Other body or interior problem on the 1999 Chevrolet Malibu
1 fire 1 of the 29 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.
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.
When other body or interior problem gets reported
There are 29 reports of other body or interior problem on the 1999 Chevrolet Malibu, 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 88,000 miles. It is the 13th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 79,990 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 fire 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 $200–$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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 26 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 1,600 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 95,000 miles.
By volume the 2009 carries the most reports, with 98; the 1999 has 29. 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.
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.
I don't know where to begin with the complaints that I have for my '99 malibu. The brake system on this car is the worst. I can't count the number of times that I have replaced my brakes. I was reading the complaint board and could not believe the number of people that had similar brake problems. You would think that the government would see some kind of pattern and make gm do something about this. I think car manufacturers should take some responsibility for the products they put out and someone should make sure that they do. I am now going to have to replace my intake gaskets because of anti-freeze leaking into the engine. I have seen over 50 complaints about this on the complaint board. I will never again buy a gm made vehicle. From now on I'm buying nothing but foreign made cars. My car is still sitting in my driveway waiting go get fixed because right now I can't afford the $400+ it's going to take to fix it. *la
On 8/20/2001 at 46,208 miles on my 1999 chev. Malibu, coolant began to leak from the lower intake manifold gasket. Dealership replaced gaskets under gmpp extended warranty. Now on 3/12/04 at 75,600 miles, the replaced gaskets are leaking. After the first repair, I discovered that the original factory gaskets along with dex-cool coolant were defective. At the first repair, still defective gaskets were used to make the repair. After this first repair, gm released a newly redesigned gasket and procedure to address this issue. I feel that there needs to be a recall on the issue due to the number of consumers who are experiencing this same trouble. This could become a safety issue should the gaskets completely fail and allow coolant to mix with the oil. This would cause engine failure while driving, possible resulting in a crash.*ak
Consumer stated his daughter's vehicle hit something with the rear bumper at a low impact of 5 MPH or less, and both frontal air bags deployed for unknown reason. No injuries were reported. Dealer and manufacturer were not notified. *ak
Also reported on the 1999 Chevrolet Malibu
ABS module or sensor failure
Other brake problem
Premature brake pad or rotor wear
Other engine problem
Other wheel or tire problem
Other electrical problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 29 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 29 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 body or interior problem happen on the 1999 Chevrolet Malibu?
Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 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 body or interior problem on the 1999 Chevrolet Malibu?
29 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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