Owners/service Manual problems of the 2009 Chevrolet Malibu

Power locks do not work properly on my 2009 chevy Malibu. I can sometimes get driver's door to unlock with remote, but rarely the passenger or back doors. The switches inside are of no help either. We have to manually pull up on each lock and then push them down when we exit. This is obviously a safety hazard for me and my passengers in the case we have to enter or exit the vehicle quickly. The locks do occasionally lock when put in gear, but do not always when in park or when the ignition is turned off. With small children, this is dangerous. I have changed remote batteries, reprogrammed remotes, and have changed the fuse for the locks. Nothing has changed. When troubleshooting online, I saw dozens of complaints about this same issue. This is obviously something that Chevrolet needs to fix. They should have a recall immediately and take care of this issue. Customers buy vehicles in good faith that the makers will take care of these known defects. I can understand the ordinary repairs, but this is a problem that the maker is aware of and continues to make no changes.

Rear door lock fails to open or close. Must be manually unlocked or locked. The safety concern is the inability to lock or unlock the door in an emergency. Must physically climb into back seat to reach the lever to unlock the door as the lever is located at the rear of the door. This may seem to be more of a convenience issue, but it could very well become a matter of life or death particularly if the occupant is a child or a person with a disability. Furthermore, I read numerous accounts of door lock actuators failing on these vehicles. It is indeed a safety issue. Must a person die before corrective measures are ordered?.

The door locks on this vehicle will not secure and must be secured manually when entering or exiting the vehicle, also unlocks and locks during driving. . Very unsafe vehicle at this time due to these door lock issues. Not able to feel comfortable as much with this vehicle due to these issures. Please fix.

Door locks and unlocks while driving as well as when no key in ignition. . . . . Continuously!!!!! :I can not even manually lock my doors. . . They will just unlock.

The door locks began locking and unlocking while vehicle was running and in park. After turning ignition off and then back on, door locks continued locking and unlocking while driving as well. Then, the door lock switch on driver's door stopped working. Last time this issue started and continued with key fob no longer working, and only way to lock doors was manually and unlock driver's door with key and manually unlock remaining doors. Dealer replaced door lock actuator and key fobs to fix problem. Why is this happening again and within a few months of already having been fixed once? is there a recall for this? I do not want to pay for same repair repeatedly.

Living in arizona, when the weather is hotter than 90 f, the electric door locks do not unlock and have to be manually unlocked.

Door will not open. I was locked in my own car at the gas station. I manually pulled up on the door lock and still couldn't get out. I rolled the window down and pulled on the outside door handle release and nothing. After pushing every button several times and putting the car in and out of park I finally managed to get out. 2 days later the same thing happened but I was outside the car. I had to crawl from the passengers side to get into the drivers seat to get to work. Since the door locks were acting up I pulled the fuse and decided to do it old school and use the key to lock and unlock my car. Good idea until I was leaving work and the key wouldn't open the door. Great!!! hey, I will just unlock the passenger door and climb in. Did you know there is no place to insert a key to unlock the door on the passenger side? I do now. After much cursing I managed to get in using the key but then the door wouldn't close. Oh my god I thought. I had to use 2 bungee cords to hold the door close so I could drive the car 25 miles home. I didn't mention that the back door quit working over a year ago did I? I think it is time for a recall. Being locked in your car in not a good thing. Imagine if the first responders couldn't get you out of your car if you were in a accident because of faulty door actuators. I see multiple complaints of this defect and now it is time somebody has to step up and do their job and address this issue. Apparently somebody has to die first and sue everyone involved to make something happen.

Suddenly the door locks on the drivers side of the vehicle, front and back, began working intermittently. The remote key fob does not work, and the manual button to lock and unlock the doors does not always work. The locks only partially lock, resulting in the doors being able to be partially pulled open from the outside. Sometimes the two locks on the drivers side do not lock at all. Also, the electric windows started malfunctioning - the passenger window cannot be raised and lowered from the drivers side. This appears similar to a recall in the news covering door lock malfunctions in other gm vehicles, but the 2009 Malibu is not included in the recall as far as I can tell.

Recently, I experienced a failed door locking actuator in my 2009 chevy Malibu while driving my 2yr old to daycare. I was turning right out of my neighborhood, when my door(driver’s door) swung open. I grabbed it and tried shutting, but the locking mechanism was locked, so it wouldn’t shut. I pulled over and had to manually unlock the door so my door would shut. I couldn’t even imagine if this situation occurred to a door in the backseat with my daughter sitting there in her child seat. Fast forward one week, and now 3 of my 4 locking actuators are failed. I did some research on the internet and noticed that there are numerous complaints from Malibu owners about these failed locking actuators. I then started to wonder if there was a recall on this. I called gm and they said there isn’t a recall and that is just normal part failure. Normal part failure?!?! I’ve had the car for less than 4 years and have only put 45k miles on it. In my opinion, this is a major safety issue.

When first got car doors locked and unlocked with remote for apps 1 week. Then over appx month stopped working 1 door at a time. At this point the power locks inside (on door) do not work and lock/ unlock intermittently and even if I can unlock manually my drivers door it still stays locked even when lock is in fully unlocked position. Quite scary for someone that drives alone at night and my doors are unlocking themselves. God forbid I do get into an accident and need to get out of the car quickly. Also this makes it so my panic does not work on my fob. Yes I've changed batteries multiple times. Also my power steering has been cutting in and out while moving most often during turns. What happens if I am moving on a highway and I cannot steer correctly? feeling very unsure of my safety at this point.