I purchased my 2009 chevrolet cobalt ss sedan a little over a year ago. Within the first several months, the emergency brake started to get extremely loose. It than completely stopped holding within 6 months and 40,000 total miles. After this incident, the rear brakes and rotors began to prematurely wear out extremely quickly. Since these are not covered under any warranty and dealerships refuse to fix the issue for free, it's very costly out of pocket for the repairs. I can't park anywhere near on or a hill, due to the emergency brake being completely broken. And the rear brakes and rotors need either repaired or resurfaced constantly every several thousand miles. My other major issue is with the TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) this has been giving me an error constantly for around 10,000 miles, on how it needs to be serviced. My car is garage kept with maintenance done on time, and well taken care of.
2009 Chevrolet Cobalt SS brakes complaints
Page 2 of 7: complaints 11 to 40 of 163, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Noticed parking brake not holding anymore. Then checked rear brakes and found rear passenger side inner brake pad (not the outer pad) completely worn out....all other pads on car have atleast 70% pad left. Never seen anything like this before with this low of mileage with not being driven in any winters. Hope there is a fix for this! May be proportion valve design problem?
Brake pads and rotors did not last. My brakes needed replacing way earlier than they should. It's a safety hazard.
The rear brakes failed on my car at around 28,000 miles. As soon as I got the new ones installed they still are terrible, I do not understand why there would be such brakes that fail so early and could cause harm to people. There needs to be a recall on these brakes, they are entirely too unsafe.
Tl* the contact owns a 2009 chevrolet cobalt ss turbo. The contact stated his rear brake pads were prematurely wearing out rapidly. The rotors and brake pad never made any noise alerting the contact there was something wrong. When the vehicle was being serviced the mechanic showed him how the rotors and brake pads were worn. The vehicle was repaired. The failure mileage was 31,000 and the current mileage was 40,000.
When braking softly, rear brakes make a loud noise and I've started to notice slightly uneven wear on one of the rear brake pads. Also occasionally while moving in reverse with foot brakes applied I can hear a very very loud sound slightly different and way louder then the sound when moving forward.
Rear brakes are dragging on the rotor and grinding at stops.
Within the first 15000 miles of my car the rear brakes failed. It was metal on metal. Reading the forums on cobalts ss I'm not the only one that had rear brake failure within 15000 miles. I do not race the car, and most of my miles are highway. I believe there may be a factory defect.
At 20,300 miles, the inner rear brake pads had worn completely down to the metal and scored the rotors to the point they had to be replaced. The dealership maintains this is normal wear. The front brakes were fine and the outer rear pads while worn, were still within acceptable limits. After seeing numerous complaints on the federal safety agency web site (144 out of 168 total complaints, or 86%) nearly identical to mine, this is clearly a glaring safety issue - 144 complaints for a low-volume 2-year old vehicle. I cannot understand why the federal safety agency has not initiated an investigation already. Perhaps they are waiting for fatalities caused by this obvious defect before taking action. Updated ivoq 12/01/11. Updated ivoq 01/05/12
I have a manual cobalt ss 2009 and the emergency brakes are not working. I have to have the emergency brake to park my car. I been having to rest my car in a gear so it will not go anywhere.
I bought a used 2009 cobalt ss. The car had 3200 miles on it. After bring the car home I found some pitting in the rear rotors. After driving the car to 3800 miles it had gotten beyond the point where the rotors could be turned. I took it in to the dealer and was told this is normal everything is fine. Not being born yesterday I know this is not the case. After fighting with the dealer for over an hour I left mad and with no fix for the problem. I have since replaced the rotors with drilled and slotted rotors, and ceramic pads but now it seem as if the rear calipers are not releasing all the way which is causing the car to make rather loud noises while drive. Once again no help from the dealership as they claim everything is normal and everything will be fine. This needs to be fixed as I know of at least a dozen people in my area with the same problem. I fear that if this is not corrected quickly some one may get hurt, or worse yet killed to parts failure.
The rear brakes failed on my vehicle. After taking it to a mechanic for inspection the rear brake calipers did not have lubrication on the sliding pins which resulted in the rotors failing and the brake pads being destroyed. My rear breaks no longer work. After researching online this is a defect on all 2008-2009 chevy cobalt ss models.
I have a 2009 chevy cobalt ss and my rear brakes have failed- at 15000 I brought the car to the dealership and they said its still within factory spec- at 26000 my rear brakes are completely shot and worn down to the metal and I had to replace my calipers as they were sticking- currently in the shop to get fixed, will see if this happens again.
The cobalt brakes have always made a screeching sound, which gm has addressed as being normal. Chevrolet #08-05-22-004: information on brake squeal/squeak noise - (jul 15, 2008)] however, I had to prematurely replace the rear brakes and have the rotors cut after only 27,039 miles, while the front brakes still had 50% life left. This is not a normal occurrence, since the front brakes should have worn out before the rear ones. While I was able to get 27,039 miles of wear, the fact that there is definitely a defect in the system means there is no guarantee that the condition will not worsen in time. There is also the chance that the system could fail completely causing a serious accident. Finally, the screeching sound is getting worse. This sound, along with the brake wear, will virtually reduce the value of the car considerably, making it nearly impossible to trade or sell, unless gm corrects this issue.
I brought my 2009 cobalt ss into the dealer for routine maintenance, 20k mileage check. It has a 5-speed manual transmission. They informed me that my rear rotors were scored badly possibly from the emergency brake being on while driving. The dealer informed me the surface was too far gone to turn them. I'm the only person that drives the car and I know I don't drive with the e-brake on, not even once. However, I do pull the e-brake when I park my car with the trans in gear. Let me say also I do not drive the car hard like racing or drifting. I did pull the tire and rotor from the left rear to find that the inner rotor surface was indeed scored badly within 3/4-inch of the outer rotor diameter. The outer rotor surface was clean and smooth. The outer brake pad looked like it had 2x the material left versus the inner pad. I did not pull the right side rotor yet. (my new brake rotor order got fouled up. Still waiting.) like many of the other people who have complained, my car has slightly over 21k miles on it so why should it need rear brakes so quickly? Most of the wear should be on the front brakes due to weight and momentum during braking. Something doesn't add up. Will it happen again with the new rotors?
My car has grooves because of sub par brake pads in rear and my rotors will have to be replaced due to cheap pads chewing deep grooves on a 09 cobalt ss with 20k. Fronts have ceramic pads so no wear at all. Mechanic said they used expensive ceramic up front and cheap semi metallic in back and now the only fix is new ceramic pads but the rotors are to far gone to be resurfaced. Cheap gm factory flaw which should require a recall to replace.
Rear brakes wear down to quickly.. I have had only 20,000 km on it and one day I was going to bring my kid into day care with it.. Put on the on hand brake.. And then my car started to roll back with my kid in it... Almost brand new car.. Who would of thought my brakes would have been already worn out.. My kid almost gotten to an accident because of this... Now an other thing.. We have to pay new pads every 20,000 km? That is just insane.. Again.. I see repetitive post on here with comments they have the inside pad worn out to the metal and the outside one to 70%.. I have never changed the front ones once yet.. And they are still at 65%.. Now where is the logic in all this??? Front ones should be more badly hurt then that.. Also the back brakes eats my rotors like crazy too.. Guess what more money... Arrrggg.. This is really a safety issue and I think a recall should be made on this.. Thank you for listening.
Rear brakes and rotors bad , severe groves in rotors .
Purchased the car new. At about 3,000 miles I noticed scoring on the rear brake rotors. After about 12,000 miles my emergency brake started failing to hold the car on even the slightest hill. At about 14,000 miles the rear brakes started to grind. At this point the brake pads needed to be replaced, and the rotors turned. Only the inside pads were worn completely down, the outside pads looked relatively good.
Brakes started squealing a few months after buying the car brand new. Now, about 1.5 years later, they are grinding an excessive amount and their performance has extremely decreased. I fear I will have to change entire rotors and pads to fix this problem out of my own pocket within the next month on good aftermarket parts since the factory can't produce good quality oem parts and general motors doesn't give a flying ****. I informed my local dealer of the problem and they shrugged me off, but only after wanting to charge me $60 to just look at them. I shouldn't have to pay for them to inspect brakes that are faulty in under 2 years, and 20,000 miles; and I also have an extended warranty that I paid for. Apparently, it's just mainly the rear brakes that are the issue with these cars, but every owner I know, who hasn't already replaced the brakes with aftermarket performance parts, have the exact same issue, and in some cases, much worse. If the brakes fail within the next month or two and an accident happens(quite possible since rust is appearing on one of my rear rims due to the rotors being scoured so excessively, I fear one of them may let go and snap completely off)before either a recall, or I put aftermarket products on, gm will be facing a lawsuit by yours truly; especially if serious injury occurs.
I have a 2009 chevy cobalt ss. I bought it in march 09. The very first couple of days, I had a cracked turbo cooler and had to have something else major replaced. Then after 24k miles, I had to have the rear brakes and rotors replaced. Now at 31k miles, my srv brake system light is coming on. What is going on with the brakes on my car???
Rear brakes on my 2009 chevy cobalt ss are [xxx]. Information redacted pursuant to the freedom of information act (foia), 5 u.s.c. 552(b)(6).
Tl*the contact owns a 2009 chevrolet cobalt ss. The contact stated that when trying to decelerate he noticed that the brakes would make a loud scraping noise. He then inspected his vehicle and noticed that the rear rotors were making the noise. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 3500.
Full rear brake replacement at 17k. Warranty only covered caliper replacement.
I last checked my brakes when I took off my snow tires in march with 18,000 miles on my car. Everything looked fine, front and rear pads looked almost new with plenty of meat on them. In july, I noticed that the rear brakes were starting to groove, so I mentioned this to the dealer when I went in for a recall and they resurfaced them for me (22,885 miles). I asked about the pads and they told me that they had looked at them and they were fine and everything looked normal. In october, I noticed the grooving coming back. I took it back to the dealer, and they charged me to replace the rear disks and pads at 29,170 miles (they did throw in the rotors for free due to the abnormal wear). After the service, they gave me the old rear pads as per my request. Upon receiving them, I couldn't help but notice that the inner rear pad, which had been wearing identically to the outer rear pads when I checked at 18,000 miles, were worn almost to the backing plate! The outer pads still had 1/4" material left, so it seemed clear that something was not right. The dealer could find no reason for this wear and stated that everything was normal besides the brake wear. It seems incredible that a front-heavy, front-drive car would wear through its inner rear brake pads while its front pads (which do most of the braking) and outer rear pads still have plenty of life left without there being some kind of problem. I still have the pads and also have pictures. I am concerned that if these pads wear down so quickly, I could be put in a situation where I unexpectedly have no e-brake and compromised braking ability despite frequent inspections. I am also concerned that gm is more interested in selling me parts than in diagnosing and correcting the root of the problem. I have heard from the both chevy dealers and other owners that this is a somewhat common problem with my car, and I would like to see it resolved. Thank you.
Rear brakes on a 2009 cobalt ss turbo score and grind within 10,000 miles. You have to put after market brakes on the car.
I purchased my 2009 chevy cobalt ss/tc in early june of 2010. It was a gm certified used car. When I inspected the car before purchasing I noticed that the brakes were heavily worn and I let the salesmen know about it. He told me that there was almost 70% left on the pads and everything checked out fine . So I did the dumbest thing I could do and took his word for it. After about 5 months and 4000 miles later my rear brakes start making a scraping noise while in reverse and while light braking around corners mostly out of the passenger side.. I took it in for maintenance expecting some kind of manufacturer defect but instead I'm accused of bad driving and letting my e-brake drag. The issue was that the rear calipers were sticking and not retracting properly and the pistons inside were bent causing uneven pad wear. Both sides moisture boots on the pistons looked like they were pinched and broken during the factory installation. So now here I am with a bill for almost $1000 dollars for rear pads, rotors and calipers and on a car that is just over 2 years old with almost 2 years on a factory bumper to bumper warranty. I'm sorry but the calipers to me are a mechanical defected part and should be covered under warranty.
I had extremely premature back brake wear on my 2009 cobalt ss turbocharged.
Rear brakes wore too quickly for a front wheel drive car that only have 10,000 miles on it.
Tl*the contact owns a 2009 chevrolet cobalt ss. The contact stated that while driving at highway speeds, the front and rear brakes pulsated when they were depressed and the steering wheel vibrated. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer who stated that there was nothing wrong. The vehicle had not been repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 16,000.
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