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

10139 Views 138 Replies 101 Participants Last post by Rosenbauer, 2 mo ago

Atlant

Discussion Starter · 3 mo ago

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?

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GJETSON

· #11 · 3 mo ago

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.

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GJETSON

· #12 · 3 mo ago

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.

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GJETSON

· #30 · 3 mo ago

Atlant said:
There's no reason why a 12V battery in a BEV should ever fail.

If the Bolt is plugged in, the battery will be checked every 6 hours. If unplugged, that is every 4 days. Ours is always garaged, and plugged in, and is now over 6 years old, and still tests good.