2005 CHEVROLET CAVALIER — Complaint #634996
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about EXTERIOR LIGHTING:TAIL LIGHTS:SWITCH filed August 18, 2007
NHTSA complaint #634996 (ODI reference 10200032) concerns a 2005 CHEVROLET CAVALIER and was filed on August 18, 2007. The owner reports the failure occurred on July 25, 2007. The vehicle had 28,500 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to California based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as exterior lighting:tail lights:switch, 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 CAVALIER cohort independently describe similar exterior lighting:tail lights:switch 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 2005 CHEVROLET CAVALIER shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
I SAW THAT MY REVERSE TAIL LIGHTS WERE NOT LIGHTING UP WHEN I PUT THE CAR IN REVERSE. I TOOK IT TO THE DEALER WHERE I BOUGHT THE CAR MICHAEL AUTOMOTIVE IN FRESNO CA AND THEY TOLD ME I WOULD HAVE TO PAY THEM $110 TO HAVE IT DIAGNOSED EVEN THOUGH MY CAR HAS LESS THEN 30,000 MILES ON IT AND BOUGHT IT BRAND NEW LESS THEN 2 YEARS AGO. DUE TO THE FACT THAT IT WAS IN A MINOR FENDER BENDER. I TOLD THEM IT WAS NOT EVEN REAR-ENDED AND IT COULD NOT BE THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM AND THEY INSISTED IT MIGHT BE AND TO PAY THEM. I TOOK IT TO AN INDEPENDENT ELECTRICAL SHOP AND THEY CONCLUDED THAT IT WAS A SWITCH BOARD UNDER THE DASH AND IN NO WAY COULD HAVE BEEN HURT DUE TO A MINOR WRECK. I TOLD THE DEALER THIS AND HE STILL REFUSE TO FIX IT UNDER MY WARRANTY. I HAD THE REPAIR DONE AT AN INDEPENDENT SHOP, AND NOW CHEV. WILL NOT REIMBURSE ME FOR THE WORK, BECAUSE THEY TOLD ME NOT HAVING THOSE LIGHTS "IS NOT A SAFETY CONCERN" I THINK VERY MUCH OTHERWISE AND EVERY LIGHT ON A CAR THAT TELLS OTHER DRIVERS MY
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 634996 |
| ODI Number | 10200032 |
| Date Filed | August 18, 2007 |
| Failure Date | July 25, 2007 |
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.