Cruise control failure on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu
5 crashes 5 injuries 10 of the 24 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 2012 Chevrolet Malibu report cruise control failure at a median of 65,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 10,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles, from 21 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 19th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5 miles at the tenth percentile to 145,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 143,995 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
48% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 miles | 10,856 miles | 66,000 miles | 111,100 miles | 144,000 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, 5 a crash and 5 an injury are 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 2012 has 24. 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.
My wife was driving east down hwy-40 toward salina, ks. She had the cruise control set on 60 MPH. She began to have a epileptic seizure (she was cleared by her doctor to drive prior to this incident) at that point the car began to slowly drift of to the right side of the road. The car drove over a culver, the rear driver side of the car struck at concrete form and sent the car rolling of into a field the car rolled four times. After the fourth roll the car rolled back on to its wheels and continued to drive due to the cruise control still being engaged and drove 100ft before coming to rest once it struck a concrete fence post. At no time did any of the air bags deploy nor did the cruise control disengage. The vehicle has a crash response system threw on-star, at no time did the crash response activate. This information was provided to me via the saline county sheriffs. My wife only suffered minor cuts and bruises. *tr
My wife was driving east down hwy-40 toward salina, ks. She had the cruise control set on 60 MPH. She began to have a epileptic seizure (she was cleared by her doctor to drive prior to this incident) at that point the car began to slowly drift of to the right side of the road. The car drove over a culver, the rear driver side of the car struck at concrete form and sent the car rolling of into a field the car rolled four times. After the fourth roll the car rolled back on to its wheels and continued to drive due to the cruise control still being engaged and drove 100ft before coming to rest once it struck a concrete fence post. At no time did any of the air bags deploy nor did the cruise control disengage. The vehicle has a crash response system threw on-star, at no time did the crash response activate. This information was provided to me via the saline county sheriffs. My wife only suffered minor cuts and bruises. *tr
Tl* the contact owns a 2012 chevrolet malibu. The contact stated that while driving with the cruise control activated at 65 MPH, the speed suddenly increased to 73 MPH independently. The failure was experienced several times. The vehicle was taken to the dealer to be inspected. The dealer advised that there were no failures found within the cruise control system. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The approximate failure mileage was 3,800 and the current mileage was 5,200.
Also reported on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu
Headlight failure or clouding
Other electrical problem
Other steering problem
Other driver assistance problem
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other engine problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 24 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 2012 Chevrolet Malibu?
Across 21 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 65,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 10,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 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 2012 Chevrolet Malibu?
24 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