If you own an older Chevrolet Bolt, you’re probably aware of the ongoing recall, to repair Bolt battery packs that have a chance of catching fire. I’ve recently (June 2024) had my Bolt’s battery replaced under the recall. This post gives the details of my experience.
TL;DR: The recall started in August 2021, and my 2020 Bolt’s battery was replaced in June 2024. The dealer had my car for about 2 weeks.The new battery has slightly more capacity than the original, and is behaving beautifully!
March 2020: I bought a shiny, new 2020 Chevrolet Bolt EV with LT trim. I had been driving a Honda Civic hybrid for 15 years, and was excited to finally drive a fully-electric car. Covid-19 shutdowns made the purchase iffy, but it all turned out fine in the end.
August 21, 2021: I learned from a friend that there is a recall on my Bolt due to the chance of fire. I had not yet received any paperwork, but I read the recall notice online, which recommended to not charge over 90% or run the battery down below 70 miles range, to charge outside rather than in the garage, and to not charge overnight. Luckily, when I had our L2 charger installed in the garage, I had the electrician put it near the door so that a friend could charge outside the garage. So I started charging the car outside, during the day.
According to a post on a California Legal web site, “Chevrolet Recalls Over 50,000 Vehicles Due to Fire Risk“, the August ’21 recall was the third one for this issue – it was the first to cover my 2020 Bolt. That article also reports that at this point Chevrolet had identified 16 fires due to the problem.
December 2021: I received postal mail from GM, officially notifying me of the recall and explaining that the first step for me is to have a firmware update installed, which will detect dangerous failures and will limit charging to 80% of the battery capacity.
March 2022: I had the first firmware update installed. In the process I learned that my original Chevy dealer didn’t have anyone qualified to work on EVs, so I switched to a Chevy dealership that did.
Later in March I learned, from a Plug and Play EV video, “Chevy Bolt EV Recall Update: Spring 2022” that the firmware update stops the car if it detects a problem. I learned from a person that this happened to that yes, if this firmware detects a problem It prevents the car from moving from then on – that you have to get the car towed to a dealership who can replace the battery. A pain, but better than your car burning to the ground.
March ’22 – July ’23: Nothing but crickets from GM. I read about other prople getting their battery packs replaced, but heard nothing from GM or the dealer about my car.
July 2023: My Chevy dealership installed a second firmware update. This one does detailed monitoring of the battery for the next ~6,200 miles (~10K km) and at that point if it hasn’t detected any problems, it declares the battery good and removes the 80% limit on charging.
At this point I was driving my Bolt about 7,000 miles per year, so I expected this evaluation period to be a little less than a year.
June 2024: One morning when I turned the Bolt on it said “Propulsion power is reduced” and “Service vehicle soon”. This was about 5,200 miles (~8,400 km) after having the firmware update installed.
Searching the Bolt forums, I found this message is likely the “your battery is bad” message. I called the dealership, scheduled an appointment, and limped the car in.
After the Chevy service department looked at the Bolt for about 2 hours, they told me that the battery would be replaced, under the recall, at no cost to me, and that they would give me a loaner for the ~2 weeks they would need to keep the car. I chose a gas loaner rather than electric because I imagined it would be easier to get.
The slowest part of the whole process was the one-half hour it took the Hertz office to fill out the rental paperwork while I waited; A very different experience from Hertz’ recent get-your-car-in-no-time ads.
2 Weeks Later: I received the call that the battery replacement was complete. No more worries about the car catching fire.
The Chevy tech explained to me that they no longer put a sticker in the window saying that the battery has been replaced. I’ve since learned there are three pieces of evidence you can show someone to prove that your battery has been replaced:
- Your service paperwork (assuming you keep it), that describes the repair.
- Login to Chevrolet.com; click on your account icon, then click on Account; click on the image of your Bolt; click on Recalls; scroll down and click on either Incomplete (which should show no pending battery recall) or Complete (which should show the “High Voltage Battery May Melt or Burn” recall).
- Look for the battery’s sticker on the car: vertically follow the line between the driver’s door and the left passenger’s door all the way to the bottom of the car; lay down on the ground and take a photo of the sticker that’s on the battery pack.
Curiously, my battery pack sticker now reads 64kWh instead of the originally-specified 66kWh. Doing a little research I found a Chevy Bolt forum thread titled “Replacement Battery Capacity“, that concludes that the “64kWh” battery does have the specified 66kWh capacity and, paradoxically, a little more range than the original battery, which was labeled with a lower number.
The guess-o-meter was a bit confused when I got the car back, reporting very strange and large numbers for both miles-remaining and miles-per-kWh, but on recharging to 100% at home it reported 280 miles range – about 8% larger than the original battery’s 259 mile range.
Coincidental Issues
Remote Key Batteries: shortly after getting the car home, one morning it reported “Replace Battery in Remote Key”. I dutifully replaced the key’s battery…and got the same message. I replaced the battery in the 2nd remote key…and got the same message. I took it to the Chevy dealership, they fiddled about with it a little, then said it seemed to be fine and to let them know if it happened again. I suspect that in the process of replacing the battery pack the remote key receiver got confused – I haven’t seen the problem since.
Brake Booster ticking: Before the battery was replaced, the car made a ticking sound when I opened the driver’s door to get in. Online forums said it’s likely the brake booster needed replacing. Fortunately, when I took the car in, the Chevy tech said that there’s now a software fix. They installed that fix, and that fixed the problem.
Mice: Before the battery problem I had left the car undriven in my garage for a month. When I started it up after that month, the fan whined and shut down. The Chevy tech said that there was “organic material” in the cabin fan filter (likely a euphemism for “mouse nest”), and that the blockage had damaged the fan blower. A new filter and blower later, all’s well.
Brakes Grinding: Soon after the battery pack replacement, my Bolt started making a terrible grinding sound, as if the brake pads were grinding on the rotors. Worried that Chevy had forgotten something in the repair, my wife searched online and found the problem was a) innocuous, and b) easily fixed.
A Chevy Bolt forum post, “Grinding Noise in Drive and Reverse” explained the problem: the Bolt has a habit of getting gravel stuck between the edge of the rotor and the rotor housing, making a terrible grinding noise but causing no damage to the working surface of the rotor. I found another post, since lost, which said that driving in reverse and braking can dislodge the gravel. After a few tries at reversing for a few feet then braking, the noise disappeared – whew! I’m glad I didn’t tow the car to the dealership for that.
All’s well that ends well!