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2009 CHEVROLET MALIBU — Complaint #1558272

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NHTSA Complaint about EXTERIOR LIGHTING filed April 15, 2019

NHTSA complaint #1558272 (ODI reference 11196597) concerns a 2009 CHEVROLET MALIBU and was filed on April 15, 2019. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 15, 2019. The vehicle had 146,714 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Illinois based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as exterior lighting, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.

The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. No VIN was supplied by the filer, so this complaint contributes to model-year trend data but cannot be tied to a specific vehicle.

Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same CHEVROLET MALIBU cohort independently describe similar exterior lighting failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2009 CHEVROLET MALIBU shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2009 CHEVROLET MALIBU
Component
EXTERIOR LIGHTING
State
Illinois
Mileage
146,714 mi

Complaint Description

STEERING WHEEL LOCKS UP IN COLD WEATHER EVEN AFTER BEING WARMED UP FOR MORE THAN 5 MINUTES. HAPPENED TWICE, SECOND TIME I DID A NORMAL TURN TO THE RIGHT IT LOCKED UP AND HAD TO PULL OVER RIGHT AWAY. ALWAYS UNLOCKS WHEN RESTARTING THE CAR. RIGHT HEADLIGHT ALSO DOESN'T PROPERLY WORK. CHANGED THE LIGHT BULB TWO WEEKS AGO AND TURNED OFF JUST TODAY. CHECKED THE BULB AND STILL WORKS. I'VE RESEARCHED THE PROBLEMS ONLINE AND THERE'S BEEN RECALLS AND COMPLAINTS ABOUT BOTH OF MY PROBLEMS.

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 1558272
ODI Number 11196597
Date Filed April 15, 2019
Failure Date April 15, 2019

Similar EXTERIOR LIGHTING Complaints for 2009 CHEVROLET MALIBU

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.