AtWhatMileage
Adas · 14 owner reports

Other speed control problem on the 2005 Chevrolet Impala

2 crashes 2 of the 14 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.

Reports of this failure 14
With an odometer reading 10
Reports per 1,000 built 0.2 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 10%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 2
Typical repair $250–$2,000
What it means when it happens Critical
Rank among this year's problems 17th

When other speed control problem gets reported

Owners of the 2005 Chevrolet Impala report other speed control problem at a median of 115,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 90,000 miles and a quarter after 150,000 miles, from 10 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 17th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 45,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 180,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 136,946 miles across the middle 80% of reports.

When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.

10% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 10 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
45,054 miles 90,000 miles 114,126 miles 149,250 miles 182,000 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

Of these reports, 2 a crash is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.

Putting it right typically runs $250–$2,000 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.

This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 17 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2014, at a median of 50,000 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 130,000 miles.

By volume the 2009 carries the most reports, with 105; the 2005 has 14. 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.

What owners wrote

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

While driving at approximately 35 MPH driver was coming to a stop and applied the brakes and vehicle lunged forward, and rear ended another vehicle. Driver pulled to the right of the vehicle, and the vehicle was continuing to go, and the engine revved. Vehicle finally stopped after hitting a tree. Also, the air bags deployed. *ak *bf *nm

537 miles NHTSA complaint 528493 filed 2005-03-29

The speedometer on my daughter's 2005 chevrolet stopped working at 50'000 mi. We called chevrolet, but were told since the car was out of warranty we would have to pay for the repair.(350 dollars). I would like to know if there have been other complaints about this problem. *cn

50,000 miles NHTSA complaint 651830 filed 2008-01-02

My wife and two children were riding in our 2005 chevrolet impala and it suddenly started accelerating uncontrollably. My wife called 911 and told them that she couldn't get the car to stop and the brakes seemed to be locked. The car went uncontrollably for about 3/4 mile, and reached speeds over 90 MPH. She ended up putting the car in neutral to get it to slow down even though the engine was still accelerating. We had it towed to a chevy dealer, but they didn't find anything wrong with it. If my wife wouldn't have thought to put the car in neutral, my entire family very possibly could have died. Very scary incident!! *tr

90,000 miles NHTSA complaint 761609 filed 2010-02-10

Also reported on the 2005 Chevrolet Impala

Other electrical problem

130 reports median 85k

Instrument cluster or gauge failure

110 reports median 73k

Other powertrain problem

37 reports median 98k

Other engine problem

32 reports median 106k

Other fuel system problem

27 reports median 79k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 14 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 speed control problem happen on the 2005 Chevrolet Impala?

Across 10 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 115,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 90,000 miles and a quarter after 150,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other speed control problem on the 2005 Chevrolet Impala?

14 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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