AtWhatMileage
Glass · 6 owner reports

Other visibility problem on the 2005 Chevrolet Cavalier

Only 5 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 6
With an odometer reading 5
Reports per 1,000 built 102 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 0%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $150–$1,400
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 11th

When other visibility problem gets reported

There are 6 reports of other visibility problem on the 2005 Chevrolet Cavalier, 5 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 75,000 miles. It is the 11th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 5 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 98,000 miles — —

Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.

What a percentile can and cannot tell you here

These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.

What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.

Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.

What happens, and what it costs

Putting it right typically runs $150–$1,400 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2002, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 2001 at 130,000 miles.

By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 21; the 2005 has 6. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.

If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.

Median
  1. 1996 Chevrolet Cavalier other visibility problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier other visibility problem 73k
  3. 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier other visibility problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  4. 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier other visibility problem 37k
  5. 2000 Chevrolet Cavalier other visibility problem 60k
  6. 2001 Chevrolet Cavalier other visibility problem 130k
  7. 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier other visibility problem 21k
  8. 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier other visibility problem 50k
  9. 2004 Chevrolet Cavalier other visibility problem 48k
  10. 2005 (this one) 98k

Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

2005 chevrolet cavalier ls coupe, power window failure, sometimes will not operate, will not open or close . At this time, the right window is open in the down position cannot close, electric motor will not operate. *jb

53,353 miles NHTSA complaint 634226 filed 2007-08-13

1st issue was the speedometer started malfunctioning off & on. It shows going much faster than car really is going. Doesn't happen all the time. 2nd issue was warning light which a station told me that the code is for a malfunction in the fuel line, it shows a major leak, but repairmen could find no real leak. Warning light does go off & on, so not on all the time. 3rd issue was off & on the front driver & passenger windows start rolling down or up and then just quit, but start working again after shutting off engine a couple times. 4th issue was the RPM meter started doing what the speedometer had been doing. 5th issue is the passenger side wiper stopped working. That's the only one that hasn't "fixed" itself. All the others are off & on working or not working. The wiper was the latest incident with all of them starting in the past 6 months. *tr

148,000 miles NHTSA complaint 956682 filed 2013-01-07

The front passenger side electric window does not work will not roll down will not roll up. The rear-driver-side electric window does not work will not roll down will not roll up, the rear passenger side electric window does not work will not roll down will not roll up. *tr

148,249 miles NHTSA complaint 1175859 filed 2015-04-19

Also reported on the 2005 Chevrolet Cavalier

Other electrical problem

88 reports median 75k

Instrument cluster or gauge failure

82 reports median 70k

Fuel gauge or level sensor failure

27 reports median 55k

Other body or interior problem

22 reports median 14k

Overheating

19 reports median 64k

Other speed control problem

14 reports median 52k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 6 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 6 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.

Questions this page answers

At what mileage does other visibility problem happen on the 2005 Chevrolet Cavalier?

Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 100,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other visibility problem on the 2005 Chevrolet Cavalier?

6 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 102 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.

What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars

Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed