Other electrical problem on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu
4 crashes 4 fires 2 injuries 10 of the 127 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 other electrical problem gets reported
Owners of the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu report other electrical problem at a median of 82,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles, from 90 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 27,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 142,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 114,055 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.
16% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27,695 miles | 50,000 miles | 82,000 miles | 123,750 miles | 141,750 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, 4 a crash, 4 a fire and 2 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 $250–$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 27 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2023 at 180,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 198; the 2012 has 127. 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.
A brand new vehicle with 64 miles. While driving on a rural road, the electronic stability control failure light came on and then the accelerator stopped working. After I turned the engine off, it would not come back on. This certainly could have been a safety issue had I lost control on a more traveled street. Coincidentally, the only other complaint listed on NHTSA for this vehicle is for the exact same issue. *tr
I have a 2012 chevy malibu that does not start after sitting for five minutes. No power at all in vehicle. Just as soon as I put on jumper cables on, it will start with no problems. I had batt and alt tested. There is nothing wrong with those parts. What is wrong with this car. I don't need to be stuck somewhere with my (special needs)children!!!!!!!!!!! *tr
Car was parked with rear defogger and heat running, loud explosion cracking noise and the rear windshield had exploded into spiderwebs. Got out of the car to inspect the damage -- other people parked saw the incident and no one saw anything hit the windshield ( parked at school dropping off kids ). Nothing was found that indicated the window had been struck in any way. The rear window defroster was warm to the touch in several areas of the spiderwebbed window. Outside temperature was approximately 0 degrees. Car had been running for about three hours. *tr
Also reported on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu
Headlight failure or clouding
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 127 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 electrical problem happen on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu?
Across 90 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 82,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other electrical problem on the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu?
127 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.2 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