I was reended sitting at a stop light. About the same time that happened, my door locks started acting up. I've never been able to lock the doors on the inside of the car, before getting out. I've always had to use my key fob. I have googled the issue, and according to what I have found, for all 4 doors it will cost around 1600 dollars to fix. I think this should be a recall, simply because I've had to have people crawl over seats just to get out because the doors wouldn't unlock. If it sits out in the sun, they will either lock and wont unlock, or they wont lock at all. Is this not a safety issue? Someone being locked in their car????
2009 Chevrolet Malibu body complaints
Page 2 of 2: complaints 11 to 31 of 31, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Attempted to unlock passenger doors from driver door panel switch when the driver rear door lock failed to open. This occurred intermittently until it completely failed about 3 months later in which time the other doors began having the same issue progressing clockwise around the vehicle. If door lock-unlock is cycled more than twice, 3 (non-driver) doors fail about 95% of the time. This failure occurs both when the door is locked and unlocked. Ref: cfr 571.206 s4.3.1
Tl* the contact owns a 2009 chevrolet malibu. While parked, the contact stated that the exterior and interior front driver side doors failed to open. The contact had to enter and exit the vehicle through the passenger side door. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified. The failure mileage was 34,622. Ma 08/06/15 updated 8/14/15
Rear door locks just quit working, doesn't work with key fob or inside switch.
Door would not open. Tried every means to open door. Passenger had to climb over center console and in doing so injured knee.
My daughter rear ended another vehicle, hard enough for her passenger to hit her head on the dashboard and do a lot of damage to the front end of the car, no one was injured other than her hitting her head pretty hard. However, the air bags did not deploy.
Tl* the contact owns a 2009 chevrolet malibu. The contact stated that water was leaking into the rear passenger side of the vehicle. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified. The failure mileage was 130,000.
Suddenly the door locks on the drivers side of the vehicle, front and back, began working intermittently.the remote key fob does not work, and the manual button to lock and unlock the doors does not always work. The locks only partially lock, resulting in the doors being able to be partially pulled open from the outside. Sometimes the two locks on the drivers side do not lock at all. Also, the electric windows started malfunctioning - the passenger window cannot be raised and lowered from the drivers side. This appears similar to a recall in the news covering door lock malfunctions in other gm vehicles, but the 2009 malibu is not included in the recall as far as I can tell.
Rear passenger side door does not unlock unless manually unlocked. Vehicle was sold to me used by cadillac west of las vegas. Upon selling of the vehicle, I was told this was a malfunction and the dealership would fix this. Tried calling once and they refused to do so, saying it was gm's issue. Figured they just sold it "as is", wasn't aware that this was so common.
I was traveling wb ih-30 west of e. Grand ave in the hov lane. A car was stopped in front of me due to heavy traffic. I was coming to a stop. A truck rear ended me due coming into the hov lane very fast, made contact with me from behind knocking me into the car in front of me. When the truck hit me, he smashed the whole back end forcing the back windshield to break and my face hit the steering wheel causing severe bruising around my left eye. My air bags did not deploy when the truck crashed into me.
The driver's side door latch failed to open. Neither the inside nor outside handles worked. There was no accident, abuse or indication of imminent failure. It was extremely difficult to exit the vehicle; my daughter needed to crawl across the console. Would be even more difficult (perhaps impossible) in an emergency situation. I searched the chevrolet owner forums on the internet and found many people with the same problem going back years. Dealer service personnel knew of the problem; offered to waive usual $108 diagnostic fee for repair. Chevrolet customer assistance agreed to pay $37 towards necessary correction if I paid the first $200.
The door lock actuator on both rear doors fail to unlock the door. Apparently this is very common in 2008 and 2009 malibu's. Considering that my children (as I am sure many others), it is unsafe to have vehicles doors unlock from the outside. Further, given the placement of the physical nobs (in the far rear) it is impractical to allow someone in the front seat unlock the rear doors quickly.
I've had this terrible smell in the car so I went exploring to see what it could be. I opened the trunks and noticed some mold so I lifted the liner and my wheel well was filled up with water. After some more exploration, I found the floorboard in the back seat to be sopping wet.
I was driving to work april 10th & I was side swipe by an 18 wheeler dump truck starting on my driver side passenger door. My front end was hit by the nose of the dump truck, I was spun 180 degrees slammed into a school bus to which the truck squashed me up against the bus dragged me up the q bridge leaving me there with no air bags deployed or onstar alert! My concern is I have front & side airbags & I am not sure why none of them went off. My car was towed away & I was unable to drive it away & is now totaled!
Tl* the contact owns a 2009 chevrolet malibu. The contact stated that the driver's side door could not be opened. The contact had to pull the door handle several times in before it would open. The vehicle was not taken to the dealer for inspection. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified but provided no assistance. The failure mileage was 54,000. The VIN was unavailable.
We've had problems where the doors at times will not open at all. Not only would we try to unlock with the push button, but we would try with the key. This happened on several occasions & we haven't had the car for a full year yet. We would have to climb through the back to get out. We had instances with both of the front doors. It's a concern because anything could be going on (car on fire, leaking gas, etc) & if we need to get out the car quickly & the doors will not open every time, then we're in trouble.
Tl* the contact owns a 2009 chevrolet malibu. The contact stated that when the sun would shine on the chrome interior of the vehicle, the contact would become blinded by the reflection and glare. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where they advised him that there were no repairs that could have been made to stop the glare of the chrome. The dealer advised that they were unable to modify the actual design of the vehicle. The manufacturer was contacted and they offered no assistance. The failure mileage was approximately 50. Updated 02/03/12 updated 02/22/12*lj updated 03/01/12
Tl* the contact owns a 2009 chevrolet malibu. The contact stated that the driver side door failed and could not be opened automatically or manually. The failure was experienced several times. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where the dealer lubricated the door, but the failure was not corrected. The manufacturer advised the contact to take the vehicle back to the dealer to be diagnosed. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was 44,000 and the current mileage was 68,858.
Condensed water from my cars air condition is draining inside the vehicle and accumulates behind the right passengers seat on the floorboard. I have notice it when the water was about 1 inches high. After cleaning the drain pipe, which is very hard to get to and $150.00 later, the problem is solved for a day. I feel that the system is not engineered correctly and is allowing mold, mildew, and algae to grow in my car. Driver and passenger are breathing contaminated air in a closed in environment.
Vehicle remote failure after use. According to the dealer the remote fails because the solder connection deteriorates.
Tl*the contact owns a 2009 chevrolet malibu. While driving, the glare from the dash displayed onto the windshield. As a result, visibility was greatly reduced. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer for inspection; however, they stated that there was no remedy. The failure and current mileages were 250. Updated 12-04-08 *bf updated 12/10/08.
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