Earlier this month, my wife and I drove our Bolt EV to nearby Anaheim Stadium to see pitching/hitting sensation Shohei Ohtani. The parking lot attendant directed us to turn on our flashers and follow directions to the preferred parking area. We parked as directed and went in to see the game. Three plus hours later we came back to find our Bolt totally dead and non-responsive. I didn't know how to get into a dead car with no apparent mechanical door lock. I knew we had 24x7 GM emergency roadside service, but the phone number and any info about getting into the car were safely locked away and in the glove box. Fortunately, the Angels have long partnered with AAA to provide free onsite post game auto assistance. Soon the friendly AAA guy was helping us, asking right off if I had left my flashers on (guilty!) and directing me to remove the hidden mechanical key from the fob (just like the three Prii we have owned) while he pried the cover off the key hole on the door handle (not like the Prii) and I turned the door key. Like the Prii, the Bolt uses a 12 volt, motorcycle size lead acid battery to run security, entry, boot up, lights (?) etc. and shares the fatal weakness that when the vehicle is off, it doesn't use the big hulking lithium ion battery to keep the small lead acid battery charged! (Park a Prius at the airport for two weeks and you come back to a dead car.) He tried jump-starting the car and it booted right up! But the moment he disconnected the jumper cables, the Bolt died. We tried charging for a longer time to no avail. The battery read an unhealthy 5 volts, indicating dead cells.
I got through to GM emergency roadside assistance (in Florida) and they sent out a flatbed tow truck. The flatbed driver agreed to tow us to our local dealer. He wanted to load the Bolt on his truck by attaching his winch and dragging it on board. This alarmed me because the Bolt defaults to PARK and would not shift into NEUTRAL when we jump started it. I asked the 800 number how to put it in neutral with no power (Prii have a secret access port). GM researched this for half an hour and got on the line with the tow truck driver, expecting him to put the Bolt on skates (I did not know of them) but apparently that driver didn't either. He dragged the car up with screeching tires and the transmission in park and ground the left rear wheel hub into the trailer bed side. GM had told him that our dealer had no provision to receive vehicle night drops so the latest plan was to drop us and the Bolt at our home and resume in the morning, but at this point the driver revealed that he'd probably be lucky to place the Bolt somewhere in the middle of the street because it couldn't be rolled. We decided to get Angel parking lot security to give us permission to leave it there overnight. While I was doing that, the tow operator drove the truck/car combo around and picked a spot to dump it. He lowered the flatbed, released the winch, and bounced the EV suspension while pushing it onto the parking lot. As I had just emerged from the bullpen loading ramp and was out of range, I was too far away to yell "What the hell are you doing to my car?"
The tow driver gave us a ride home after abandoning the car essentially where he found us. At home, I called GM once more and arranged to get things going in the morning. GM called at 07:00 to say they could not send someone out to the car (less than 5 miles away) with a new 12 volt battery as they had previously offered. Instead, they would send out another flatbed from a different vendor who seemed to know more. This guy explained tire skates to us and I operated the winch as he inserted them under the front tires and lubricated the bed with twenty feet of WD40 under all four wheels. He got me and the Bolt to Selman Chevrolet, and while I talked with a service advisor he and the service guys unloaded the Bolt by bouncing it down the bed! Selman sent me home in a Lyft and later sent another to pick me up. The latter Lyft driver rolled down the passenger window to communicate and as I got in, she crushed my fingers. Ouch!
The Bolt was ready. They had also done the outstanding recall but a part for a minor passenger seat repair was on back order. I asked the service writer to document the damage to the left rear wheel that the first tow driver had left, but he would only refer me to the manager. I spent a half hour with the service manager telling me that neither Selman nor GM was responsible for the tow operators they had selected and directed to drag my car in PARK (and would be paying). So much for 24 × 7 peace of mind ownership. I would have been much better off calling AAA on my dime so I could at least I have ordered them not to drag my car without skates and damage it. I relied on GM and paid for being naive. Now I will have to go after GM's contractor on my own to repair the damage. And no one at Selman or GM will tell me what dragging a Bolt in park does to it.
I got through to GM emergency roadside assistance (in Florida) and they sent out a flatbed tow truck. The flatbed driver agreed to tow us to our local dealer. He wanted to load the Bolt on his truck by attaching his winch and dragging it on board. This alarmed me because the Bolt defaults to PARK and would not shift into NEUTRAL when we jump started it. I asked the 800 number how to put it in neutral with no power (Prii have a secret access port). GM researched this for half an hour and got on the line with the tow truck driver, expecting him to put the Bolt on skates (I did not know of them) but apparently that driver didn't either. He dragged the car up with screeching tires and the transmission in park and ground the left rear wheel hub into the trailer bed side. GM had told him that our dealer had no provision to receive vehicle night drops so the latest plan was to drop us and the Bolt at our home and resume in the morning, but at this point the driver revealed that he'd probably be lucky to place the Bolt somewhere in the middle of the street because it couldn't be rolled. We decided to get Angel parking lot security to give us permission to leave it there overnight. While I was doing that, the tow operator drove the truck/car combo around and picked a spot to dump it. He lowered the flatbed, released the winch, and bounced the EV suspension while pushing it onto the parking lot. As I had just emerged from the bullpen loading ramp and was out of range, I was too far away to yell "What the hell are you doing to my car?"
The tow driver gave us a ride home after abandoning the car essentially where he found us. At home, I called GM once more and arranged to get things going in the morning. GM called at 07:00 to say they could not send someone out to the car (less than 5 miles away) with a new 12 volt battery as they had previously offered. Instead, they would send out another flatbed from a different vendor who seemed to know more. This guy explained tire skates to us and I operated the winch as he inserted them under the front tires and lubricated the bed with twenty feet of WD40 under all four wheels. He got me and the Bolt to Selman Chevrolet, and while I talked with a service advisor he and the service guys unloaded the Bolt by bouncing it down the bed! Selman sent me home in a Lyft and later sent another to pick me up. The latter Lyft driver rolled down the passenger window to communicate and as I got in, she crushed my fingers. Ouch!
The Bolt was ready. They had also done the outstanding recall but a part for a minor passenger seat repair was on back order. I asked the service writer to document the damage to the left rear wheel that the first tow driver had left, but he would only refer me to the manager. I spent a half hour with the service manager telling me that neither Selman nor GM was responsible for the tow operators they had selected and directed to drag my car in PARK (and would be paying). So much for 24 × 7 peace of mind ownership. I would have been much better off calling AAA on my dime so I could at least I have ordered them not to drag my car without skates and damage it. I relied on GM and paid for being naive. Now I will have to go after GM's contractor on my own to repair the damage. And no one at Selman or GM will tell me what dragging a Bolt in park does to it.
