2012 Chevrolet Volt
This year drew an ordinary 245 complaints for a Chevrolet Volt — the model's median is 169. What they were about is the unusual part: 6.1% of them mention deploy, against 0.1% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 245 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 169 |
| Involving a crash | 6 |
| Involving a fire | 2 |
| Recalls | 2 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 37 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- deploy — 6.1% of this year's complaints, against 0.1% across the model's other years (30.6×).
- black — 6.1% of this year's complaints, against 0.5% across the model's other years (13.4×).
- event — 6.1% of this year's complaints, against 2.3% across the model's other years (2.7×). Owners wrote it as: event, quite.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
PASSANGER AIRBAG SENSOR FAULTY REQUIRING [VIN]. WHEN IT WAS MALFUNCTIONING THE AIRBAG WOULD DEFAULT TO OFF. MAKING IT NOT DEPLOY IN THE EVENT OF AN ACCIDENT EVEN IF A PASSAGER WAS IN THE SEAT.
THE PASSENGER AIRBAG SYSTEM WILL INTERMITTENTLY CODE FOR SERVICE AIRBAG. IT WILL DO THIS WHEN A PASSENGER IS IN OR NOT IN THE SEAT. WHEN IT DOES THIS THE AIRBAG INDICATES AS OFF INSTEAD OF DEFAULTING TO ON. THIS IS WORRISOME CAUSE THE AIRBAG COULD NOT DEPLOY I…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 15V145000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 13V271000 ELECTRONIC STABILITY CONTROL (ESC) Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Chevrolet Volt was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2012 Chevrolet Volt? What happened to yours?
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