2018 Chevrolet Volt
This year drew an ordinary 219 complaints for a Chevrolet Volt — the model's median is 169. What they were about is the unusual part: 37.4% of them mention shift park, against 0.4% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 219 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 169 |
| Involving a crash | 4 |
| Recalls | 2 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 42 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- shift park — 37.4% of this year's complaints, against 0.4% across the model's other years (91.7×).
- turn — 27.4% of this year's complaints, against 9% across the model's other years (3.1×).
- park car — 14.2% of this year's complaints, against 1.2% across the model's other years (11.6×). Owners wrote it as: park car, recognize, shifting park, lever.
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
After turning off the engine, the car will frequently raise an alert saying "Shift to Park", even though the lever is positioned correctly on "P" (park) and the light for "P" is lit up.
When car is in park the vehicle sometimes does not recognize that and will not let you turn the car off. The display tells you that you need to shift to park but it is already in park. The problem is happening frequently now.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 18V576000 SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC Fixed free of charge.
- 18V673000 SEAT BELTS 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 2018 Chevrolet Volt? What happened to yours?
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