cwerdna
Well-known member
It's absolutely relevant. The recall was announced around Nov 13, 2020.SageBrush said:I don't see how any of that is relevant. The car is damaged goods, and GM will have to compensate the owner. That said, GM has a legion of lawyers and they have perhaps THE richest history of any car company of screwing their customers in court. So I'd take it as a given that GM will unleash its legal beagles to try and screw its customers, but its position is weak.cwerdna said:I don't think this strategy would work at this point if one didn't already have an affected Bolt before the recall was announced and evidence of actually needing most/all of the range and so on.SageBrush said:I read some threads over at the Bolt forum. Apparently at least a handful of people have handed in their cars to GM. One person said he received a $28k check for his 2017. I didn't pay attention to trim, and there is some chatter that this is a CA thing.
So if you are feeling lucky you:
Dump your LEAF
Buy a Bolt for $13k
Dump the Bolt on GM for say a $10k profit
Buy a Tesla
There's a stop sale on the affected vehicles. Documents at https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2017/CHEVROLET/BOLT/4%252520DR/FWD#recalls like the below say the vehicles must not be delivered to customers, even w/the interim 90% limiter fix:
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2020/RCSB-20V701-2489.pdf
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2020/RCMN-20V701-3731.pdf
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2020/RCMN-20V701-3779.pdf
This info is all out in the open. GM dealers aren't supposed to (by law) sell vehicles w/open recalls. See above. Apparently, used car lots aren't bound by this nor are private sellers.
But anyhow, from what I've seen so far on chevybolt.org and a few Bolt FB groups is that GM has been accommodating of people who actually need the previous range of their vehicle (e.g. loaning them an ICEV or 2020 Bolt) on a case-by-case basis. It doesn't seem like many are demanding buybacks. To me, one would need justification for a buyback (just like you might for a loaner)... to go a buy a vehicle that isn't supposed to be sold in the first place (due to open recall) for cheap and try to dump for a profit doesn't sound like a valid justification.
As I said, GM has all sorts of records including from Moronstar. Put yourselves in the shoes of the automaker and its decision makers. Let's say it was some other automaker that you don't have utter hatred and contempt for.... If you were a decision maker, would you want to authorize a buyback for a pretty shady situation, for the lack of a better word? I wouldn't. Let's say you did anyway. Might you get in trouble w/your manager and/or management chain for authorizing something so questionable?
But, if it were someone who owned an affected car before the recall and there is plenty of evidence that it's been driven from full to nearly empty numerous times in its life w/o charging in between and they're demanding a buyback, then sure, I'd be MUCH more inclined to authorize it. And, that's after other options have been exhausted (e.g. somehow a loaner won't work for them).
Also, another possibility is to replace a pack w/one where the cells do not come from South Korea. GM already collected some packs from the field and replaced them w/some other packs, for research purposes. The "lucky" drivers were already notified awhile ago.