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The stiffners have an indentation or lip on either side of the notch where the shade clip goes that prevents the clip from sliding up and out. Shades have stayed closed 3 days now.
I'm not holding breath that this fix will be permanent. Will have to wait until hot summer comes to see if the stiffners stay in place and the shades stay closed when driving with windows and sunroof open.
Has anyone noticed that the gas cap doesn't seem to fit that well? I'm wondering if this is common (poor design) or does my car simply have a bad gas cap.
When you put on the gas cap and turn it until it ratchets several times, you can then simply pull off the gas cap with little or no effort - no need to turn or unscrew at all.
When I bought my car, the 'Check Gas Cap' message came on witin 1/2 a mile after delivery. It went away after a couple of tank fulls so I attributed it to a loose gas cap. Now the message came on again, probably because of a loose gas cap. The gas cap doesn't give any feedback to let you know that it's on correctly..
Anyone else experience this..The car only has about 2500 miles and I haven't had it back to the dealer for anything yet...I'll mention it at my first service but am curious in the meantime...
Thanks in advance...
You might want to check the threads within the fill spout and see if they are damaged or stripped.
I'll take another look at the fill spout...When I looked at it before, it look different from other fill spouts I have seen on any other car I've owned...Doesn't seem to have standard threads...I'll take another look.....
Although, this is the way the gas cap has been from day 1.... I bought the car in Nov. '04 and it had about 160 miles on it at the time...
Saturday I picked it up fron the 2nd round of service (really their 4th or 5th attempt when you consider separate parts orders). Dealer said "it's the quietest car any of us have ever drivin in." Wrong! Another service manager drove with me and said you have to be deaf not to hear this, and he wouldn't stand for it in his own vehicle either. I've added a Envoy to the fleet of rental cars. An hour later I dropped the car BACK off at the dealership, same noise. I test drove the other base 05 on their lot and had the same, if not worse, noise that mine had. The dealership has now replaced the coils, repositioned the emergency brake cable, and a bunch more (haven't gotten all the paperwork back yet). I'd estimate they've spent $2500 in parts, labor, and freight so far on GM's dime.
Today the service manager brought my car along with the one I drove on Saturday up to my place of employment. They had me testdrive each, and mine was a bit quieter. They said they did a super quick fix to muffle the noise by adding insulation to where the bumper attaches to the rest of the car. The problem is still there but it's somewhat hidden. They took back their enterprise car and now I'm waiting till Friday for a GM rep response. The dealer told me they are pulling the other vehicle from their new lot and will absolutely not sell the other vehicle with the problem or even repair it yet until the GM rep test drives it with them.
Very frustrating, right now they are asking me what I want to do. They said in rare cases GM does a buyback or a VIN swap to another similar vehicle. It sounds like they don't want it to go as far as a lemon law swap or buyback. If I get good feedback from this board that people don't have this problem elsewhere in low temperatures, my gut feeling now is for them to provide a replacement vehicle with a 2005 build date, and somehow compensate me for the lost work time and trouble of continually test driving and returning it for repairs. I've already met the requirements, in # of service attempts, and I've likely met the # of days with the same problem requirement, to file for lemon law protection.
They think part of the problem may be to cold weather, it's been 9-40 degrees the whole time that I've owned the car. Can someone with an '04 or 05 Base or LS malibu (not MAX) reply to me and let me know if they hear ANY squeaks, clunks, or other suspension noises at low speeds? Before the bumper fix, I heard them at 20mph or less on almost all smooth or snow covered roads/parking lots with the heater/radio/etc all turned off, now I hear them at 10mph or less.
As far as general suspension noises, haven't had any yet. (Knock on wood)
-2004 Malibu LT Sedan-
I don't think the squeak/rattle is temperature related. I live in California where the weather is mild and, anyway, the noise was there at the hight of summer.
I've also checked out the rear bumper and tightened up all fasteners without any luck. I've crawled under the car and pushed and pulled everything to try and find the source of the noise with no luck. What I don't understand is why the noise only seems to be heard at very low speeds. At 30mph when the car is very quite on a smooth surface the noise is gone. But slow down to about 5mph on the same surface and I can hear it. Loud and clear. Beats the hell outa me.
The drivers rear door wouldn't latch, even if we rotated the latch manually it had no effect. We'd close it, light or heavy, and the latch wouldn't grab on to anything. Finally we got it closed halfway, had the door ajar message since it was only half closed. it was 8 degrees out yesterday here with a windchill of -5. The dealer came up here today to look at it and it is working fine now, but it had warmed up to 22 degrees. This will be frustrating if it keeps happening. They said GM advises against any heavy lubricants in the door latch, just a light silicone which was already present.
Also, does anyone else have a problem with the fold down seats requiring a tremendous amount of force to close & latch closed? Again, it may be temperature related but yesterday we couldn't get 1 side to latch at all, the other side we had to use enough force to risk breaking something.
Have you had the dealer attempt to service this at all? Is yours an 05 1SA Base?
Hey E2Helper, do you see any service bulletins or notes on this?
My noise sounds like it's coming from the rear drivers side wheel well area. I hardly think this is 'by design' within normal tolerances. The dealer's new theory is when driving at low speeds (before the shocks kick in according to the dealer's new theory), it's noisy and they're not sure if they can do anything about it. Yet before they came up with this theory they've written me up for service and spent $2000-3000 trying to fix it. I'll post when I hear from the GM technical Rep on Friday.
So far, over 18K miles, one power window switch (warranty), and now this recall work. Other than that, we put gas in it, change the oil and filter every 3K, I do the all the routine maintainance, and it runs great.
Consumer Reports can rave about the foreign cars all they want...I'll stick with this Malibu...probably the most trouble free car we have ever owned.
Sorry
I know that the power outlet in the front console is designed to accept a cigar lighter element but maybe one you bought not compatible.
I think dealer has a "smoker's package" available which contains the needed parts. It might also contain some type of ashtry to install in one of cupholders, but I have never seen one or know how much it costs.
But I am sure someone must have found out about this????
Have you found anything out about this issue?
E2Helper, if you could, I'd love to know what they do to fix this.
Incidently, did they ever get the cruise control "talking" better to the transmission in the 2005 model? While the transmission is very smooth with the throttle (all the TSB's seemed to help there), cruise is still clunky as ever...I'm keeping it off for now.
Anyway, I just don't like how this stuff works on Maxx. Still really enjoy the car, but this is one minor area I don't like.
The Driver Information Center does give you a bit of control over the auto door UNLOCK function. Press the MENU button to step through the options until you get to Door Unlock stuff.
You CANNOT shut off the auto door LOCK function, that one works all the time when you shift out of Park with doors closed.
Options for UNLOCK give you ability to control WHAT and WHEN the doors UNLOCK.
For WHAT you can select ALL doors, DRIVER door ONLY, or NONE
For WHEN you can select Shift into PARK or when Ignition Key is turned OFF.
There is nothing preventing you from using the Unlock switch on door from unlocking doors at any other time.
Let us know your success in navigating thru the DIC menus - it might bring up other questions
Per my past threads....
after 2 months of dealing with incompetent local dealers I drove 33 miles away from town to go to a different dealer where the GM regional rep doesn't cover problems .
Here's the problems that I had that 2 local dealers couldn't figure out so the Regional Rep put a red flag next to my name stating not to touch my car any longer. The WI DOT states this is a breach against warranty and is still investigating.
1. car pulls to the left while accelerating/decelerating
2. while making a left turn the steering wheel sticks to the left at about 10 o'clock which is the same position it sticks to when accelerating
3. while driving highway speeds and accelerating, the car pulls to the left.
I drove the car to the other dealer who test drove my car and another maxx lt and told me the steering wheel feels like a magnet and it wants to keep pulling left.
The SA then told the mechanic what the problem was. they hooked up a TECH 2 machine to my steering module and it tested out 2 codes that fixed the problem in a matter of 10 minutes! We took it for a test drive and all is well. As far as the other 2 dealers who were incompetent and told me not to bring my car back to them for warranty work, the WI DOT will take of them I'm sure.
TO: GM/Chevrolet
Doesn't it feel great when you beat the system?
come on GM wake up to the few customer unfriendly dealerships with incompetent service departments and come down hard on them!!
While this problem may have already been discussed in this forum, can anyone tell me if this is a common problem, and will GM be able to fix it?
Otherwise, I love my Malibu, and feel very happy that I bought one! BTW, I've had the car almost 4 months.
Thanks...
On prior visit, they also turned front rotors to fix brake rumble problem and did front wheel alignment done to fix left lead/wander. I had to pay for alignment.
Also had very positive experience with service dept., no run arounds, and no return visits. I gave them all the TSB info up front on all visits.
Only minor problem is the paid alignment was done before trans work. I checked when trans work was being done to make sure they would do alignment again. SA said this was not included in TSB documentation and did not need to be done. I disagreed. When I picked up car, the steering wheel was off center. So I just left it and they redid alignment, no charge.
Everything is just fine now and I expect to have no further problems.
As for the howl, if owners in this forum are questioning if they have it, if you have it, you absolutely know. It is an awful whining howl noise, nothing I've ever experienced in another car, just an FYI.
Often it is, whenever the engine/transaxle subframe is removed. Part of the front suspension attaches to that subframe and unless the assembly goes back into the car EXACTLY as it came out, the alignment will be affected. If the steering wheel is off center after the fix then either a 4-wheel alignment or steering recalibration would be called for. Maybe both.
You have a 2004 Malibu LT with the UltraLux seats, right? There should be a switch on outboard front corner of seat for heat function. Only the front seats are heated
If you wouldn't mind can you post last 6 digits of your VIN?
Also does anyone else's malibu of this year have a very sensitive gas and brake pedal... I know mine is, barely touch and its flooring itself.