My 2023 Chevrolet Bolt EUV LT, Part 2: The Unexpected Emotions Behind Buying a New Car

When we last left off in Part 1, my son and I had just completed the almost entirely one sided negotiations and purchased his first late model EV, which is the type of car he’s wanted for a long time.  Better still, it was very close in size to his old car, which was a requirement, but bigger in all the right places.  Furthermore, it was the perfect color.  You’d think he’d be thrilled, right?

Since we’d waited nearly an hour to sign the papers (Why does that always seem to happen?), my son and I were tired and hungry when we left the dealer.  Fortunately, my son had a $10 gift certificate to Chipotle, and there just happen to be one down the street

After bringing our food back to the table, I went to the soda dispenser to fill my cup.  When I got back, he was in tears.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to get rid of Eddie (his 2014 Sonic).”

“We don’t have room for him and the new car.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have bought it.”

“If you didn’t want to buy the car, you should have said something.”

“I told you things were moving too fast!”

“That’s not the same as saying you want to stop.”

My son is a likely future hoarder – he gets attached to things and doesn’t like to throw anything away.  One of his many computers is a cheap laptop with a low-end Intel Celeron processor that I bought for $300 in 2009, which he still uses for light network activities.  So, the thought of getting rid of Eddie was too much for him.  I reminded him that we have nowhere to put him and how much fun he’ll have with the Bolt.  He requested that I drive home after lunch because he didn’t think he’d be able to.

When we got home, my wife said she wanted to see the car in person.  I told her we effectively bought it and only a seriously negative discovery during the PPI would change anything.  She said she didn’t care and needed to see it.  Sigh.  At least that was one of the advantages (or disadvantages) of buying the car in Massachusetts.  Dealers are closed on Sundays in Connecticut by law.

The next morning, we drove the hour back to Northampton, where they had the car waiting for us out front and, fortunately, it had been detailed.  The weather was nice and sunny, so we were able to see the sparkle in the Bright Blue Metallic paint as well as the blemishes that would be expected in a three-year-old car with 46k miles.  We did a more thorough inspection this time around where we noticed the absence of a spare tire, which is normal these days, and evidence of a nest under the hood.  Ultimately, the Bolt got the official sign-off from my wife, and Melissa promised to take care of the nest.

I figured the best place for a PPI for a Bolt would be a Chevrolet service department.  Of course, the one down the street was booked for the next week. I ended up making an appointment for Tuesday morning about half an hour south of Northampton in Springfield.  I took the day off, again drove the hour to Northampton, picked up the Bolt, and headed back south to Central Chevrolet.  I will admit that I enjoyed some alone time in the Bolt, and it was already feeling like a member of the family.  I pointed out that there had been a nest under the hood and to look very closely at the wiring.

They were busy that morning, and after two hours of watching some kind of Food Network cooking competition show on the waiting-room TV, they finally called me over to review the findings.  Fortunately, the only issues they found were some weather stripping sticking up from the hatch area and delaminated front discs, with a $1,500 estimate to fix, that seemed to be evidence that the car had been sitting for a while.  That would jibe with the nest under the hood, but at an average of 15,000 miles per year, when would the car have had time to sit?  The mileage could have been front loaded – we did buy our one-year-old Elantra with over 30k miles.  More importantly, the battery pack was OK and still had 90% health.  The service advisor was a fan of the Bolt – especially in that color – and was supportive of the purchase.

Back at the dealer, surprisingly, they reviewed the findings and promised to take care of them.  Maybe there are benefits to paying close to the asking price.  The dealer was hesitant to register the car until they had the money, so they said they would let me know what day they could do it, then deliver the Bolt to us and take the Sonic back with them.

That day, unfortunately, turned out to be a day I needed to be in the office.  I tried to get them to bring the car to my parking garage, but that was a no-go. I found a parking lot down the street and asked them to have the driver call me when he left the DMV.  Melissa assured me he would.  In the interim, Jonathan had Eddie washed and vacuumed so he could get some good-bye pictures.

The night before the exchange, we did a final check to make sure everything was out of the car.  I still had the original window sticker, which I left in the glove compartment.  I must admit, the car looked remarkably good.  The Topaz Blue Metallic still shined, and the interior, although it looked like it was filled with cheap plastics, still looked like new.  I then started to wonder if we did the right thing.  This was my first new car ordered specifically for me, optioned to my specs, that I drove for ten years.  In 12 years, I’ve never seen another one exactly like it.  That the car behaved perfectly on the drive to work didn’t help matters, either.  Nor did my son breaking down again as I was pulling out of the garage.

I started to worry as we approached 2 P.M. since Melissa told me the DMV appointment was at 11 A.M.  Finally, the phone rang, “I’m here at a parking lot.  Where are you?”  Oy.  I told him I’d be there in 10 minutes and to meet me on the north side of the lot across from a well-known restaurant.

I drove the Sonic to the appointed spot, and he was nowhere to be found.  I called him back, and he told me he was now in a loading zone somewhere nearby, all the more baffling because the address I gave him leads directly to that parking lot.  I talked him over to where I was, then used the extra time while he drove around to the entrance to take off the plates (which, sadly, we couldn’t transfer because of the different names on the registration).  When I asked him how he didn’t end up in the parking lot, he said he was looking for a building, not a parking lot.  Also, he claims he was never told to call me when he left the DMV.  Then he mentioned that there was only 80 miles of range left even though Melissa promised the car would be fully charged, and we were only about 40 miles from the dealer, with maybe an extra 10 to and from the DMV (“I swear that car was charged” according to Melissa – I was beginning to learn that Melissa makes lots of promises but never actually follows up to see if the work was done).

Fortunately, there are four Level 2 chargers at my parking garage. I pulled into one, figured out how to pay the not insubstantial $.35 per kWh on my phone, and left it to charge for the rest of my workday.  By 4PM, I’d added another 85 miles of range.

Here are some other things we discovered when I got home:  The nest was still under the hood; the near-dead key fob batteries had not been replaced as Melissa promised; and the dealer emblem that they’d put on the hatch which I asked them to remove was gone, but the sticky goop was left behind (“You can just clean that off with a rag,” said Melissa).  Most disturbingly, the registration was in the name of my son and Christopher Noel McEnerney.  I immediately called the dealer, who also claimed that they also didn’t know Christopher Noel McEnerney, blamed it on the DMV (which seems likely since Christopher lives near the Connecticut shore in a wealthy town and would likely not be shopping for cars in northern Massachusetts), and promised to take care of it the next day.  While I had her on the phone, I asked if they’d actually done the brake work.  “Oh, yes.  They did that and fixed the weatherstripping sticking out of the hatch.”  Which they did, but I have no way to verify that the brake work was done.  From what I can see through the wheel, the discs don’t look anywhere near new or recently turned.  She swears the new registration will be coming in the mail.  I’m cautiously optimistic.

In the end, did we make the right decision?  More importantly, did I push my son into it like he says?  I can’t deny that it’s no coincidence that he ended up with exactly the car I wanted to buy four years ago.  There’s no question that he loves the car, and, as I stated above, he’s been wanting an EV for a long time.  Furthermore, the car has no accident history and a clean bill of health from Central Chevrolet.  Being out of warranty also means he can hack the car to his heart’s content without having to worry about voiding anything as long as he stays away from the batteries, which are still under a separate 8-year/100,000-mile warranty.  Finally, having Android Auto means that his phone will no longer heat up under the windshield since he needs Waze pretty much everywhere he drives.

Honestly, I can’t say for sure if it was the right decision.  Valid arguments can be made for both sides.  However, knowing what I know now, I probably would have held out for more trade-in money since I learned the dealer is looking to make a 200+% profit on my old car (face-palms)!