Precipitous drop in fully charged range before 90% update

[DavidNW]

I had kind of a perfect storm of incidents before taking my 2018 Bolt to the dealer for the recall 90% charge update.

I have had the console boot/reboot/no boot on many occasions. The dealer replaced it 3 times and tried a couple of software update along the way. This started occurring in 2019 with no obvious pattern. My driving pattern over the past 2 months has been all local short distances at 25 to 60 MPH without use of heater, etc.

So, I recently made an appointment to have it looked at again. At that point my fully charged range here in the chilly PNW was 225 down from the late summer range of about 265. Two days after making the appointment, the fully charged range dropped to 175+-.

To further complicate the service call, the phone feature stopped showing recent calls and contacts.

After the service the fully charged range now is 183 (this morning) and the phone still shows no recent calls and no contacts.

Still, I do like the bolt.

Has anyone else out there in Bolt Land had similar issues?

 

[SparkE]

Relying on the "estimated range" is not a very good way to determine your battery capacity.

The best way is to buy an "OBD2" dongle to plug into your car, and an app for your smart phone to read and interpret it.

2nd best is to calculate your capacity by doing a FULL charge, then driving for a while, down to 50% or less of remaining battery, (it can take several days, but DO NOT CHARGE the vehicle during that time) and then look at the "% energy of battery used" screen and do some math. There are multiple posts on this site on how to do this, use the search function.