Cruise control failure on the 2011 Chevrolet Malibu
3 crashes 3 of the 18 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.
When cruise control failure gets reported
Owners of the 2011 Chevrolet Malibu report cruise control failure at a median of 80,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles, from 11 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 22nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 15,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 110,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 93,700 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.
18% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16,300 miles | 70,450 miles | 80,000 miles | 88,258 miles | 110,000 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, 3 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 $200–$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 21 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2014, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2001 at 105,000 miles.
By volume the 2010 carries the most reports, with 174; the 2011 has 18. 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.
While driving the vehicle on interstate 270 at around 50 to 60 MPH, the vehicle transmission down shifted upon breaking with a loud clunking noise. When I went to reaccelerate, the vehicle was unresponsive as though it was stuck in a higher gear and would not down shift to accelerate. This problem has recurred frequently so now when I drive on the highway, I set the cruise control to make sudden acceleration and deceleration unnecessary but the car still clunks out of gear upon exiting the highway. *tr
On august 6,, 2014 I had taken my 3 kids to the lake @ dreher island state park. Upon getting ready to leave I put on brakes to see what my son asked me.for no reason the car started moving forward & I couldn't get it to stop get the wheels to turn as it was very hard & pushed the emergency brakes & it kept going till it went in the ditch on a concrete terracotta causing it to bend a piece of what was told to me the a frame & under the front end! I called the dealership & told it wasn't possible. Before this happened I could park my car & the engine would act is if it was trying to go w/o me mashing the gas or anything then idled down repeatedly acted as if it was going to shut off! I've even had 2 buy 2 new batteries, fixing to buy another! They said a connection was causing the battery to be drained & cells killed. On the interstate 2 days ago I had the cruise control on, for no reason it started losing speed then would start catching back up on it's own & I turned it off! The motor made a screeching noise! I have no idea what's going on! Even my tail lights wouldn't come on last night until I mashed the breaks a few times, cut…
On august 6,, 2014 I had taken my 3 kids to the lake @ dreher island state park. Upon getting ready to leave I put on brakes to see what my son asked me.for no reason the car started moving forward & I couldn't get it to stop get the wheels to turn as it was very hard & pushed the emergency brakes & it kept going till it went in the ditch on a concrete terracotta causing it to bend a piece of what was told to me the a frame & under the front end! I called the dealership & told it wasn't possible. Before this happened I could park my car & the engine would act is if it was trying to go w/o me mashing the gas or anything then idled down repeatedly acted as if it was going to shut off! I've even had 2 buy 2 new batteries, fixing to buy another! They said a connection was causing the battery to be drained & cells killed. On the interstate 2 days ago I had the cruise control on, for no reason it started losing speed then would start catching back up on it's own & I turned it off! The motor made a screeching noise! I have no idea what's going on! Even my tail lights wouldn't come on last night until I mashed the breaks a few times, cut…
Also reported on the 2011 Chevrolet Malibu
Other steering problem
Other electrical problem
Other driver assistance problem
Other engine problem
Headlight failure or clouding
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 18 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 cruise control failure happen on the 2011 Chevrolet Malibu?
Across 11 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is cruise control failure on the 2011 Chevrolet Malibu?
18 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