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2009 CHEVROLET MALIBU — Complaint #1699847

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NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRONIC STABILITY CONTROL (ESC) filed October 15, 2020

NHTSA complaint #1699847 (ODI reference 11364504) concerns a 2009 CHEVROLET MALIBU and was filed on October 15, 2020. The owner reports the failure occurred on October 15, 2020. The vehicle had 175,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Ohio based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as electronic stability control (esc), 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 electronic stability control (esc) 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
ELECTRONIC STABILITY CONTROL (ESC)
State
Ohio
Mileage
175,000 mi

Complaint Description

DRIVING AT ABOUT 60 MPH ON A STRAIGHT AWAY, CAR LOST POWER STEERING AND SENSOR LIGHT SERVICE ESC/POWER STEERING STARTED FLASHING. THE STEERING FELT NO DIFFERENT PRIOR TO LOSING, NO NOISES. DROVE IT THIS WAY UNTIL I REACHED MY DESTINATION ABOUT 4 MILES AWAY. CAR SAT FOR 4 HOURS, TURNED IT BACK ON AND HAD REGAINED ALL STEERING AND NO WARNING LIGHTS CAME BACK ON. I HAVE NOTICED THAT FOR ABOUT THE PAST 4 YEARS, DURING THE COLDER MONTHS, THE SERVICE ESC/SERVICE TRACTION NOTIFICATION WILL RANDOMLY POP ON FOR NO OTHER REASON THEN THE COLD AND I LOSE TIRE TRACTION. PRETTY POSITIVE THIS IS WHAT CAUSED ME TO SLIDE OFF THE ROAD 2 YEARS AGO. WHENEVER I HAVE TAKEN IT TO DEALERSHIP FOR ANALYSIS, THEY CLAIM THEY CAN'T FIND ANYTHING WRONG, BECAUSE THE LIGHT POPS OFF AS QUICK AS IT COMES ON. I HAVE ALSO SPECIFICALLY ASKED ABOUT AND LOOKED UP A RECALL FOR THIS, AND WHEN MY VIN IS ENTERED IT SHOWS THAT IT IS NOT NEEDED. I FOUND THE RECALL FROM 2014 FOR THE POWER STEERING ISSUE, SO EITHER THE PRIOR OWNER

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 1699847
ODI Number 11364504
Date Filed October 15, 2020
Failure Date October 15, 2020
VIN 1G1ZH57B494

Similar ELECTRONIC STABILITY CONTROL (ESC) Complaints for 2009 CHEVROLET MALIBU

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