2022 Bolt EV and EUV price drop! $6,300 Customer Cash

You end your current Bolt lease and start a new Bolt lease for $3750.

You get $0 for returning only.

The refunds were for people who purchased 2022ā€™s before the price cut. 2020s were not part of that. Youā€™re probably too late but your best bet would have been to try and contact the Chevy EV Concierge about a buyback or Substitution of Collateral. At this point youā€™re probably just going to have to return it when it is due. Did your battery ever get replaced due to the recalls?

Explain it to me like Iā€™m 5. You end your current bolt lease, and then you start a new 3 year lease and you get 3750 off that new lease right? And this has to be before the return date? or is there some statute of limitations which has passed? And yeah, shame about the $0 just for returning.

can you get that 3750 on a different chevy? does it have to be an ev? and it has to be a lease, not a purchase, right?

battery never got replaced. stupidly, I was waiting for that, and then late to the party I started researching what I can do since my lease is almost up. I was half thinking of buying out the lease since car prices went up since I did my deal (I got a decent deal off of msrp back in '20), but with no battery replacement imminent, Iā€™d rather not be stuck with this in its current condition.

buyback wouldnā€™t have helped me if I was on a one-pay, right? I guess they could prorate the amount left on my lease, but thatā€™s almost just like a refund rather than ā€œgetting something back for my troubleā€ kind of thing.

The currently Bolt loyalty offer if you return your Bolt is $3750. You must start a new Bolt lease. Does not apply to any other GM/Chevy vehicle.

Chevy will refund your full lease amount if you ask them. Not sure if they are still doing it though. If you choose this path, Chevy owes you nothing.

Your best bet is to call EV concierge line and start a case number. Then the next person that will contact you will be able to tell you what your options are. This can take a few weeks.

Like you, my 2020 one-pay lease is due end of Jan. I started my process beginning of Aug and I think I will be done with my swap just in time (crossing fingers). Iā€™ve read cases of people getting the whole process done in 2 months, but donā€™t think that is normal. Most people on this forum are doing a ā€œtrade repurchaseā€ (or substitution of collateral (SOC) or ā€œMSRP swapā€ (donā€™t use this term with GM reps)). What is happening is you are giving up your old Bolt for any new GM car (most people are just swapping into a 2023 Bolt nowadays). The new carā€™s MSRP should be less than your old carā€™s MSRP if you donā€™t want to pay anything out of pocket. One benefit of doing a swap is GM has dropped the price of the Bolts significantly in 2022 and 2023. This means for the MSRP of my old 2020 Bolt LT, I can get into a maxed out 2023 Bolt Premier with no money out of pocket.

Everything on your lease contract stays the same, except the VIN is replaced with the new vehicle. So lease end date and residual value is the same. The main reason most people are doing this is because when your lease is up (or even before it is up), you can buy out your new 2023 Bolt for the residual value of your old Bolt (~$20k). If you wanted to you could immediately sell it for probably >$30k.

Iā€™m not sure what happens if you start this process and itā€™s not done before your lease ends. You should call GM Financial (not the EV concierge line) and see what options you have to extend your lease by 1-3 months.

There may be other compensation options if you donā€™t want to go with this route, but Iā€™m not familiar with them.

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Has anyone successfully done a swap in Michigan? I called and they told me that option was not available to me. My lease is also up in Jan 2023. Also, my dealership contact said GM met its EV quota so no tax credits until January.

This was an extremely helpful comment. Thanks for walking me through it. I called EV concierge, who pretty much just started the case process and gave me a case number. They did say that I should get a call in 3-4 business days, so given how tight things are, good chance I reach back out early next week if I havenā€™t heard anything by then.

So, a couple of follow up questions, possibly,

  1. In August, they still presented you with the option of a swap, or you had to bring it up to them? If they donā€™t bring it up (the next poster seems to say they didnā€™t for him/her), I assume I should bring it up, but not use the language ā€œsubstitution of collateralā€ or ā€œMSRP swap.ā€ Is there more standard language to use? (Iā€™ve never heard of this kind of swap before, tbh)
  2. If they say that itā€™s not an option anymore, do I have any recourse? can I point to examples of such a swap and complain, or am I largely at their mercy?
  3. I leased the car when I lived in California, but now I live on the east coast. The agent said that they would have a Cali agent contact me, since laws are different. long shot butā€¦any idea if thatā€™s relevant for me?

GM ran out of credits many years ago, even before you got your 2020 Bolt.

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I was just direct in saying I was looking to do a trade repurchase/substitution of collateral. I didnā€™t get much pushback. I think they deal based on each stateā€™s lemon laws, so maybe Michigan is different. Not sure how being in a different state now will change things.

One other thing you may have to deal with is finding a dealer that will host your swap. Iā€™m in CA and just picked one close to me that I knew other people successfully did swaps at. You can probably call nearby Chevy dealers and ask if they host swaps for Bolts, but if youā€™re in an area that doesnā€™t have a high EV presence they may not know what youā€™re talking about. I think you can also let the GM repurchase coordinator find a dealer for you, but that will take more time.

Thanks for this. Iā€™ll bet CA has the best lemon laws, which is why they referred me to a CA person. Since I acquired the lease in CA, I guess I can hope that Iā€™ll fall under CAā€™s jurisdiction, even if I registered it elsewhere.

Make sure you specifically use the magic words ā€œsubstitution of collateralā€. I asked for a lease swap and they told me it wasnā€™t possible. I requested the SOC in writing over email and that got the ball rolling

Awesome, thanks for the advice!

Just got off the phone with my case manager. Good news is they still gave me options: replace the vehicle, or they refund the lease payment (in both cases less usage). Bad news is that ultimately, the folks doing the refund/swap donā€™t really directly communicate to GM financial, so they had no advice on how to handle the lease date getting close.

Cpl more questions:

  1. Anyone have a rough sense for how much usage counts against you? I have 30k miles right now, prob another thousand before this is all done (my allowance is 36k on the lease). I think that basically means getting a refund is a total waste (which I didnā€™t think I wanted to do anyway)
  2. How do I help GM find dealers that will host the swap? Other posts seemed to indicate that people sped things up by finding the host dealership themselves (which the person I spoke to today indicated would be where the ā€œspecialistā€ lives that will work on the details of the deal, inspection/calculating numbers etc.). I called one yesterday, and the person I spoke to sounded pretty noncommittal, and wasnā€™t entirely clear about whether they had done this or not. More or less just said ā€œany dealer can do this. but its on GM to tell us to do this.ā€ Is there magic language I should use to initiate this? Anyone have any experience working with a dealer in the Philly area that did a good job with this (I can drive to DE or NJ easily enough)?

I believe usage fees donā€™t apply to leases (at least in CA), only purchases. You may get paperwork that mentions it as well in the mail, but I believe in final paperwork you wonā€™t get subtracted anything. I mean, the money you pay into a lease is basically the ā€œusage feeā€.

Anyone know if I order a redline base today how long is it taking for delivery, and if I will get it before end of the year?

Probably not, Chevyā€™s been taking about 3+ months mainly because of long transportation wait after being built.
Try to get inventory or inbound one.

Ask EV Concierge to search their records for dealers in your area that have hosted swaps.

Dealer called and said my order is arriving. Should I take this one that I ordered or theyā€™re offering to order me another one and I can take it after new year and get the new rebates. Thoughts?

The Doc fees is atrociously high. I see dealers charging $85 or $105 for leases I have done in the past (3 EV car leases in 8 years now). You can surely negotiate that Doc Fees.

Do you know the $4500 for cap reduction is what kind of discount you got? GM Loyalty or regional discount or GM supplier discount etc.? You may or may not get this $4500 in Jan, if it is higher that would be good if not then you will pay more. Also keep in mind the residual value you are getting of 62% (59 +3%) in this deal will go down as well in Jan, as residual values drop month over month. That in effect pushes your monthly cost higher.

So net, if you can negotiate a better number monthly payout, then I would suggest to go for it now.

I would try to find out the break up of the monthly fee of $328.65 was calculated.

Good luck, do let us know how it goes for you. Hope the above makes sense.

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