair them. Parts needed for repair are so cheap when under warranty that i have to repair them 70-80% of the time. CVTs, we have them on some models, not holding too well. Nissan has better luck with CVTs on their setups but they have many issues also.


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## lsucet (Feb 26, 2019)

I commute with my truck 96 miles round trip. I make it most of the time faster than my wife. She does just 20 miles round trips when she stays in town. delays in traffic are insane. I run more miles but i get to the ranch faster than her going home in town from work. I put more miles but the truck gets less abuse in many ways than her car.


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## blades (Feb 26, 2019)

yep with my drive 80,000 miles on factory front binder pads


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## Ashful (Feb 26, 2019)

lsucet said:


> As they are going more and more with ZF trannys, we are replacing them more and more.



You get many ZF 8HP70’s or 8HP90’s?  Opinions?


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## sloeffle (Feb 26, 2019)

ED 3000 said:


> Where I had the hardest time with the long commute was, you so rarely get to walk out your back door during daylight hours to see anything.  Just weekends, and those are frequently consumed with BS that I don't want to do, I felt like my entire life was consumed by everything I didn't like. With only a few moments of doing what I wanted.
> 
> This last year was terrible also, as it seemed to rain almost every weekend.


I get it, by Friday I'm about ready to throw the towel into my commute.

Luckily I'm able to go into work early and leave early so I do get to see the daylight during the winter at home a little bit. As soon as I get home in the winter I generally have to start doing farm stuff. During the summer I generally can relax for a little bit before I have to go outside and get stuff done. If I had to be in the office from 8 - 5 I'd probably move closer to the office. It would probably add at least 30 minutes one way to my commute.


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## Easy Livin’ 3000 (Feb 26, 2019)

sloeffle said:


> I get it, by Friday I'm about ready to throw the towel into my commute.
> 
> Luckily I'm able to go into work early and leave early so I do get to see the daylight during the winter at home a little bit. As soon as I get home in the winter I generally have to start doing farm stuff. During the summer I generally can relax for a little bit before I have to go outside and get stuff done. If I had to be in the office from 8 - 5 I'd probably move closer to the office. It would probably add at least 30 minutes one way to my commute.


Yep, that helps tremendously.  As long as there's at least a little daylight to do something for yourself at the end of the day, something to take a little edge off the grind and make some progress on stuff you want to get done.


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## lsucet (Feb 26, 2019)

Ashful said:


> You get many ZF 8HP70’s or 8HP90’s?  Opinions?


Latest model using it have been reliable with normal issues like any other brands. They are real good transmissions, the whole world is using them. We had some trouble with early model years. Late 13, 14 and 15 model years. I personally think that is more software related than anything else. We had some issues in those years with 3-2 and 2-1 downshift coming to a stop. The solution was an upgraded valve body plate that it looks like some holes were enlarged. But we never got just the plate, the whole valve body needs to be replaced, plus those years don't have a stationary quicklearn. We have to do what is called a drive learn. Chrysler pay us 1.9 hrs to do it. Latest models have the quicklearn plus other test, actuation etc available.
Lately I can say that is the normal deal cause everything breaks. Good transmissions. I have one ZF behind a 3.0L diesel on my BMW and it has more than 100K miles and no issues. No service neither. Think on doing the service soon BTW.


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## Easy Livin’ 3000 (Feb 27, 2019)

lsucet said:


> Latest model using it have been reliable with normal issues like any other brands. They are real good transmissions, the whole world is using them. We had some trouble with early model years. Late 13, 14 and 15 model years. I personally think that is more software related than anything else. We had some issues in those years with 3-2 and 2-1 downshift coming to a stop. The solution was an upgraded valve body plate that it looks like some holes were enlarged. But we never got just the plate, the whole valve body needs to be replaced, plus those years don't have a stationary quicklearn. We have to do what is called a drive learn. Chrysler pay us 1.9 hrs to do it. Latest models have the quicklearn plus other test, actuation etc available.
> Lately I can say that is the normal deal cause everything breaks. Good transmissions. I have one ZF behind a 3.0L diesel on my BMW and it has more than 100K miles and no issues. No service neither. Think on doing the service soon BTW.


If I wasn't sold on electric vehicles before, I am now that I read all that!


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## jatoxico (Feb 27, 2019)

lsucet said:


> Latest model using it have been reliable with normal issues like any other brands. They are real good transmissions, the whole world is using them. We had some trouble with early model years. Late 13, 14 and 15 model years. I personally think that is more software related than anything else. We had some issues in those years with 3-2 and 2-1 downshift coming to a stop. The solution was an upgraded valve body plate that it looks like some holes were enlarged. But we never got just the plate, the whole valve body needs to be replaced, plus those years don't have a stationary quicklearn. We have to do what is called a drive learn. Chrysler pay us 1.9 hrs to do it. Latest models have the quicklearn plus other test, actuation etc available.
> Lately I can say that is the normal deal cause everything breaks. Good transmissions. I have one ZF behind a 3.0L diesel on my BMW and it has more than 100K miles and no issues. No service neither. Think on doing the service soon BTW.


What's the recommended service? I try to keep up with my drain and fills on my current fleet that does not yet include a CVT.


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## lsucet (Feb 27, 2019)

jatoxico said:


> What's the recommended service? I try to keep up with my drain and fills on my current fleet that does not yet include a CVT.


If you have ZF trannys, they are filled for life. No maintenance require. If you have a fleet check the manual and check if there is a service schedule for severe use. No service on those ZF transmission.


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## lsucet (Feb 27, 2019)

ED 3000 said:


> If I wasn't sold on electric vehicles before, I am now that I read all that!


Everything has its up and down. When I do like electric and it looks like changes are just around the corner, actually is far away from happening. For many, they are not affordable and they are not neither to be the only car on a household.


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## Easy Livin’ 3000 (Feb 27, 2019)

lsucet said:


> Everything has its up and down. When I do like electric and it looks like changes are just around the corner, actually is far away from happening. For many, they are not affordable and they are not neither to be the only car on a household.


Totally agree.  Still too expensive, and battery technology still not certain.  But, we've had over a hundred years to work the kinks out of transmissions, and they are still screwing them up.


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## lsucet (Feb 27, 2019)

ED 3000 said:


> Totally agree.  Still too expensive, and battery technology still not certain.  But, we've had over a hundred years to work the kinks out of transmissions, and they are still screwing them up.


It is the nature in everything, everything breaks. Many times is the consumer the one destroying vehicles. We have many customer pulling big campers with a 1500 and they say that is okay cause they just do it a few time a year. Those a few times is all what it takes to blow something. lol. Others, just purchased the vehicle to modified everything 3 minutes later putting tuners etc and blame us for their screw ups. It is what it is.


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## Ashful (Feb 27, 2019)

ED 3000 said:


> But, we've had over a hundred years to work the kinks out of transmissions, and they are still screwing them up.



How’s that?  His post said the ZF 8HP’s are pretty much bullet proof, and no maintenance to boot.  When you’re putting a trans into 700 hp cars, for a customer base that spends every weekend at the track, and they’re still not blowing them up... you have a pretty reliable product.  That’s the 8HP90.


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## Easy Livin’ 3000 (Feb 27, 2019)

Ashful said:


> How’s that?  His post said the ZF 8HP’s are pretty much bullet proof, and no maintenance to boot.  When you’re putting a trans into 700 hp cars, for a customer base that spends every weekend at the track, and they’re still not blowing them up... you have a pretty reliable product.  That’s the 8HP90.


So you have one example of one they got right.  Great. 

 I look forward to the absence of transmissions.

 I spent $4k on a supposedly reliable Honda transmission right out of warranty several years ago.

Why in over 100 years of engineering are there so many stories of failures?  

Why has that "bulletproof" example not been replicated?  See next line for answer.

Transmission problems = profit for dealers and manufacturers.


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## Ashful (Feb 27, 2019)

ED 3000 said:


> So you have one example of one they got right.  Great.


But I only buy the ones that they get right.  It’s pretty easy today, to do your research and know when to steer clear.  Truth be told, I own two automatic transmission cars today (both ZF 8HP70’s), and they are the only two automatic transmissions I have owned in the last 25 years, I was always a manual gearbox buyer, and have never had one fail in any car I have owned.



ED 3000 said:


> Why has that "bulletproof" example not been replicated?  See next line for answer.
> 
> Transmission problems = profit for dealers and manufacturers.


Interesting conspiracy theory, are you wearing your tinfoil hat today?  Manufacturers have no interest in shipping defective product, at the expense of their own warranty costs and reputation, for the aid of their dealers.

The reason is simple:  cost.  Engineers must always compromise on performance and durability for the sake of cost and efficiency.  One always hopes to make that sacrifice without impacting net reliability, but that rarely pans out as well as we would like.


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## lsucet (Feb 27, 2019)

ED 3000 said:


> Transmission problems = profit for dealers and manufacturers.


99.9% of what i fix and deal with is warranty. No cost to the customer. I get paid way less time for the same job when is warranty but i prefer work all day on warranty and not CP ( customer pay ). Warranty, i make decision, get or order parts and keep moving forward. Customer pay, or they have no money, or not answering the phone, or they want to bring one from the junk yard that most of the time is not good and when something goes wrong a month later they still blaming us. I dont rebuild tranny for customer pay unless is something minor. I sale the whole transmission assembly. They get better warranty and a new or reman from Chrysler.  If something happens they have Mopar warranty and i just deal with Chrysler. There is not profit there, just headaches with CP.


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## begreen (Feb 27, 2019)

Maybe take the tranny talk offline?


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