u/draftysundress

Basically title. I needed a new car, I was dying for an electric or plug in hybrid because of the cost of gas rn, and this was in my area (and I'm from a hardcore Chevy family so bonus that it's a Chevy too). I think 105,000 miles on the odometer. Not that that reading ever matters to a Chevy because they'll run fine until 350,000.

Anyway, one night I was coming home from work. It has been raining the past few days, and I've noticed when I plug it in in the rain it usually doesn't charge. I think that already is a problem, as I've read on here it is able to be charged in the rain (I could be wrong, fellow Volt owners please correct me if I am). So that was the case that day, it wasn't charged because it stopped overnight while it rained. I went to work, which is an hour away from where I live, on gas just fine. When I got to work, my gas was a bit low, maybe 50-60 miles left, but I was gonna fill it up on the way home.

So I finally get out of work, start heading home, with plans to go get gas as soon as I got out of the city I was in because gas is $0.30 more expensive there. I do this all the time in other cars, even if the gas light is on in the car. I'm not sure if this is one of those kinds of cars that act weird with little gas, so again fellow Volt owners please let me know if it is a thing. I get off the highway onto the exit minutes away from the gas station, and at this point I had like 40 miles of gas left, so I thought the gas light was coming on. Instead it said "Propulsion power reduced."

I was able to make it to the gas station just fine, and I go and put gas in it. Then I go to start the car and shift it into drive. As soon as I do that, I see "shift to park" as the car doesn't move an inch. As anyone else would do in this situation, I google it. It says various things could be causing it, like sometimes you just wait 10-15 minutes and it goes away. It also said it could be the 12V battery or the battery energy control module. So of course I wait, while making some phone calls to the most useless roadside assistance service, AAA, in case I have to be towed (I call triple A useless because last year I spent 18 hours waiting for them to tow my car, the state police towed that first. And this time, as per usual, they didn't show up and were extra dicks about giving me a ride home if I was getting towed. It was 11:30 pm and I live 40 minutes away, where tf would I stay if I was left there? Redditors, don't give your hard earned money to those useless assholes.)

After waiting, it still wouldn't move, and in the meantime 7 good samaritans helped me push the car to an electric car charger, because maybe if it had some charge, it'd run. It was a chargepoint charger and I've never used a public electric car charger, so I try plugging it in. One side of it was definitely not the right side, and the other the top part looked like the thing you plug your volt into, but it had an oval bottom part in the way so it was unusable. Fellow Volt owners, am I doing something wrong, or was it the wrong connector? Again I've never done that so I have no idea. I couldn't get it to charge as a result.

My dad came to pick me up (since triple A kept flip flopping if they were going to give me a ride home, better safe than sorry), and look at the car. It fucking started as normal. I was able to drive it home scared shitless. I noticed whenever I hit the brakes during the drive home, the "propulsion power reduced" would come on (same thing when driving to the dealership... traffic was scary bc it was really heavy).

I got the car home, to be looked at in the morning. This happened on a Saturday night, and even though car dealerships are evil and not religious, they're all still closed on Sunday (fucking why? in 2026???) So my dad and I took a look Sunday morning. We tried charging it (and it finally wasn't raining), but it won't stay charging for more than a few minutes. It also won't move again if you shift into drive, you'll get the "shift to park" error. We put the code reader on it, and it gave out like 35 codes that were like "Battery energy control module can't communicate with..." (I can't remember what it wasn't communicating with or the specific codes). It seems like the problem is the BECM, which seems to happen to like every chevy volt of that year with that mileage. According to the internet, GM issued out a special 15 year/150,000 mile warranty to get that part fix since it fails in like all of them? Does anyone have any experience doing that? Just in case I have to. My dad called our local Chevy dealership (not where we got the car) and asked about this coverage, and they first basically told him to go fuck himself because it's an electric car in their eyes, then they said maybe they'd look at it at the end of the month. I don't have much faith in that. Is that how the warranty is supposed to work?

I was able to drive it to the dealership today and even in quite literally an hour of heavy traffic, I made it. I saw "Propulsion Power Is Reduced" many times, but I didn't end up stuck on the side of the road somehow. I'm honestly very impressed with this car's limp mode if that's what it was in, it still worked pretty good. Didn't die at any green lights or in traffic AND it went well above 40 mph in limp mode (it got up to 80+). I had a 2013 Chevy Malibu Eco, my first hybrid and my favorite car so far I've owned, that went into limp mode for an entire summer. It could not go over 40 mph and was loud as fuck, so limp mode in this car was soooooooooo much better. (also carplay is the fucking BEST when waiting for a tow. Can't complain one bit, it was fun). I just miss my sunroof (anyone try adding one in?).

I guess they'll tell me what's up tomorrow. Anyone got any experience/tips for first time volt/plug in hybrid owners?