The theft system automatically engages randomly when ignition is attempted. Reset with key in on position for approximately 10 minutes is the only way to get the car to start. Can happen multiple times per day, regardless of weather or parking conditions. Replaced ignition in 2013 and computer in 2011 with no change in issue to a detriment of over $1,000.00. Occasionally pressing gas when ignition first catches will route the issue, but not always. Theft light also now stays on regardless of a successful first start or not. Needless to say, it is frustrating to have this happen when you need to get on the road for work or even an emergency!
2004 Chevrolet Malibu electrical complaints
Page 4 of 6: complaints 71 to 100 of 151, newest first, as owners wrote them.
My car has had interior electrical problems since the day that I bought. I have had things like the cd deck and the brakes and alloy rims fixed after having problems with them however I have had the front left blinker fail to work and then an hour later it works, the next hour does not work. The interior lighting all stopped working and the dealership says that it is electrical, at the same time that the lights stopped working I started to be unable to shift my car from low into 1 or 2. I have had my power steering go out multiple times and then after pulling over, shutting off my car and turning it back on it worked again. I have almost go into an accident multiple times because the front left blinker stops working mid drive, or the power steering stops working. This car clearly has multiple electrical problems that should be recalled and fixed because they are very dangerous.
2004 chevrolet malibu. Consumer writes in regards to vehicle electrical system issues. *smd the consumer stated occasionally, he would experience a weak crank when trying to start the vehicle, as if the battery was failing. After turning the vehicle off, and waiting 15 seconds, he would attempt to start the vehicle again. It would crank, but not fire as if it were flooded. The dealer inspected the electrical system and found nothing wrong. The consumer continued to experience the problem.
Through the years we have had off and on episodes of the car not starting even when we had a good battery and in the middle of driving the power steering giving out. We finally took the vehicle to a mechanic after being advised to replace the battery. The mechanic, gm dealer, advised we need a whole new steering column, this was 6-25-13. In less then a year the car continues to not start and today the power steering again went out on my 15 year old son as he was driving home. We have left e-mails with chevrolet with no return. The last aforementioned gm dealer said that we would get a call about the recall on the steering but appears there is no recall on the ignition, despite several news articles saying there was. We are now out of a vehicle due gm not responding.
This is the 5th time this had happened with my 2004 malibu, but the scariest. Similar to the other times,but this time on a curve. I heard a chime& "power steering" appeared in the message box. My car veered to the ieft into traffic and I could barely steer it. It took all my 66 yea old strength to turn the wheel & get into my lane. I pulled off asap & turned car off in a safe location. Shaking for 15 min. I don't understand why this car is safe to drive. It does not revert to manual steering. The ceo is lying. I have owned manual steering cars and this does not steer that way. I am afraid to drive it it has also stalled with numerous lights coming on. Abs, engine, and one I think is another steering light, yellow with a line through it. Why aren't they pulled?cruise control comes on by itself & won't shut off.
I got in my car and tried to crank it and it made a clicking noise. It took hours before it started, on another incident; several times I couldn't shift my car from park. My power steering light came on and when I was coming to a stop at a light the car list control serving left to right until I came to a complete stop. I always have to gas the car to get gas to the engine for the car to start. When I took it to the dealer he said that it was a recall problem and he's had several customers with my car come to him with the same problem. When I looked up the recall I noticed that my car was having the same issues as reported.
My battery light came on this morning and I came home from lunch tried making a left turn onto a street and my steering wheel locked on me. I couldn't turn my car, now my car won't even start. I barely made it home, thank god because I almost crashed into my neighbors house from my steering wheel locking.
While driving my battery light will flash on and chirp and my steering wheel sort of locks up, the display on my radio says power steering and the wrench light lights up on the panel. It is quite scary considering I have young children in my car about 95% of the time. I have been very close to crashing into other cars more than once. I would love to get rid of this car but am afraid this will happen to the next person and it could be fatal.
As I was driving down the highway all of a sudden my steering wheel locked. Then my power steering light came on. So lucky I was on a straight away. I pulled over and shut the car off and turned it back on and was back to normal.
Fuel gauge stopped working , would not indicate fuel level.
While driving around a corner the engine shut off, the key was not turned to the off position. I was able to glide the car to a parking lot, turned the key to the off position, let the car sit for a few minutes, turned it back on and continued driving.
Tl* the contact owns a 2004 chevrolet malibu. The contact stated that the day after purchasing her vehicle it would not start. The vehicle was taken back to the dealership where they diagnosed that the wiring was not connected. The contact experienced multiple electrical issues with the vehicle since the failure was diagnosed. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was unknown and the current mileage was 282,456.
I was driving the car through an intersection approaching the ramp onto the interstate. I lost steering control for about 2 seconds, just missing the guard-rail and having an accident. The next morning, there was a recall for the 2004 malibu. I contacted the dealership for a loaner car, only to be told the car VIN number is not an approved model for the recall. I need to know why it is not if it is having the same issues. I have reported to this site at least twice about issues with this car.
Front turning signals or running lights get very hot and melt through the amber lens that the bulb sits in. These bulbs burn out quite often, which have created some near misses while making turns because the bulbs would burn out without notice. This is a very common problem on all the 04 and 05 malibu. I have contacted the chevy dealers and the deny and knowledge of the problem, but there many complaints of this online. Every malibu of these years have the same problem.
Tl* the contact owns a 2004 chevrolet malibu. The contact stated that after turning the engine off, he was unable to remove the key from the ignition switch. The defect had occurred several times. The vehicle was diagnosed by the dealer and the ignition switch was replaced. The manufacturer was not notified of the defect. The failure mileage was 11,000.
Randomly while driving down the road my power steering has gone out multiple times. I listed the most recent date. Now they say it will cost around 1000 to fix. If multiple people have complained about this shouldn't their be a recall? If the roads were icy I could've crashed and killed someone.
I was driving my vehicle and all of a sudden my door locks started to go up and down. Than after that the doors would just start to lock and unlock on their own. Now none of the locks on the door work and the alarm goes off everytime I open the door from the outside and when I'm inside the car I get locked in my car.
Theft system light came on for 2004 chevy malibu classic. Car would not start. Had to have it towed to sport chevrolet. Google search revealed theft passlock system complaints on chevy cars I was charged $634.84 plus tax, sport chevrolet in silver spring md to replace the ignition lock cylinder, wiring and connector. 2 days later the same thing happened. The issue was resolved by leaving the key in acc for 10 minutes thus resetting theft system. Why was I charged $600 for a defect?
Car would not start because the anti-theft system was activated for no reason. Was able to start it by leaving the ignition switch in the on position for 10 min. There have been many many complaints about this issue.
On two occasions the car would not crank the anti theft light will blink. Had to get someone to start it up by waiting on the light to stop blinking, which is time consuming and costly .something has to be done about this. There is a lot of complaints on this matter. Something has to be done.!!!
We bought the car used with 34,000 miles on it in 3/2006.there was a clunking in the steering when the steering wheel was turned. The dealership replaced the steering column on 12/2007 with 66,000 miles. The clunking was still there and we were told that this is normal. Since then the steering has gotten worse. The dealership has tried to find the problem but says it can find nothing wrong. Yet sometimes the steering will lockup at low speed when backing up or turning while stopped. It has not done this while driving at road speed (or I would not drive it). However at road speed the steering is very vague. It requires an almost quarter turn of the steering wheel to get the car to respond to a steering input to turn left or right. This is not safe. There is also warning lights that come on the dash, and warning bells that sound, and sometimes they go back off other times car needs to shut off and restarted and it is ok then. Check engine light stays on most of the time, again dealership can not find the problem. Sometimes the whole dash cluster goes out, the car stays running and they come back on after a time and again if you cut off and restart the car it is ok again for a while. The car currently has 150,000 on it and I have an independent mechanic checking it over to see if he can find the problem. The chevrolet dealership can't find what is wrong to fix it, or so they say.
While pulling out of a business parking lot with my mother in the vehicle, I turned the steering wheel to back out and it wouldn't turn at first. I cut the car off and restarted it once again, this tie the steering wheel turned for about half a turn and the just kept on turning with a knock every full rotation. The wheels were not moving at all.no matter how many times I restarted the car it never worked. So I was forced to block half of the parking lot until my car was flat-bedded back to my house. Previous to this incident I had experienced the wheel stiffen up at low speeds but it always went right away, I have seen countless people online posting stories about this happening to them, and I was just driving on the freeway minutes earlier and this could've happened then and been a tragedy, why has this not been recalled?????
Sometimes you can't take your keys out of the ignition after putting it in park. I have to shift it back to reverse and then back in park for it to let the ignition switch to turn all the way off so I can remove my keys.
While on my way home, driving north on I-95 near washington, dc, I experienced lots of electrical problems (noise and grabbing to the left in the steering column, repeated bulb and light unity failures) then suddenly, a total loss of power steering. I became so scared while needing both hands to manage in heavy traffic traveling at an average of 65mph that I immediately threw a lit cigarette out the window in a desperate effort to control the vehicle. The steering wheel is almost impossibly difficult to steer. I was unaware that it had blown behind my back onto the driver?s seat until it burnt me, my shirt and the seat. It is by the grace of god that I didn?t have a fatal accident. It is probably needless to say that I continue to experience back pain. A disaster is waiting to happen! The fact is that sometimes while driving the power steering will start working again as quickly as it went out. Consider that I could be turning the wheel as hard as I can and at that second the power returns to send me spinning. Keep in mind that this is occurring more frequently everyday. Sometimes it does stop when the car is turned off and sometimes it does not. With regard to the brakes they make a loud and grinding sound when I lift off of them.
While driving down the road the vehicle just randomly shut off theft light came on as if I was stealing my own car had to wait 10 mins with ignition on to reset the theft system when looking online this is a known issue most of the time it is when starting but for me I was driving this is a serious concern for me.
Driving down the road when the radio panel started blinking with power steering. I then lost my power steering and my car began to shake this failure occurs without any warning and sometimes the power steering light will illuminate and it will show in the radio panel. As a woman, driving without power steering was extremely difficult. This is not the first time this happened to me it has happened several times and thankfully I was able to avoid an accident. I took the car to the dealer, and after running diagnostics, they told me that the 2004 malibu's have electronic power steering, and that there is an issue with the power steering motor and that it overheats, causing loss of power steering. The car seat belts are froze and the hazard light button fell inside its hole and the headlight covers don't allow the lights to fully illuminate . This car should have been recalled because it poses life threatening issues. My research shows a high volume of complaints on this 2004 model but the 2005's and above were recalled, I also collected statements from factory workers who left their personal info on the internet and I found this : during my employment contract with delphi automotive (delphi saginaw steering system, 3900 e. Holland ave., saginaw, michigan 48601), I was instructed to conduct a screw "strip-out" study on the electric motor/controller assembly of the electric power steering (eps) system of the general motor's epsilon platform (my 2003.5 - 2006 malibu). This study was conducted in may of 2004 at delphi's plant 1, assembly. The study included ten production motor and ten production controller assemblies that were assembled on the production equipment and process(es). The controller is attached to motor by three m 5.0x 0.8 screws. The result of that study concluded that four of the ten motor/controller assemblies had at least one of the screws fully strip
In july 2011 the power steering went out. About a week later it started going out while driving. Had the steering column, and racket and pinion replaced, and the then the radio stopped playing cds, and the seat belt light constantly stays on even if you have the seat belt on.
I was driving about 45 miles when the car cut off with no warning,when the car came to a complete stop I was able to restart the car .this has happened 7 different times . My son thought I needed a tune up, I took the car to the dealer,I was told it was electrical but didn't know what was causing it.
Since purchasing the vehicle (used), there have been more than 12 instances where the car cuts out while driving. This has occurred at speeds as high as 55 MPH. There is a total loss of power and the car must be brought to a rolling stop outside of the traffic flow. Also, there have been weekly instances of the car failing to start. This has since increased to daily. The key will only start the ignition when the dash lights (battery, oil, etc) are on, and they are on and off completely at random. Sometimes I have to wait up to 10 minutes with the key partially turned before the lights come on and I can turn it the rest of the way and start the car. The other electrical issue that has happened is that the blower fan has gone on and off and the power windows have gone on and off.
My anti-theft system activates and leaves me and my one year old child stranded in florida heat.
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