general problems of the 2013 Chevrolet Volt

Fully charged. Goes from electric to generator/gas propulsion and abruptly slowes about 1/2 speed. Very dangerous.

I received the "propulsion power is reduced" alert engine light while driving in "normal" mode on the freeway at around 60mph with 8-9 miles of battery capacity, it showed 0 miles of battery forcing the gas engine on and the vehicle hesitated upon applying the accelerator for the remainder of the drive. My safety and that was others was at risk because the acceleration dropped quickly and I was on a busy freeway at the time when the alert happened causing further hesitation. Upon stopping I could not get the vehicle to take a charge nor would it start up until a mechanic arrived and was able to confirm the problem.

The contact owns a 2013 Chevrolet Volt. The contact stated that while driving at approximately 45 mph, the vehicle stalled. The check engine warning light was flashing, and the messages "no propulsion power" and "no power to engine" were displayed. The contact stated that two individuals pulled over and assisted the contact in pushing the vehicle to the side of the road to prevent a crash. The vehicle was towed to an independent mechanic, who made the contact aware of an unknown NHTSA campaign number; however, the VIN was not included. The vehicle was towed to a dealer, but the vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The contact requested vehicle rental assistance, but the dealer was unable to provide assistance. The manufacturer was contacted and referred the contact to the NHTSA hotline for assistance in initiating a recall. The failure mileage was approximately 141,323.

My 2013 Volt will not charge or start. This happened suddenly. It has been working fine.

I was driving my plugin hybrid Volt on a highway when the engine stalled and the engine light turned on. I tap the throttle a few times to get it to stay on. It worked, but I had to continue to tap the throttle to keep it going. It also revved up sharply when it was in low gear. The vehicle was out of battery, so it was as running on engine.

The contact owns a 2013 Chevrolet Volt. The contact stated while driving 50 mph, the vehicle lost motive power with the check engine warning light and low oil pressure warning light illuminated. The vehicle was towed to the dealer where a diagnostic test result was undisclosed; however, the contact was informed that the vehicle needed an asc high Voltage battery to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired after the asc battery was replaced. The contact stated that the propulsion system warning light was illuminated. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was made award of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 100,000.

When placing the vehicle in park, an error message "shift to park" lights up even as the car is turned off. This has been an issue with early models of the chevy Volt. I have owned 4 of them. Every single one of them had this same problem. My current two Volt I just obtained both have this error message. The car thinks it's not in park when it is.

Vehicle has stoped in the middle of the street on several occasions. During this time the vehicle will post an error on the dash screen. This issue happens when the vehicle transitions from electric fuel to gasoline, when the electric fuel is depleted. Chevy refuses to repair or warranty the vehicle, also the dealer refuses to complete the necessary recalls on the vehicle. The vehicle does not return to normal until you turn the vehicle on and off multiple times.

Reduced propulsion warning. Causes car to not go over 40 mph while driving. Covered under Voltech warranty but dealers want to charge for the diagnosis. Unfair, as this is a safety concern. I refuse to pay for a warranty diagnosis.

Car slowed down and then came to a full stop on side of residential street. Tried to turn off and restart engine to no avail. No power coming from motor.

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.

My 2013 Volt has started giving me only a maximum of 35 miles charge, but really only giving me 27-32 even through I drive in low (which always gave me more miles than the car thought I'd get). Maybe this is connected to the new problem? yesterday when I turned on the car (driving in gas because I had run out of electric) it gave gave me a "propulsion power reduced" error message. I tried turning it off and on several times, but the error stayed. I had to drive from downtown la in a car that could barely move. About 8 miles in, the error disappeared and the car ran normally. The dealership tells me they couldn't find any error messages (?!), but maybe, maybe that problem and the charging problem could be corrected by a $300 software update. Maybe. Meantime, I found that some 2013 Volts were recalled for exactly this error problem, but apparently not mine. The dealership doesn't seem to be interested in finding out what's wrong, and gm says to go to the dealership (gm, in fact, hung up on my today). So let me get this straight, gm, you know you built cars with software problems, but we need to pay to correct them? and you're not even sure it will correct it??????.

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.

Gas generator failed to start when battery was depleted while on city street slowing to a stop at an intersection. Warning message about reduced propulsion and yellow engine indicator illuminated. Came to a complete stop and turned vehicle off. Tried turning back on, received waiting to initialize message, but power to engine was never restored. Towed car to dealership.

Gas generator failed to start when battery was depleted while on freeway. Warning message about reduced propulsion and yellow engine indicator illuminated and then fews moments after vehicle could no longer accelerate and was slowing down so pulled over onto shoulder and got towed vehicle will not charge either when plugged in.

Our 2013 chevy Volt died in middle of highway-battery went out after a required service update. We had had it in shop for low propulson warnings two times before that. Chevy sent a recall stating specifically that the service update would cause low propulsion and ultimately the car could die, which is what happened before the car battery died. Dealership & dist manager agreed that was the cause and said they would reimburse us $2788 for battery. Gm denied claim and refuses to honor the damage they caused. They really owe the whole balance of $4,220. 51.

While driving, the electrical system (including motor) shut off and restarted. In the first instance I was driving at 5 mph or less in a parking lot. In the second incident I was driving on the road at approximately 30 mph. Investigated by dealer on 3/27/15. They reported a notice from Chevrolet about the problem without resolution. They could not reproduce the problem nor provide any fix.

Please see attached document for full description of the un-commanded self acceleration issues in my 2013 chevy Volt including my contact information. Thank you!.

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.

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.

The car's electrical / software issues caused (1) all of the windows to roll down in unison (in for repair 3 times to fix this one), (2) caused the car to not recognize that it was in "park", thus not shutting off, and (3) caused the car to lose power without touching any of the buttons on the console (I. E. The "drive" button or the "power" button). The latest incident occurred last Friday (August 1, 2014) when the car just lost power while I was driving at 65 mph on I-85 north at around 4:00pm. I had to get over from 4 lanes of traffic with no power at all in the car and luckily did so without incident. Onstar's diagnostics showed that the electrical system, braking system, engine, and other parts of the car showed the car needed immediate attention. I put the car in park and while still with onstar the dashboard lit up and the power button lit up too. I hit the power button and drove straight to the rick hendrick chevy dealership in duluth. When I went to pick the car up later Saturday morning, I was told that there's nothing they car do because they can't recreate the problem. They have reflashed various ecus, but at the end of the day cannot "recreate" the problems and cannot fix them. So they just wipe their hands clean of these issues and act like they don't exist. (the service manager actually called me "ignorant" once and later apologized. ) I pray it doesn't take people dying in these cars before Chevrolet and/or general motors does something to fix them.

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.

I was on my way home, it was very dark outside on a two lane highway going 60-60mph and wanted to switch over to electric "hold" mode so I could save the electric battery for city driving. I glanced over and hit the "drive mode" button three times thinking I was going to send the drive mode down to "hold". Instead what I did was powered off the car by hitting the power button. (the two buttons are right next to each other and both require multiple presses to work). So there I was, the car went black inside and the headlights turned off outside while I was going 65mpg on a two lane highway (one lane each direction). Thank god there was nobody around or close to me and thankfully there was just enough ambient light from the moon to see where I was. I hit the power button to try turning it back on, nothing. Luckily the hazard switch remained lit and I was able to turn my hazards on. I had to stop on the side of the road, put it back into park and hit power. I realize I hit the wrong button but why should such an easy mistake almost cause a fatality. If not for the moon I might have drove off the road and into a telephone pole. I would highly recommend they move the power button to the steering column, similar to where a key would be located. For gods sake, don't put a multiple click button next to another multiple click button that has such significance in the outcome of your life. And for god sakes, don't turn off the headlights if the computer detects I'm going 65 and knows via the sensor that it's dark outside! there are multiple complaints about this at various web sites, including. . . . Read more...