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2017 CHEVROLET MALIBU — Complaint #1558331

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NHTSA Complaint about ENGINE filed April 16, 2019

NHTSA complaint #1558331 (ODI reference 11196641) concerns a 2017 CHEVROLET MALIBU and was filed on April 16, 2019. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 12, 2019. The vehicle had 25,865 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 engine, 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. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.

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 engine 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 2017 CHEVROLET MALIBU shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2017 CHEVROLET MALIBU
Component
ENGINE
State
Illinois
Mileage
25,865 mi

Complaint Description

I WAS DRIVING ON AN EXPRESSWAY WHEN THE CHECK ENGINE LIGHT CAME ON AND THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE: "REDUCED ENGINE POWER." THE ENGINE POWER WAS CUT TO APPROXIMATELY 30 MPH WHICH WAS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS ON AN EXPRESSWAY AND I DID NOT KNOW WHAT WAS HAPPENING. I WAS BARELY ABLE TO EXIT THE HIGHWAY WITHOUT INCIDENT AND TOOK THE VEHICLE TO A CHEVY DEALERSHIP. I WAS TOLD TO CUT THE ENGINE AND OPEN/CLOSE THE DRIVER'S SIDE DOOR BEFORE RESTARTING THE VEHICLE. THIS ALLOWED THE VEHICLE TO REGAIN ENGINE POWER BUT THE CHECK ENGINE LIGHT REMAINED ON. ACCORDING TO THIS DEALERSHIP AND THE DEALERSHIP THAT ULTIMATELY FIXED THE CAR, THIS IS A COMMON PROBLEM WITH THE CHEVY MALIBU THAT NEEDS TO BE RECALLED. A BRIEF INTERNET SEARCH CONFIRMS THIS IS AN ONGOING PROBLEM WITH THE MALIBU THAT GM HAS YET TO APPROPRIATELY FIX. ALTHOUGH MY VEHICLE WAS FIXED, IT IS A TEMPORARY SOLUTION AT BEST. FURTHERMORE, OTHER DRIVERS HAVE REPORTED SCARY INCIDENTS WHEN THEY WERE DRIVING ON AN EXPRESSWAY AND SUDDENLY LOST ENGIN

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 1558331
ODI Number 11196641
Date Filed April 16, 2019
Failure Date April 12, 2019
VIN 1G1ZB5ST1HF

Similar ENGINE Complaints for 2017 CHEVROLET MALIBU

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