AtWhatMileage
Fuel · 67 owner reports

Other fuel system problem on the 2018 Chevrolet Malibu

1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 67 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.

Reports of this failure 67
With an odometer reading 35
Reports per 1,000 built 0.8 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 54%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 2
Typical repair $300–$2,200
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 5th

When other fuel system problem gets reported

Owners of the 2018 Chevrolet Malibu report other fuel system problem at a median of 30,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 7,500 miles and a quarter after 50,000 miles, from 35 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 90,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 2,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 67,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 64,528 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.

54% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 35 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
1,940 miles 7,746 miles 29,000 miles 50,000 miles 66,468 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, 1 a crash and 1 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 $300–$2,200 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 23 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2015, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 155,000 miles.

By volume the 2018 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.

Median
  1. 1997 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 1998 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 128k
  3. 1999 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 73k
  4. 2000 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 58k
  5. 2001 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 120k
  6. 2002 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 16k
  7. 2003 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 100k
  8. 2004 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 153k
  9. 2005 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 94k
  10. 2006 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 100k
  11. 2007 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 69k
  12. 2008 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 84k
  13. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 82k
  14. 2010 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 54k
  15. 2011 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 94k
  16. 2012 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 96k
  17. 2013 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 80k
  18. 2014 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 83k
  19. 2015 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 6k
  20. 2016 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 47k
  21. 2017 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 52k
  22. 2018 (this one) 29k
  23. 2019 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 7k
  24. 2020 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem 112k
  25. 2021 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  26. 2022 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  27. 2023 Chevrolet Malibu other fuel system problem
    no odometer readings given
    —

Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens

Also reported on the 2018 Chevrolet Malibu

Other engine problem

214 reports median 48k

Other electrical problem

141 reports median 43k

Other powertrain problem

138 reports median 43k

Other speed control problem

87 reports median 51k

Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure

59 reports median 40k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 67 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 fuel system problem happen on the 2018 Chevrolet Malibu?

Across 35 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 30,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 7,500 miles and a quarter after 50,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other fuel system problem on the 2018 Chevrolet Malibu?

67 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.8 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