2005 CHEVROLET MALIBU — Complaint #867831
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about EXTERIOR LIGHTING:HEADLIGHTS:CONCEALMENT DEVICES filed July 18, 2011
NHTSA complaint #867831 (ODI reference 10413417) concerns a 2005 CHEVROLET MALIBU and was filed on July 18, 2011. The owner reports the failure occurred on July 20, 2010. The vehicle had 119,291 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Pennsylvania based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as exterior lighting:headlights:concealment devices, 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 exterior lighting:headlights:concealment devices 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 MALIBU shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
THE TURN SIGNAL BULB GETS TOO HOT AND MELTS THE ORANGE PLASTIC COVERING THE TURN SIGNAL BULB. I REPLACED THE HEADLAMP ASSEMBLIES BECAUSE THE ORANGE PLASTIC COVERINGS HAD HOLES MELTED INTO THEM, AND WERE UNREPAIRABLE. I ALSO REPLACED THE TURN SIGNAL BULB WITH THE BULB SPECIFIED IN TSB #06-08-42-004B WHICH SPECIFIES USE OF THE OSRAM 3157 LCP BULB, GM PART NUMBER 13502322. THIS DID NOT CORRECT THE PROBLEM, AND I AM SCHEDULED TO HAVE THE HEADLAMPS REPLACED AGAIN FOR A SECOND TIME, BECAUSE THE ORANGE PLASTIC COVERING THE TURN SIGNAL BULBS HAVE HOLES IN IT AGAIN. I FIRST HAD MY HEADLAMPS REPLACED ON 07/20/2010, AND TODAY IS 07/18/2011, SO IT HAS BEEN LESS THAN A YEAR AND THE PROBLEM IS REOCCURRING. *KB
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 867831 |
| ODI Number | 10413417 |
| Date Filed | July 18, 2011 |
| Failure Date | July 20, 2010 |
| VIN | 1G1ZU54885F |
Similar EXTERIOR LIGHTING:HEADLIGHTS:CONCEALMENT DEVICES Complaints for 2005 CHEVROLET MALIBU
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.