After climbing a steep driveway, brakes went to the floor when pulling out onto main road. Brakes would stop but continued to go to floor if 1) brakes were put on part of the way; release and then put on to stop again or 2) foot stayed on brake pedal upon stopping. It was not a sudden drop but a continuous movement of the pedal to the floor. Took to southtowne chevrolet in newnan, ga and after a couple of attempts to repair the brakes (replacing front brakes, etc) a forman rode with me and they ended up having to flush the hydraulic system to get the brakes to stop. Upon hearing of the recall on the malibus this morning, I felt like my cobalt might have also suffered a potential hazard in its hydraulic system.
Chevrolet Cobalt SS brake failure problems
12 of the 294 owner complaints about the Chevrolet Cobalt SS describe brake failure, most of them for the 2009 model year.
- owner complaints
- 12
- worst model year
- 2009
- typical mileage
- 19,183
Is there a fix? No recall or service bulletin covers this area of the car yet.
By model year
- 20099
- 20083
Often reported together
What owners say
Shortly after buying this car, the parking brake stopped working completely. The rear calipers have locked up and do not do anything when the handle is pulled up. This is a terrible design which causes, at best an inconvenient, and at worst, possibly dangerous situation as, for a car equipped with a manual transmission, there is no park to put the car in so I have to block the wheels when parking until I can get this problem fixed. The gm dealer said this is a common problem but there is no permanent fix. How can so many people have this problem but nothing is being done about it? What if I had parked on a hill and my car rolled down into another vehicle or a pedestrian?
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.
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.
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.
Bought my 09 cobalt ss tc sedan with 3500 miles on it. Rear rotors already had grooves at that mileage. My car is at 8700 miles now with both rear brake calipers having to be replaced along with deeper grooves in rear rotors and squeaking from the rear brakes. The failing rear brakes caused my emergency brake to fail. The emergency brake failed while on a hill and I walk outside to find my car under my girlfriends truck! (e-brake engaged and in reverse) this was fixed with the calipers being replaced, I still need to have my rotors worked as they are already to this point. I was fortunate to be parked on a not so steep of a hill, couldn't imagine someone in the same situation living in a hilly region. (lawsuit waiting to happen).
480 miles rotors replaced 1200 miles brakes bad again squealing and grinding I am in fear everytime I drive it of brake failure this should be brought to the attention of cnn and the bbb.
Everything was fine until about 6000 miles when I noticed slight brake noise coming from the rear brakes. I didnt notice the groves in the rotors until after I got stuck on interstate 465 in the snow because the back brakes were dragging. I know the back brakes were dragging because I had to put my car into first gear and push my own car with the door open. I know bad idea. I noticed that the rear tires didn't start rolling until they got to clean pavement. There was less than one inch of snow on the roads. It took me two hours to get home from work which is a fifteen minute drive normally. I had to wait a week for the snow to melt so I could drive my car to the dealership and they gave me a loner vehicle which I drove for over three weeks waiting for them to fix my car. They couldn't tell me what was wrong but they did replace the pads and rotors. This occured at roughly 10,000 miles. And 10,000 miles later the rotors were grooved again. So I went back to the dealership again this time they didn't want to fix the brakes but my uncle knows the owner of the dealership and he got them to fix it. I drove a loner again for a few weeks. And finally I took my car back to the dealership last week with 32,895 miles on it with the exact same problem. This time they said g.m. Won't cover the repair under warranty. They said the brakes failed due to being dirty. Lol ! I wash my car every week. I still have the defective parts on my car that I drive everyday. The brake noise is slowly getting worse. Almost forgot due to the rear brake issue my rims have discoloration from the heat. Not horrible but it shouldn't be like that.
Brakes failed, slid in the snow and hit the passenger rear rim against the curb. This even lead to the rim being replaced, along with the axle. After the car was fixed, I took the car back to the dealer where it was looked over too see if there were any manufacturer's defaults. Then I was told they could do nothing for me because they only had a 12 month/12,000 mi. Warranty, and my car was 17 months old and had 19,200 mi. I then replaced the rotors and pads around the entire car.
Brakes failed, slid in the snow and hit the passenger rear rim against the curb. This even lead to the rim being replaced, along with the axle. After the car was fixed, I took the car back to the dealer where it was looked over too see if there were any manufacturer's defaults. Then I was told they could do nothing for me because they only had a 12 month/12,000 mi. Warranty, and my car was 17 months old and had 19,200 mi., so I had to file a complaint with general motors. I then replaced the rotors and pads around the entire car, out of pocket.
Related recalls
No recalls on record for this model year.
Questions about the Chevrolet Cobalt SS brake failure
Which Chevrolet Cobalt SS years have brake failure problems?
The model years with the most reports are 2009 (9 complaints) and 2008 (3 complaints).
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