Electrical System Problems of Chevrolet Cavalier - part 1

Tl the contact owns a 2001 Chevrolet Cavalier. The contact stated that the gear shift was difficult to move and the lever became stuck. Occasionally, the key became stuck in the ignition and the gear shift would not go into gear. Also, the hood was hot, the engine overheated, and the vehicle experienced electrical failures. There were also multiple unknown warning indicators illuminated. The dealer was not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The contact scheduled a diagnostic appointment with an independent mechanic. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failures. The failure mileage was 138,000.

See all problems of the 2001 Chevrolet Cavalier 🔎.

Gauges for temperature do not work, sometimes reads below zero, sometimes slightly above there is no change in reading whether cold, or running for several hours - at any speed speed gauge works intermittently, sometimes recording 100 mph, when the car is doing no more that 20-30 mph. At other times, it seems to be running about the speed limit, when compared with other traffic, then record 100+mph. At other times, when going with traffic, the gauge reads 0mph there is no way to know if the car is overheating, or what speed the car is going. This has been the case for about two months, and I was told it was the 'setter', and would cost me $900. Which I did not have. It is very upsetting .

See all problems of the 2005 Chevrolet Cavalier 🔎.

The gas gauge is going haywire. It pegs to the "f", and then immediately pegs to the "e", even though the tank is half full. The gauge then jumps around the middle form one side to the other side. It is impossible to tell how much is in the tank. This happens while driving and also while sitting at lights or stop signs.

See all problems of the 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier 🔎.

Ignition gets very hot when key is turned can smell plastic ignition or batt 1 circuit problem. Clearcoat is peeling. Lug nuts coming loose.

See all problems of the 2000 Chevrolet Cavalier 🔎.

All gauges don't work. Speedometer,fuel,temperature.

Cluster of dashboard indicators (speedometer, gas guage , engine temp, rpm) all are not working now. They were going off and on at times when driving but now nothing works. . . My mechanic informs me this is a common problem with this make and model. No recall found. Very dangerous to drive why wasn't this common problem listed as a recall when many have complained??.

See all problems of the 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier 🔎.

I was on my way to my dentist appointment, suddenly a hissing noise came from the car. All of the dashboard lights came on and I knew I was in trouble. I was on a busy intersection in the city. I had to act in a split second and steer quickly off of the nearest side ride. The steering wheel was locking up. I had just enough power to get safely off of the street in time and to keep from getting hit from behind. I was in motion on a city street. The car was trouble from day one. I believe it was a flooded out car sold to the unsuspectithat unsuspecting person was me. I got suckered out of over $2400. I have paid for at least 2 new cars with the money I have spent on this lemon. By the way the shady owner don't feel responsible at all for scamming my money out of me.

See all problems of the 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier 🔎.

Key get stuck in ignition in the on position. Cannot shut the car off or remove the key. Must pull ignition fuse to shut off engine and then disconnect the battery. Gm acknowledge this as a problem in 2014 but never issued a recall.

See all problems of the 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier 🔎.

I have had my used chevy Cavalier 2004 car for almost a year. As I have been driving the engine has just stopped. This has happened 4 times in the time span of 5 months. No one ( auto shops) can find the issue. They have zero answers. This is dangerous and has caused accidents. I would be banned from the internet if I said what I really want to say to chevy. The most recent time this happened was yesterday. . . Aug 3rd 2017.

See all problems of the 2004 Chevrolet Cavalier 🔎.

Takata recall: fuel gage nas never worked since being bought, turn signals ( both right and left) barely worked when bought and went out completly the next day, power steering locks up occasionally and and cant turn wheel,shift gear linkages will only shift manually under the hood, car will die or struggle to continue running unless foot is always pushing on gas, engine occassionally backfires, and not quite sure if the fuel pump is working properly or gone out.

Cluster panel temp gauge was fluctuating now the gauge is staying in one spot so have no idea if temp is good or not. What if something is wrong with the engine I will not know without this working. Have taken to two garages they both say its the cluster panel. Stationary and while driving ,gage stays the same. This started about a month ago with only 68,500 miles on it.

Spedometer has stopped functioning. Safety issue because I can no longer tell how fast I am driving.

My cluster stopped working a while ago. Since I didn't get a recall on it I was unaware of people did complain about it until my car caught on fire where the cluster is and all the wires are totally burned up. I am furious. I read other complaints and some people had the same problem. I could not read all of them so, I don't know how many caught on fire. Thank god I didn't get injured or death. Chevrolet should be held responsible for this. Please help.

My temperature gauge has malfunctioned and is stuck at 195 degrees when I turn my car on. It then rises just as normal but stops at 260 degrees which is in the red zone.

Instrument panel does not work. Therefore do not know the speed in which is being traveled, temperature of engine, amount of fuel or anything. Check guages light comes on and goes off like every week. Have no clue why it stopped working and personal mechanic is appalled at the issue.

Instrumet cluster problems for a few years. Fuel sending unit has been replaced at about 52,000 miles after quiting twice while driving highway speed of 55 mph. Dealer claimed the car quit because of a bad battery the first time and did not diagnose the problem correctly. It was not the battery. The fuel sending unit intermittently reads well beyond full and interfears with the temperature gage function. Now speedometer is stuck at 85 mph while turned off. I was driving with the cruise doing 67 mph, I slowed down to make a turn at an at grade insection to a road posted at 55 mph. I completed the turn and sped up. The speedometer read 58 mph but it felt llike I was gong about 30 mph. I stopped at another intersection and the speed dropped to 40 mph. I made the turn and acelerated and the speed went to 110 mph but I was not going near that fast. The car is in driveway turned off but the speedometer reads 85 mph. Most recent issue is steering rack and k-frame rusted out and needed to be replaced. Mechanic stated he never saw a steering rack rust out or a k frame rusted as bad as the one on this vehicle. We are the original owners.

Instrument cluster needs to be replaced. The cluster blinks in and out.

2 issues. First, temperature gauge read higher and higher each time the car was started until the needle went all the way around to the speedometer and kept the speedometer from reading the speed. Entire gauge cluster was replaced. Second issue was passenger front seat belt would periodically lock, not allowing the passenger to use the seat belt.

The speedometer has failed to register any speed and is stuck in a position past the highest speed on the gage face. The tachometer needle jumps around also leaving you no way to judge your speed. I just bought the car. The previous owner said it failed some time ago while he was driving it. I am pacing other cars while I am waiting for repair parts to get here.

Already complained here once. Now my car fuel gage is broke gos all the way over and hits on my temp gauge every so offen. Dont really know how much gas I have in it, but least can go 300-365 miles. Depending on how much I drive. I dont think that it should break after only 41000 miles. Last time I wrote on here it was my temp gauge that hit on my speedometer. . Think before long all will go out. Wish someone would do something for these cars, kind exp to keep fixing. Paid cash for the other one to be fixed. Only drive the car once in awhile. Its not an old car so. Not very safe car as far as I am concerned, dont have the money to go buy a new one. . . . . . . .

July 2009 ignition lock cylinder was stuck. I had it replaced for $362. 75 at Chevrolet dealership. August 2014 ignition lock cylinder was stuck. I had it replaced for $488. 83 at Chevrolet dealership. September 2015 ignition lock cylinder was stuck, my key came out of lock and the car was still running. I had to come off of the clutch to purposely make the car cut off and had to unplug the battery. The 2003 Chevrolet is not included in the recall but it needs to be. My ignition lock cylinder has failed me 3 times in the past 6 years. Thankfully, I'm alive and able to tell you all about this. Chevrolet & gm knew about the lock cylinder recall when I had mine replaced last year.

The front passenger side electric window does not work will not roll down will not roll up. The rear-driver-side electric window does not work will not roll down will not roll up, the rear passenger side electric window does not work will not roll down will not roll up.

Started vehicle all gauges except rpm stopped working read online and saw how common this issue is with this car and was advised to file a complaint about it here in hopes of a recall.

The safety device light came on. It won't go off, can't start my car.

See all problems of the 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier 🔎.

After accelerating over 35mph vehicle continues to accelerate. Vehicle able to stop but you can still hear and feel the motor to continue to accelerate and the vehicle starts to jerk around. Its very unsafe and no one at the car shop able to tell me exactly what is wrong. I've had several things fixed and still having the same problem. The vehicle sometimes after starting up will accelerate on it own.

My rear defrost quit working and I went and checked some of the connections. The connection under the dash had been melted, with the plastic showing evidence of being melted. I have done some checking on the internet and it appears it is a problem. If you check gm cars pontiac, and gm some of the vehicles have had this issue. It appears to be very common based off the forums and you tube video's. It appears in impala, Cavalier, sunfire, and this isn't an all inclusive list. This is concerning because it appears to have been a problem for a few years and gm allowed this to happen.

Tl-the contact owns a 1995 Chevrolet Cavalier. The contact stated that when the vehicle is turned on, the ignition key failed to stay in the run position. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 207,636. Ss.

My mom was driving the car as normal down the road one day and all the guages in the entire dash suddenly stopped working. Some came back on and off a couple weeks. Some never did. But after a couple months all stopped working and now nothing works. No heat guage, no fuel guage, no temp guage, no speedometer, and no fuel guage.

Instrument cluster gauges malfunction periodically and lock into one position or dont work at all. Cant tell what your speed is , temp is, rpm etc! this I think is a safety issue and should be addressed. I see this is happening to many people as I have investigated it on line. This is pretty much whats happening. . . Read more...

Key can be removed from ignition while car is in gear and in park. And cannot be put back in durning vehicle running.

While driving at 35mph, the speedometer began to malfunction giving faulty readings. At times, it registers at 0mph - even when you're driving. The tachometer began to do the same thing (faulty readings) two days later. The speedometer now works but periodically gives faulty readings while driving. The tachometer no longer works at all and constantly shows a faulty reading (below zero). After a visit to three different local mechanics and a gm dealership - I'm told there's only one way to fix the problem. Replace the instrument cluster completely. This is a costly repair and quite common with these vehicles in their experience apparently. Not having an accurate and reliable display of your current speed is certainly a major safety issue. It's amazing to me that this has not yet been investigated with all the complaints regarding faulty gauges/instrument panels on this vehicle. This vehicle needs to be investigated and recalled.

The gages show nothing no speed no gas no mileage nothing. I have seen a lot of complaints of this matter why is there nothing being done about this problem. I was always a chevy person but now I am moving on to something else. Chevy does not like to fix there problems they leave it up to the people to spend tons of money to fix the prob when they know what the prob is. This is uncalled for.

2004 Cavalier, 2. 2l dohc, 5-speed manual transmission. While driving at 60 mph vehicle felt as if cruise control was engaged. Rpms would not fall off as fast as usual when foot taken off gas, and when I depressed the clutch (which was just replaced last week due to another known issue that chevy refuses to recall) rpms went above 4,000. Tapped gas pedal thinking maybe it was stuck and it only revved higher and did not come down on its own. Rpms continued to climb as I came to a stop, around 6,000 by the time I pulled over. Shut the car off and immediately back on, no problems for the rest of the trip home (another 8 miles). I cannot risk my car revving at 6,000 rpms in stop and go traffic which I'm in every weekday and I can't shut it off and turn it back on to fix the problem, so I have to find out what causes it and fix it ASAP. Thanks for another spendy repair, chevy.

Temp gauge tends to stick in the middle and will not go down after I shut off my car when I drive more than 30miles. After a few hours I can usually get it back down but one time it went all the way over to mph area and then that needle got stuck under which I had no clue how fast I was going because the other needle. Needles to say I barely drive anywhere outside of town because of the issue.

All of the trouble lights come on including the service light with a wrench. Then, all of the gauges drop to nothing; you don't know how fast you're traveling, what your fuel capacity is, the temperature gauge drops to nothing along with the tachometer dropping to nothing. In the odometer and "error" message replaces the odometer reading. The gauges will intermittently go off and on or all of them will drop of with no reading. The other evening, I was coming home on a winding back country road and all of my lights went out. I have to limit my driving to daytime driving and only use the running lights as it appears to only aggravate the problem when I use my headlights. Today, everything above happened along with some news things. The vehicle was shut off, the key was removed from the ignition and the running lights remained on as did the warning alarm as though the key were left in the ignition. I left the car only after I pulled the left and right fuse from the panel. When I returned to the car, I inserted the fuses and started the vehicle but was unable to shift the car into gear as the car would not let me depress the button on the shifter to do so. I have to now shut the car off and pull the ignition fuse and then reinsert it to get the car in gear. What the heck?.