2012 Chevy Volt - kids drive free!

I think JEGS (or was it Summit?) has a pretty good selection of steelies to help with curb-itiis

W-Body wheels are 5x115, I had to run a 5mm spacer up front but the wheels are plentiful and cheap.

I meant to do budget on the first of every month. It's the second. Crap. I did record the miles at the end of yesterday, so I think we're still good.
Bought the car with 96135 miles, current 96514, 379 miles, $0.125 per mile, $47.38 saved in gas. No payments or insurance spent yet, haven't even filled it up, so my only expense is $10 for the cashier's check. Ok, so I did a $7k down payment, but we'll deal with that later.

Gas saved: $47.38
Money spent: $10

And in case anyone is wondering, good old fashioned steel doors, magnetic numbers are a go!

Was 101 intended to imply entry level as in, Autocrossing 101?

I like it.

101 mpgE goal?

Although the number could have all sorts of meanings, it just happens to be what I've run for years. I very frequently ask someone to come co-drive whatever I happen to have dragged to an event and 101 makes a lot of combinations of numbers in a small space.

Provided that you don't have astronomically terrible luck with this car (And your R63 is proof that you could, but I choose to think that the law of averages means this car should be fine) prepare for an uneventful ownership. Every one our dealership has sold has basically just returned for maintenance and that's it. They are a case of GM doing their homework and building a competent, reliable car. And they feel like a total spaceship compared to 90% of the cars on the road. The Bolt feels like an alien spaceship from the future.

Autocross! Texas is hot right now. At 3:00, after the event is done, it's 98 with a heat index of 117. I didn't want to drag my kid to her first event in this sort of heat, but spacecadet offered me a ride in his ES Miata so I had to say yes and bring her along. She had a good time. She started with an 89 second run and finished with a 73. She didn't get lost, didn't get last, had a good time and wants to do it again. The car did what it was supposed to, the tires are terrible for autocross and she now knows the dangers of terminal understeer.
I ran in the local expert PAX class, but had I been in regular ES I would have finished second out of nine only half a second behind the car owner. Haven't autocrossed in almost a year and my fist time in a Miata. It was a good day.

Cool project - not to S*** on everything but -- I too looked at one of these locally: $9800, same color, 100,000 miles thereabouts, but when I looked at my local utility bill, PHIL/NJ rates seemed that below about $2.50/gallon gas the Volt was more expensive to run as a chargeable vs straight gas. And, as a 40+ mile trip car, you are running more gas... so it reverts to a heavy, high priced Cruze. (Snuze, You-luze, all kinds of great name games with that GM product). I hope to be proven wrong and then I'm back checking C/L!Not buying the e-MPG propaganda ---what does it cost to charge and how far can I drive on that charge? If electrics are ever to succeed - they need to pass the wallet test for the average joe.

Texas has some of the cheapest electricity in the country. I pay somewhere around $0.09 per KWh. The battery is 16.5 KWh but word on the street is that it's something like 13 including losses because the car never let's the battery discharge fully. Charging the car should cost me a little over $1 for 40 miles of range. I think our power bill was $40ish higher in the first month. I charged the car overnight and then during the day when the kids were at school, so that's about right. So it costs me roughly half as much as gas. It'll never completely pay for itself, but that's ok. It's not a fun car to drive, but it is a nice car to drive. I don't buy cars based on pure logic anymore. I've bought too many cars that were good on paper but not in real life. The Volt is interesting. I'm able to get a full electric driving experience for most of my miles. Silent, smooth, no shifts, it's cool.

mazdeuce wrote: Texas has some of the cheapest electricity in the country. I pay somewhere around $0.09 per KWh. The battery is 16.5 KWh but word on the street is that it's something like 13 including losses because the car never let's the battery discharge fully. Charging the car should cost me a little over $1 for 40 miles of range. I think our power bill was $40ish higher in the first month. I charged the car overnight and then during the day when the kids were at school, so that's about right. So it costs me roughly half as much as gas. It'll never completely pay for itself, but that's ok.

I just looked at my bill and I'm only paying 5.5 cents per kWh. Not sure why it's even cheaper here. Maybe it's because WV and all its coal is next door.

$1 for 40 miles of range. I think our power bill was $40ish higher in the first month

So.. 1600ish electric miles were driven? Or is there a big chunk missing? Just curious.

I'll have to check the odometer, but we were putting on 2k+ miles per month before summer. We really do like it.

More autocross! I got to drive this time. The car really isn't bad. It needs more tire, but I think I could maybe trophy locally on the right course with good tires and some seat time. 

We drove to the event on all electric power and had 21 miles of range left. We ran in sport mode for our runs and when we got below 10 miles of range we put it in mountain mode between runs. This convinced the gas engine to run and charge the battery so we could swap back to sport mode and get our runs done on electricity. The power train on this is viable for AX. 

I was 4.8 seconds off the trophies on a 50 second course for the fast cars. I went from a mid 64 to a mid 60 and was still picking up half a second on my last run. Maybe I'm delusional that with tires and practice I could make up the difference? Anyway, the deucekid was 13 sconds back from me, so I still have my honor. She's getting quicker, and she nearly spun the car and had a pretty epic off through a wall of cones into the dirt. It was fun.

mazdeuce said:

We drove to the event on all electric power and had 21 miles of range left. We ran in sport mode for our runs and when we got below 10 miles of range we put it in mountain mode between runs. This convinced the gas engine to run and charge the battery so we could swap back to sport mode and get our runs done on electricity. The power train on this is viable for AX. 

I was 4.8 seconds off the trophies on a 50 second course for the fast cars. I went from a mid 64 to a mid 60 and was still picking up half a second on my last run. Maybe I'm delusional that with tires and practice I could make up the difference? Anyway, the deucekid was 13 sconds back from me, so I still have my honor. She's getting quicker, and she nearly spun the car and had a pretty epic off through a wall of cones into the dirt. It was fun.

there's video of this off right?  I think posting it is a moral imperative... you know, for educational purposes.

Any reasoning behind not running in mountain mode on the course?

How did I miss this one?

Unfortunately is was her last run which was one of the last dozen runs of the day. 140 drivers, four runs each, 100+ degrees on the pavement. Nobody was shooting video or pictures at that point.  

My understand of modes is that your best throttle/power happens in sport mode. I'm thinking mountain mode might the the ticket for track work, but we (or me probably) turned the rotors blue yesterday. We were in the smallest group and that had us almost hot lapping, but the only way to get the brakes that hot is a cooling issue. I suspect that the aero on the car directs less than zero air to the brakes. They felt fantastic all day, but it's a concern. I need to throw it on the lift at somepoint and see if there is an obvious answer. 

In reply to mazdeuce :

Of course there's an obvious answer:

mazdeuce said:

My understand of modes is that your best throttle/power happens in sport mode. I'm thinking mountain mode might the the ticket for track work, but we (or me probably) turned the rotors blue yesterday. We were in the smallest group and that had us almost hot lapping, but the only way to get the brakes that hot is a cooling issue. I suspect that the aero on the car directs less than zero air to the brakes. They felt fantastic all day, but it's a concern. I need to throw it on the lift at somepoint and see if there is an obvious answer. 

Based on what I can see from the above pic, I'd agree that there's probably almost no brake cooling.  There's a bit of thinking that with a hybrid and regen that you won't need as much braking, and limiting the amount of flow that's going through the car, instead of around it is better for range.

Although, the wheels are probably partially shaped to draw air out... but it's going to be mostly 'elevated engine bay' air.  If you figure out how to add some ducts, you'll probably also want to make sure there's some kind of cover that's easily removeable (magnets?) so there less impact on mileage.

Mrs. Deuce wanted me to tell y'all that she got 46.3 miles of electric range commuting today. She's pretty sure she could get 50 if it was stop and go the entire way. She'd hate her life, but at least it would be cheap hate. 

In reply to 759NRNG :I hope you really don't think that it comes from dead lizards.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Mrs. Deuce wanted me to tell y'all that she got 46.3 miles of electric range commuting today. She's pretty sure she could get 50 if it was stop and go the entire way. She'd hate her life, but at least it would be cheap hate. 

I got a high of 53 miles on my 2014, and that was about half highway 55-70mph and half backroads 35-45mph.  I'm sure if I tried to hypermile or something I could get it even higher, but that is not in my nature.  The best part of the Volt is you can just drive it and not worry about range, etc.  That said I do love not having to go to the gas stations except for 4 or 5 times a year...

I love my Volt! I sold my 2002 WRX which was my old daily and I sure do miss the traction. But I don't mind going from 20MPG to 200. 

What I keep thinking is how fun it would be to add an extra 50 HP motor at the rear wheels. I had to get under there to replace an emission pump and there is plenty of room for it. Something tells me it will be a bit difficult though... 

Here's another happy Volt owner. I got my 2013 with 106K in November for $7900. It's really fun to drive and I am averaging 38-39 electric miles. My commute is 20.0 each way so I use .1-.2 gallons per day. Averaging about 150mpg. (if you just count gas). I got the car to make us of our new solar system production so the electricity isn't costing me anything. I've actually got enough excess production that I'm looking at another electric for my wife's daily chores. Her minivan gets 18mpg and it's killing me.

FYI, there is an easy mod with detailed youtube instructions to modify the stock 120V charger to charge on 240V. I just bought a dryer cord, soldered it in place of the 120V wire, and plugged it in my dryer outlet. Now I fully charge in 3.5 hours.

I would like to see more maths from Mr Duece. How much is this car costing to own so far?