AtWhatMileage
Glass · 3 owner reports

Other visibility problem on the 2013 Chevrolet Impala

Only 3 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 3
With an odometer reading 3
Reports per 1,000 built 0.0 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 33%
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 29th

When other visibility problem gets reported

There are 3 reports of other visibility problem on the 2013 Chevrolet Impala, 3 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 29th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 3 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 41,000 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 16 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2011, at a median of 500 miles, and latest on the 2001 at 105,000 miles.

By volume the 2011 carries the most reports, with 26; the 2013 has 3. 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.

The wipers had ice on them as well as the right hand side of the windshield on 01/25/14 a week after I bought my car. The defroster had been on all the time during my drive home, about 1 hour. I had to stop a number of times to knock the ice off the wipers and scrape the windshield. It happened again on 04/03/14 when I was driving home from the mpls airport. I had put on new wipers after the first incident, yet these wipers iced up as well. I again had the defroster on, sometimes it was full blast. I took pictures of the wiper blades on the 4/3 drive. I showed them to the dealership and they said the defrosters were working fine. To me this is a safety issue. Also there is terrible road/wind noise. I have recorded it. I had all the windows up, nothing was turned on and the noise is terrible. Even when at a stop, you can hear the noise of the passing cars 2 or more lanes away. The dealership said they couldn't do anything for it. They are working with me to try to resolve the issue. So I have no complaints about the dealership, but with the car. I am thinking of taking it to a body shop and see what they think of the road/wind…

21,900 miles NHTSA complaint 1061172 filed 2014-05-01

Tl* the contact owns a 2013 chevrolet impala. While driving approximately 30 MPH, the defroster failed and created poor visibility. The failure recurred on multiple occasions. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 41,000. Updated 03/04/15*lj the consumer stated the vehicle needed a need battery. Updated 03/26/15

41,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1147343 filed 2015-01-13

Also reported on the 2013 Chevrolet Impala

Other driver assistance problem

78 reports median 58k

Other electrical problem

35 reports median 60k

Other brake problem

34 reports median 59k

ABS module or sensor failure

33 reports median 68k

Other wheel or tire problem

28 reports median 40k

Other powertrain problem

25 reports median 48k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 3 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 3 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 2013 Chevrolet Impala?

Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 40,000 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 2013 Chevrolet Impala?

3 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.0 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