2013 Chevrolet Volt problems
NHTSA has received 448 complaints about the 2013 Chevrolet Volt, and 36% of them involve air bags. Next are electrical system (14%) and fuel system (12%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 448 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Air bags 36% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 17 and 2
- Injuries and deaths
- 18 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 66,000 miles 309 complaints with mileage
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
When problems show up
View the numbers
| Mileage | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 0k to 20k miles | 60 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 30 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 37 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 85 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 51 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 25 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 11 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 7 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 2 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 1 |
| 200k+ miles | 0 |
What the data shows
Of the 309 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 66,000 miles. For air bags specifically, the median reported mileage is about 76,000 miles (113 complaints with mileage).
Safety-related details: 17 complaints mention a crash; 2 complaints mention a fire; 18 injuries reported.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 2013 ranks 3rd most-complained-about out of 9 model years of the Chevrolet Volt with enough data (187 complaints in that window). It is also covered by 3 safety recall campaigns.
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
While entering in the highway the car started to decelerate regardless the fact the gas pedal was pushed several times. The car decelerated and then stalled. The car has been rear ended by the car behind. This could have been a much more serious accident and it was a vehicle failure.
This is the third incident since I had this car along with charging issue in the beginning of ownership this chevrolet volt has been been deem total from the accident that occurred on january 6 because of the steering locking up
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.