[Atlant]

Please be honest with me here.

Realistically speaking: How often do Bolts need to be cold-rebooted (by disconnecting the battery)?

In nearly every way, a Bolt seems like a better alternative for me than my current VW ID.4. The Bolt designers did right nearly all of the things that the VW designers did wrong. (So far, the only glaring exception is that 2023 Bolts lost the lock/unlock controls on the rear exterior door handles.)

But a lot of folks here mention that they've needed to cold-reboot their Bolts by disconnecting and reconnecting the battery cable and that they even carry a 10mm wrench so they are ready when that need arises.

Honestly, I could NEVER sell this idea to my wife. Around our house, we refer to turning something off and then on again as the “Microsoft solution” to the problem (harkening back to the days when PCs and apps commonly needed to be power-cycled to recover from software failures) and I don't think she'd ever want to drive a car where this need might arise. (As it is, she won't drive my ever-buggy ID.4 for fear of it failing on her.)

So: Is this a real problem that frequently comes up? Have a lot of you needed to reboot your Bolts? Or is it just a rarity that ends up getting discussed here because it happened to a few people who come and post about it?

 

[Jason3814]

I have had my 2022 EV since June and have NEVER had to reboot it. I would assume a reboot is pretty rare. We will see what others have to say.

 

[krkobel]

We have 4 Bolts in our family with a collective 13 years of bolt ownership. We've never had to reboot the car (disconnect the 12V battery) for any of them. We have had to reboot the infotainment screen a handful of times but this is pretty trivial and can be done while driving without any significant inconvenience.

 

[Elaine R]

We have had our first Bolt for two years, and our second for 18 months. No rebooting required yet. I do have a 10 mm wrench in each, because why not? ( I also have one of those tools for breaking the windows, and a tire compressor, also because why not. I have used the tire compressor to help others, and have not yet had to break out of the car while sinking in a river.)

 

[ARob]

5 years, 91k miles, 0 reboots.

 

[jmcbrew]

I've never done it on my 2017. I've only owned it for 1.75 years, though. I have rebooted the infotainment system 2 or 3 times.

I used to have to do the battery reboot on my FIAT/Abarth 500 about every 3 to 6 months to get bluetooth to connect.

 

[RPC]

My understanding is to carry the wrench in case you need a tow. Like many modern cars, the Bolt in neutral has a tendency to put itself into park if it feels it's moving.

 

[ARob]

The most common issue requiring reboots by disconnecting the 12V seems to be the charging port issue on 2019 models following the recall replacement pack and diagnostic update. The most recent patch seems to resolve it.

Not saying there aren't other issues, but remember, people don't post when things go normally. If we did, the post count on this site would be 10X.

 

[McBoltFace]

As many times as I've rebooted the '99 Miata and '10 Taco.

Reading internet forums problem threads tends to skew perception.

 

[Atlant]

Not saying there aren't other issues, but remember, people don't post when things go normally. If we did, the post count on this site would be 10X.

I understand that dynamic and directly referred to that in asking the question. But I appreciate everyone's answers so far; please keep them coming!

 

[GJETSON]

We have had our Bolt since July of 2017. We are at 52K miles Have had infotainment features freeze up in that time. Learned the infotainment reboot trick on this forum. Have had steering wheel buttons stop functioning. Turning the car off, and walking away with the fob has been enough to allow normal operation again. We've had our Bolt throw codes for a battery relay taking a millisecond too long to open/close, on three occasions. These can be cleared by pulling the battery negative, but using an OBD II, or waiting for ten start/stop cycles is easier.

The one time I tried using the battery disconnect, it didn't help. A cell failed in our traction battery, and bricked the car in the garage on the charger. It was worth a try to avoid a tow.

 

[GJETSON]

Most of the battery disconnect accounts on here have been for the charge port latch problem that was caused by a software update, and I believe now has a software fix.

 

[shocker]

Never in 5 years and 58000 miles. A couple-three times the infotainment did something weird but a start/stop button push fixes it. Last one I can recall was a few years ago when the forward camera camera stuck on, interesting to watch the road zip by at 60 mph.

 

[Voldar]

Have my Bolt EV for about 4.2 years and never once I needed to "cold-reboot" it. I don't even remember exactly if you need to disconnect the red or the black on the 12V battery. I doubt I have a 10 mm wrench in my car either.

Yes, some people mentioned the "cold-reboot" to solve a problem with some Bolt EV that weren't able to charge on a L2 after the battery replacement, but it never been my case, even though mine is a 2019, replaced in 12/16/2021, that was apparently the one "targeted" by this "issue".
GM made available a patch to address this issue last year, June or July, and I only did it in November, when I put my winter tires.

 

[Atlant]

Have my Bolt EV for about 4.2 years and never once I needed to "cold-reboot" it. I don't even remember exactly if you need to disconnect the red or the black on the 12V battery.

ALWAYS disconnect the negative (grounded, black) terminal. ALWAYS.

You do that because if the wrench slips and touches ground, nothing interesting is likely to happen. If, by comparison, you were to slip with the wrench on the red terminal and the wrench accidentally touched ground, the wrench would probably melt and the battery might explode.

If you're going on to replace the battery, then once the black terminal is disconnected and the black cable safely secured away from the battery terminal, it's then safe to use the wrench on the red terminal because even if you touch ground, nothing interesting will happen.

-=-=-=-=-=-

For reasons that I can't remember, somewhere along the way, I acquired a combination 10mm wrench/screwdriver. ;-)

 

[enslay]

My impression is that it's only a problem when the 12V battery is dying (i.e. it's old and needs to be replaced). I've read a lot strange stuff happens with dying 12V batteries... like DCFC cables being stuck, stuck "conditions not correct for shift", and fake problem codes. When you disconnect the 12V battery and reconnect it some time later, a lot of these problems just go away. That should be enough of an indicator for you to get the battery replaced (if you know about this)!

 

[UnAlpine]

Two Bolts over a span of four years...never.

 

[MichBolt]

I've had my Bolt for 2 years and disconnected the 12V battery once as a troubleshooting step for an inoperative rear camera. Turns out the rear camera was damaged when the rear windshied had shattered, so disconnecting the 12V was irrelevant.

Having said that, I've also had to jump start my ICE vehicles multiple times in their lifetimes. To me, that seems like a similar type of issue / frequency as needing to reboot an EV like the Bolt.

 

[Sean Nelson]

As I mentioned to @Atlant in another thread, I've had to do it once in 5-1/2 years of ownership when the car got into a funky state, which I suspect was the result of my girlfriend pulling an L2 charging cord out of the charge port just as I pressed the "Start" button.

I would carry whatever tool is needed to disconnect the battery in any modern car. Today's cars are totally dependent on various electronic control units that are software programmed, and software is never bulletproof. I have a friend with a Dodge Caliber who've I've twice had to help out by doing a battery disconnect/reconnect.

 

[Atlant]

My impression is that it's only a problem when the 12V battery is dying (i.e. it's old and needs to be replaced). I've read a lot strange stuff happens with dying 12V batteries... like DCFC cables being stuck, stuck "conditions not correct for shift", and fake problem codes. When you disconnect the 12V battery and reconnect it some time later, a lot of these problems just go away. That should be enough of an indicator for you to get the battery replaced (if you know about this)!

This is interesting advice. While it's definitely true, it's also true that in a modern BEV where the 12V battery can be charged from the High Voltage Battery at almost any time, there really shouldn't be any reason for 12V lead-acid batteries to fail. Their depth-of-discharge shouldn't be more than a few percent so they ought to last practically forever. (I'd discuss my Volt but that would probably jinx things. ;-) )

The VW ID.4 HAS experienced a slew of 12 Volt battery failures but that's because the very Intelligent Designers at VW (or their parts suppliers) designed the DC-DC converter wrong and sometimes it allows the 12V battery to run to a very low State-of-Charge and other times, it overcharges the 12V battery. As part of the massive software update that VW keeps promising us, they're also replacing all the existing 12V batteries with “New! Improved!” batteries and may also be replacing the software that destroys the batteries. (No one seems to be quite sure about that last point.)