Ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu
Only 2 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 ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure gets reported
There are 7 reports of ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu, 2 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 85,000 miles. It is the 34th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 43,279 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 $250–$1,500 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 22 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2016, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2015 at 150,000 miles.
By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 64; the 2012 has 7. 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.
Tl* the contact owns a 2012 chevrolet malibu. While the vehicle was parked and attempting to remove the key from the ignition switch, the vehicle became inoperable. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where it was diagnosed that the ignition switch failed and needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was 20,557.
I was driving on a side road, when all of a sudden my car just shut down and I coasted to a stop. I was stranded in a turn lane for about 20 minutes. During which time I had already called a tow truck as I could not get my car started again. After the 20 minutes I thought I would give it another try and it up and started, and I drove back to work. I made it home that night, but was stranded again when I left the place. I was headed home and it stopped one more time before I made it there. I took it to an auto shop the next day and made it fine. The auto shop did a test drive and it stopped on a road and they failed to get it started. It turns out it is for an ignition switch, which there are recalls for other gm vehicles for the same part, just not a 2012 malibu. So I have to pay to get it replaced and hope for an extension of the recall for the chevy malibu. *tr
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
This page is kept out of search results because 7 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 7 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 ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure happen on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu?
Across 2 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 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 ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu?
7 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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