2012 chevy volt shut down Nov 11, 2018, towed to chevy dealer. Did hard reset, ran fine. After two months, Jan 15, 2018, shut down again in the hi-way cruising at 60 MPH, got it towed again same chevy dealer, cannot be hard reset any more. Module lock out, one of the cell is 3.14 volts in C section preventing to start the car. stuck on INITIALIZING READY TO SHIFT GEAR.
As per chevy tech need to replace entire hybrid battery, cost $5,000. plus $1,700 labor. Why the car shut down in the middle of the hi-way while already running about 15 minutes in engine combution/generator mode? 2 times.
The Chevy mechanic answered that question for you;
The Volt won’t run on the engine alone if the electric drive system is kaput because they didn’t want to pay the patent royalties for the hybrid system that Toyota uses. Toyota didn’t want to either but lost that court case to the actual inventor.
Time to start looking for someone to repair the battery pack rather than replace it. Most likely, individually failing cells can be replaced at far less money than an entire pack. The risk is that others start failing as well but if it were mine, I’d take that risk…
The factory warranty is, I believe 8 years or 100,000 miles (150,000 in CA). Even if you’ve exceeded the mileage, you shouldn’t have to replace the whole battery-- it is divided into four modules, which can be replaced separately.
