AtWhatMileage
Adas · 105 owner reports

Other speed control problem on the 2009 Chevrolet Impala

1 crash 1 of the 105 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 105
With an odometer reading 96
Reports per 1,000 built 1.4 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 7%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 1
Typical repair $250–$2,000
What it means when it happens Critical
Rank among this year's problems 4th

When other speed control problem gets reported

Owners of the 2009 Chevrolet Impala report other speed control problem at a median of 85,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 65,000 miles and a quarter after 105,000 miles, from 96 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 40,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 135,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 95,000 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.

7% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 96 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
40,000 miles 64,000 miles 84,500 miles 104,592 miles 135,000 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, 1 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 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.

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.

Tl*the contact owns a 2009 chevrolet impala. He stated that the vehicle accelerated on its own while driving at any speed. He experienced the failure five times. The most recent failure occurred while driving 60 MPH when the vehicle accelerated up to 65 MPH on its own. He took the vehicle to the dealer and they refused to check it. Report 71-807159815 was filed with the manufacturer who agreed to contact the dealer. The contact will take the vehicle back to the dealer to be repaired. The failure mileage was 10,000 and the current mileage was 20,000.

10,000 miles NHTSA complaint 769554 filed 2010-03-03

Tl* the contact owns a 2009 chevrolet impala. While driving approximately 35 MPH, the vehicle surged forward slightly until the contact applied the brakes. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer where the contact was informed that the pedal positioning sensor failed. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure continued to recur intermittently. The failure and current mileage was 64,867.

64,867 miles NHTSA complaint 825734 filed 2010-11-15

I bought a 2009 chevy impala with 35k miles on and not even a month after I bought it I started having problems with the traction control on acceleration and sometimes on braking... I see with all the internet complaints that this is a wide spread problem that gm seems to be putting off.. I have contacted gm and they told me the same thing as every other complaint take to dealer and spend over $100 just to get it looked at and the dealers say the same 3 things as all other complaints it could be three things.. Gas pedal sensor, brake pedal sensor, or the sensor on the hub assembly... Hmmmmmmmmmmm gm help... Ps after I got mad on phone gm agreed to pay a mere $90 of the bill which is gonna cost over $300 to fix.... *tr

37,000 miles NHTSA complaint 859983 filed 2011-06-04

Also reported on the 2009 Chevrolet Impala

Other engine problem

149 reports median 83k

Other electrical problem

144 reports median 85k

Other driver assistance problem

87 reports median 83k

Other powertrain problem

53 reports median 96k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 105 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 2009 Chevrolet Impala?

Across 96 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 85,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 65,000 miles and a quarter after 105,000 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 2009 Chevrolet Impala?

105 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.4 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