Headlight failure or clouding on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu
10 fires 10 of the 165 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 headlight failure or clouding gets reported
Owners of the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu report headlight failure or clouding at a median of 115,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 85,000 miles and a quarter after 140,000 miles, from 99 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 42,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 155,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 112,800 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.
8% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 41,600 miles | 84,932 miles | 115,000 miles | 140,000 miles | 154,400 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, 10 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 $150–$1,800 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 14 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2006, at a median of 2,000 miles, and latest on the 2010 at 120,000 miles.
By volume the 2012 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.
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.
Since september of 2014, the low beam headlights on my malibu have repeatedly gone out. The latest two incidents in march 2015 (passenger side) and june 2015 (drivers side) have resulted in the socket burning out. There is a forum where many drivers have noted this same issue. I was told it sounds like there is an electrical issue with the harness and that it is a very serious issue and could lead to a very bad situation. I've called and complained to chevy but they claim that they have no prior complaints which I find hard to believe. This is a very expensive issue because of how they have constructed the vehicle. Please force them to fix this issue.
Since september of 2014, the low beam headlights on my malibu have repeatedly gone out. The latest two incidents in march 2015 (passenger side) and june 2015 (drivers side) have resulted in the socket burning out. There is a forum where many drivers have noted this same issue. I was told it sounds like there is an electrical issue with the harness and that it is a very serious issue and could lead to a very bad situation. I've called and complained to chevy but they claim that they have no prior complaints which I find hard to believe. This is a very expensive issue because of how they have constructed the vehicle. Please force them to fix this issue.
Water inside headlights. Right headlight assembly replaced 6 months ago, now have water inside left headlight, dims the light, will have to replace, will be serviced 12-17-15. I have noticed quite a few of the same model with the same problem. I believe that this is a safety problem that should be addressed by gm.
Also reported on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu
Other electrical problem
Other steering problem
Other driver assistance problem
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other engine problem
Fuel pump failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 165 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 headlight failure or clouding happen on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu?
Across 99 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 115,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 85,000 miles and a quarter after 140,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is headlight failure or clouding on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu?
165 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.5 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