While General Motors is reshuffling its business model, focusing its resources on autonomous and electric vehicles, the Chevrolet Bolt—the all-electric runabout is here and available today. It has a starting price of $36,620, which is par for course when it comes to an EV with over 230 miles of range. But the Burning Hot Orange Metallic 2017 Chevrolet Bolt above is for sale on eBay for a surprisingly reasonable price—$23,000. That’s a steep discount, but there are a few caveats. Yes, a deal that sounds too good to be true often is; However, the caveats here could be minor to some.
The Chevrolet Bolt EV comes with a rebuilt California title, which was the result of a front-end accident. The listing describes the damage as “light,” and alleges that the Bolt was “fully, properly and completely repaired,” with $3,000 in receipts as proof. The bumper, headlights, hood, tie bar, one fender, radiator with fan, driver airbag, and front seat belts were replaced. All the parts were GM OEM because, as the listing states, “where else can you get Bolt parts?”
The seller says the Chevrolet Bolt is 100-percent complete down to the last clip and fastener. The ad also says the Bolt passed all California safety inspections, too, and the buyer should have no problem registering the vehicle in California or anywhere else in the states.
The $23,000 is enticing, but the rebuilt title will likely scare off some buyers. The vehicle doesn’t come with a GM warranty, and you never know how honest a seller is. You also don’t know how hard the previous owner drove the vehicle. From the photos, the Bolt looks flawless. Then again, it’s always smart to get an independent inspection performed before buying any vehicle.
Would you buy this Bolt? Let us know in the comment section below.
Comments
I guess GMA is Auto trader now…
Slow news day?
Would I buy it? Nope.
SIDEBAR —
I looked into converting my wife’s Nissan Cube to electric. Googled my brains out. If memory serves I believe I learned that manual transmission cars lend themselves surprising well to such conversion but not automatic transmission cars. Sigh.
Then I wondered something. What if legislation was passed that forced all automakers in America to sell produce cars that could be gas or electric? That the wiring and engineering was already in place for either.
This would create two classes of cars —
READY NOW electrics, which would obviously be smaller cars. When ordering you’d choose which engine you want. This gives gas people gas and electric people electric.
READY LATER vehicles, on the other hand, would not offer electric engines. Say the Chevy Traverse, right? Too big for electric today. But maybe not 7 years from now. And what could happen is people would pull gas engine and out and replace it with an electric engine of 2026. The beautiful part here is that the vehicle is already ‘ready’ for the future.
CAVEAT — by the time that future arrives the hookup might be obsolete. (sadface) But perhaps engineers could say, no, the basic principle of using energy from batteries won’t change as much as the battery efficiency.
PERK — so you buy you car at a car price. Years later, instead of selling it for nothing, you invest in an electric engine instead of a new car
… something like this…
Why would someone “years later” want to suddenly have the laborious choice of converting their old-model car other than a die-hard auto-enthusiast/ mechanic?
Nice long post though. Lol
I’ve lived in California for 20 years and owned 10 vehicles here and I’ve never heard of a California safety inspection, so that sets off my spidey senses.
Safety inspections are a thing if your car was totaled and you got it rebuilt. That’s the only way you get your title back. But otherwise, you’re correct, California usually doesn’t inspect vehicles for safety like they do in some other States.
For 18,000
still too much! there are WAY too many of these insurance flippers around selling cobbled together junk for retail prices – he’s probably in it less than 10 grand. just another greedy sleezbag and not worth the screen space here.
I have a nice 63 XL500 convert that I would consider trading for this car.
so let’s say the buyer bought this car for $30K if you include the tax credit.
as soon as you take a brand new car off the lot, it depreciates about 20% according to carsdirect. and it a depreciates another 15% in year two. those numbers are for ICE vehicles i would think but for me, EVs would depreciate more due to the battery and high repair costs.
if you use $30K as the base, that would come out to about $20K.
if you use $37K as the base, that would come out to about $25K
either way, $23K for this vehicle that has been in an accident is no bargain to me. i’d get a brand new 2019 honda insight that gets 50+mpg for about the same price.
No.
First off, I would not pay 23 K for a USED 2019 that had been in an accident.
I can get a NEW 2019 Bolt for 29 K after the 7.5 K tax credit.
Secondly, the fair market price of a 2017 WITHOUT a rebuilt title is between 23 K to 28 K AND that comes with the remaining GM warranty.
Thirdly, the warranty would probably be a good idea seeing as though 2017 was the first year AND the BOLT was new territory for GM in 2017.
Hard pass all the way around.
The greatest concern I have is that after the crash, the owner tried to use the car with a damaged radiator. The reason GM’s EV has been so much better than the competition in terms of longevity is that they use active cooling, which is why it has a radiator. If the ower tried to use the car after a collision or the barrery was very hot when the cooling system was damaged, the battery pack may have also sustained major damage to the cells. The battery’s performance could have been severely impacted. Without a thorough testing of the battery, you could end up needing a replacement battery down the road.
It’s a three year old totaled car. Rebuild with permanent documentation on the title. The price of it is not news worthy.
Hard no, in Colorado that car could be had for 23,120 new with the tax credits and a 1000 off MSRP.
I’ve been an automotive service technician in California since 1998, and I can tell you there is no such thing as a California safety inspection.
A used car, with the federal tax rebate consumed, and a rebuilt title is hardly news. I can only imagine the writer knows the seller and posted this ad on their behalf.
I would spend the extra money and buy a new Bolt. Besides, I’d be curious why the owner wants to unload the car. I love the car I own, and I’d probably keep even if it was in a minor accident and fixed properly.
Salvage title , new car totalled out by insurance company? Half price. Rule of thumb.
This is a 2017? Hey its,2019 already
$10K top offer.
If you get 2 years out of it, it was a deal. Anything more than that, and you are ahead.
It is the no warranty part that kills it. No one has any idea of the condition of the battery pack, and with 5 years hacked off that warranty, it is a very large gamble…..
In California, it’s called a “salvage title.” It scares off many buyers, including me, because it’s always going to be with the car. There’s no state safety inspection in California; they only have emissions inspections, from which the Bolt would be exempt. The car pictured is the cheaper LT model, not the better-equipped Premier trim. The original buyer of that 2017 Bolt got a $7,500 Federal tax credit and a $2,500 California rebate, for a total of $10,000 off. This gets factored into the used car value.
A generous offer for that car would be 16K. Assuming its visually perfect. It will carry that salvage title forever. I got hit in my Volt 2 months ago. It looked fixable at first glance. As the shop tore it down, they kept finding more damage, and when they got to the body pan there was a huge dimple from the impact. If the dimple weren’t fixed the car would probably be stronger that if it were, but either way, if it got hit again, it will take the impact much differently than it did in that first accident. It was totaled for a reason. If $3000 really fixed it right then the insurance co. would have fixed it rather than total it.