Cruise control failure on the 2006 Pontiac G6
7 crashes 4 injuries 11 of the 168 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 2006 Pontiac G6 report cruise control failure at a median of 78,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 54,000 miles and a quarter after 102,000 miles, from 143 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 72,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 23,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 139,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 116,240 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.
15% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23,000 miles | 54,000 miles | 77,900 miles | 102,000 miles | 139,240 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, 7 a crash and 4 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 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2008, at a median of 71,000 miles, and latest on the 2007 at 80,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 188; the 2006 has 168. 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.
When driving check engine light and traction control light will come on, driver information center will show message "reduced engine power" and car will slow down significantly and not go over 45 MPH. Additionally cruise control will not work. If turned off remote start will not work and vehicle restarts with check engine light on and runs rough. Usually next restart check engine light will be off and will run better. Vehicle will have burnt smell when parked in garage after incident. Computer is storing error codes but dealer can not diagnose problem. Dealer indicates "software error" prevents them from getting information about vehicle at time when error codes were recorded. In shop 3 times and they can not figure out, wanted me to use a data recorder but when they tried to show me how to work it the recorded did not work. This has happened 3 times, 2/9/2006 on i95, 2/20/2006 during in town driving(only disabled remote start and burning smell), and 3/4/2006 on a country road. *jb
Please reference NHTSA campaign id number 09v036000. On 2/17/09, gm recalled 8,012 2005-2006 pontiac g6 vehicles, because the brake lamps would not operate properly due to 0 corrosion in a wiring connector. Symptoms include brake lamps illuminating when brake pedal is not depressed, brake lamps failing to illuminate when brake pedal is depressed, cruise control will not engage and greater than normal brake force is required to shift vehicle out of park. I was informed that my 2006 pontiac g6 was not included in this recall, VIN [xxx] . However, my vehicle is experiencing the exact problems as described in the recall notice. I contacted gm's owner center to try and get my vehicle covered. The gm representative (ted) advised me that I must first have the pontiac (gm) dealer perform a diagnostic test at my expense, and that, depending on the outcome of the diagnostic test, gm may or may not cover my vehicle. Since this is a documented safety issue, I find gm's response to be completely unacceptable. I am therefore requesting that NHTSA require gm to cover the cost of needed repairs for any gm vehicle that has this problem. As noted…
We are having the same issue with our 2006 g6. Our exterior light sometimes doesn't work, the cruise control sometimes doesn't work. We had to replace at our own expense the brake rotors due to inferior quality. We were having the vibration issue some mentioned. My wife could not get it out of park one day, we had it towed to the dealership. We got the same story about the recall about not being covered by the recall and having to get it diagnosed at our expense. Last year our brakes completely failed and we rear ended a minivan. Luckily no one was injured. But our insurance is going up. I cannot wait until our lease is up in feb 2010. We will trade this thing in and get a dependable foreign vehicle. *tr
Also reported on the 2006 Pontiac G6
Other steering problem
Loss of power steering
Steering column or shaft failure
Other electrical problem
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
Other brake problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 168 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 2006 Pontiac G6?
Across 143 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 78,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 54,000 miles and a quarter after 102,000 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 2006 Pontiac G6?
168 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.6 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