2018 CHEVROLET MALIBU — Complaint #1662130
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SUSPENSION:REAR:SHOCK ABSORBER filed May 8, 2020
NHTSA complaint #1662130 (ODI reference 11323831) concerns a 2018 CHEVROLET MALIBU and was filed on May 8, 2020. The owner reports the failure occurred on March 8, 2020. The vehicle had 67,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Virginia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as suspension:rear:shock absorber, 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 suspension:rear:shock absorber 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 2018 CHEVROLET MALIBU shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
TL* THE CONTACT OWNS A 2018 CHEVROLET MALIBU. THE CONTACT STATED THAT WHILE DRIVING AT A LOW SPEED, AN UNUSUAL SOUND WAS HEARD COMING FROM THE REAR OF THE VEHICLE. THE VEHICLE WAS TAKEN TO AN UNKNOWN CHEVROLET DEALER, LOCATED IN CHESTER, VA, WHERE IT WAS DIAGNOSED THAT THE SHOCKS NEEDED TO BE REPLACED. THE VEHICLE WAS TAKEN TO ANOTHER INDEPENDENT MECHANIC WHO STATED THAT IT WAS NOT NECESSARY TO HAVE THE SHOCKS REPLACED. THE MANUFACTURE WAS NOT MADE AWARE OF THE FAILURE. THE VEHICLE WAS NOT REPAIRED. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS APPROXIMATELY 67,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1662130 |
| ODI Number | 11323831 |
| Date Filed | May 8, 2020 |
| Failure Date | March 8, 2020 |
| VIN | 1G1ZD5ST3JF |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.