Other powertrain problem on the 2017 Chevrolet Volt
1 injury 1 of the 156 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When other powertrain problem gets reported
Owners of the 2017 Chevrolet Volt report other powertrain problem at a median of 35,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 50,000 miles, from 80 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 7,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 70,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 63,767 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
55% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7,250 miles | 24,331 miles | 34,099 miles | 50,000 miles | 71,017 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 an injury is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $400–$4,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 9 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2014, at a median of 2,000 miles, and latest on the 2011 at 75,000 miles.
By volume the 2017 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
I was driving my 2 month old car with ~2300 miles on a busy highway at ~ 65 MPH when suddenly the car loses power and the panel reads "shift to park". Luckily, I was able to maneuver the car (steering was still in tact) with the remaining speed to the side of the highway. However, had the highway been busier or if I had been on the far left lane, I don't think I would have been able to make it and would have created a dangerous situation on the highway. On the volt forum, others have also complained about this. The repair, though covered, took 3+ weeks at the dealership. From dealer printout "internal transmission prime notor(sic) internal failure p03af drive motor remove and replace with srta srta unit".
Wife was driving to work when car (with ~2500 miles on it) just shut off, luckily on a side street after crossing a busy highway. I drove to meet her and called onstar. It was in the "shift to park" mode. They connected me with the volt support team. They determined it had somehow got into service mode and they talked me though getting it out of that. I decided to take the car directly to the dealer. It seemed fine for a few miles but it started displaying reduced propulsion power and died again about 100yds away from the dealer, after I had just pulled onto a busy highway. I tried the technique to get it out of service mode, but it did not work this time and had to call for a tow (and police detail so I wouldn't get rear-ended). The dealer repaired the car and said the problem was a short in the battery cooling system/pump.
We bought a new 2017 chevy volt at the end of december 2016 and had our first issue in early february 2017. What happened that first time was on (2/3/2017) while driving through traffic the car without warning turned off the electric wheel motors and would not allow us to power the car properly to get the car to the berm. We were nearly were hit twice while trying to steer the car off of the interstate highway as it decelerated. The car was completely disabled an needed towed back to the dealership. After the dealership had the car for a week they returned it with the explanation that the car needed to do software updates and they were too large to do over the car's satellite system ' but they never gave us any indication of how we would have been informed of the need for such an update. We then had another near accident today (4/6/2017) on the same highway and we were nearly pushed up under a semi while trying to maneuver off of the highway at 75 miles an hour. Again, the car without warning shut off the electric wheel motors and warned us to 'put the car in park'. It happened in exactly the same way as in february but no…
Also reported on the 2017 Chevrolet Volt
Other electrical problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
DPF, EGR or DEF system failure
Other fuel system problem
Other engine problem
No-start or intermittent start failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 156 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does other powertrain problem happen on the 2017 Chevrolet Volt?
Across 80 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 35,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 25,000 miles and a quarter after 50,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other powertrain problem on the 2017 Chevrolet Volt?
156 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 22 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed