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2012 CHEVROLET MALIBU — Complaint #1739845

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NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRONIC STABILITY CONTROL (ESC) filed April 9, 2021

NHTSA complaint #1739845 (ODI reference 11407208) concerns a 2012 CHEVROLET MALIBU and was filed on April 9, 2021. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 8, 2021. The vehicle had 68,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Michigan 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 2012 CHEVROLET MALIBU shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2012 CHEVROLET MALIBU
Component
ELECTRONIC STABILITY CONTROL (ESC)
State
Michigan
Mileage
68,000 mi

Complaint Description

TL* THE CONTACT OWNS A 2012 CHEVROLET MALIBU. THE CONTACT STATED WHILE DRIVING 35 MPH, THE VEHICLE STALLED WITHOUT WARNING, THE VEHICLE WAS UNABLE TO BE RESTARTED. THE CONTACT STATED THAT THE SERVICE ESC WARNING LIGHT WAS ILLUMINATED. THE VEHICLE WAS TAKEN TO SUBURBAN CHEVROLET CADILLAC COLLISION OF ANN ARBOR (3515 JACKSON RD STE B, ANN ARBOR, MI 48103, (734) 663-3321) WHERE IT WAS DIAGNOSED WITH NEEDING BATTERY, AND NEGATIVE BATTERY TERMINAL TO BE REPLACED. THE VEHICLE WAS REPAIRED HOWEVER, THE FAILURE PERSISTED. THE MANUFACTURER WAS NOT INFORMED OF THE FAILURE. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS APPROXIMATELY 66,017.*DT THE CONSUMER STATED THE VEHICLE WOULD SLOW DOWN WITH A LOSS OF POWER STEERING AND ELECTRICAL ISSUES AND SPUTTERING ENGINE. THE THROTTLE BODY WAS REPLACED TWICE AND WAS RECOMMENDED TO BE REPLACED THIRD TIME.

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 1739845
ODI Number 11407208
Date Filed April 9, 2021
Failure Date April 8, 2021
VIN 1G1ZC5E08CF

Similar ELECTRONIC STABILITY CONTROL (ESC) Complaints for 2012 CHEVROLET MALIBU

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