This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
2004 Chevy Impala. 3 months ago the tachometer stopped working. Now the speedometer reads 120 mph when vehicle is not moving. When traveling with traffic on the interstate it is a problem to not know my correct speed. Just as going too fast can cause accidents so can going too slow on the interstate. It will cost over $500 to fix at the dealership. The car only has 68,000 miles.
The instrument panel is malfunctioning. First, the tachometer stopped working at all, now the speedometer indicates erroneous speeds. It shows that I am driving very fast when I'm actually much slower than the rest of the traffic. When parked, it shows 15-20 mph. It's very unsafe to drive without knowing your real speed, especially on long trips on the highway. Since the problem is quite common, GM should issue a recall to avoid such negative publicity.
While driving my 2004 Chevrolet Impala at 60 mph, the speedometer suddenly dropped to 0 mph and remained there. The fuel gauge is also stuck reading full continually, and the RPM gauge is also stuck at zero. The car only has 51000 miles on it, and based on my research, this problem is widespread. GM needs to be forced to recall this obvious defect.
First the tachometer quit working then the speedometer became erratic saying I was going slower than I actually was(checked with gps).I was doing 60 on the highway and it speedometer said 45, tachometer is always pegged out !!
Vehicle speedometer suddenly quits functioning. Speedometer suddenly shows high speed (example 120 mph) when driving highway speeds. Speedometer remains stuck in this position. I was able to clear the error after returning home and cycling the ignition from off to on many many times. Now the tach just '!@#$% out and stays at 6:00. I been also having transmission issues to where the tranny would occasionally shift hard then be fine for a while then back to shifting hard?
- Shirley, NY, USA
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Speedometer starts at random speeds and then continues like it started at zero. It sometimes says 80 or 100 mph when you are not moving and then continues to go higher as you drive. Obviously you have no idea how fast you are driving.
Speedometer has a mind of it's own sometimes it works, some times it doesn't, this is a real safety concern when I cannot tell the true speed in which I am driving.
First noticed a problem over a year ago when the tachometer went to zero while cruising down the interstate highway. The next time I drove the car it was fine. Recently I noticed that the coolant temp gauge was reading way past "hot, " however the car was not overheating. It continues to read this way. Next it was the speedometer reading much faster than actual speed, approximately 50 to 70 mph high. Once again the tachometer has gone haywire as well. Since this started I have noted that the tach and speedometer are functioning, (they movie higher and lower with changes in engine and vehicle speed) but appear to have lost their "zero" reference. I recalled that they would normally drop to below zero and then snap to zero when the key is first turned on. With the engine off I repeatedly cycled the key on then off, gradually backing the tach and speedometer to zero. They then functioned properly for a short time before wigging out again. It is my guess that the problem lies in the gauges losing their home pulse. So far, the fuel gauge has continued to operate normally. This failure is very dangerous as well as leaving me open to speed related tickets as I can only estimate my speed based on experience. After researching this problem and discovering the high number of complaints already filed with NHTSA it seems to me that this problem should result in a recall of these vehicles.
The night of 12/13, my temperature gauge was reading very high. I checked my coolant and did some trouble shooting. My car was not over heating as indicated on the gauge. Two days later, this problem resolved, however another problem with the speedometer developed. On 12/15, my speedometer was reading 60mph while I was parked in a parking garage. As I accelerated (going no more than 10mph) my speedometer was reading 120mph. It now rests at 120mph while parked and the needle goes above any readable mph while driving. Since Dec 15th, I have no idea how fast I am actually driving.
The speedometer on my 2004 Chevy Impala is defective, it has not been working for at least a year. As there are many complaints about the same issue with the same car, it should be a GM recall.
2004 Chevrolet Impala speedometer with 60K mileage completely went out of order. It could point at any speed gauge in driving. Very dangerous on the road. Thousands of Impala owners reported the same problem on the web. GM should recall before anyone has road accident.
My turn signals intermittently don't function for a period of time, and then suddenly start working again. Restarting the car fixes the problem sometimes, but isn't very helpful when you're on the highway traveling somewhere. This is a dangerous situation, especially at night on busy streets when you can't signal to turn or merge. Also, this has happened only once, but my car would not start as others have stated' the interior lights turned on but the car would not turn over. After twenty minutes the car started fine. This hasn't happened since, but if it did it would be a major inconvenience..
Speedometer stopped working. Failure began with sporadic inaccurate readings, from zero to 120 mph readings, regardless of actual speed. After several months, it stopped working altogether.
The contact owns a 2004 Chevy Impala. The contact stated that the vehicle shuts off while driving various speeds. The failure has occurred for three years. The dealer installed a path lock system and stated that the cpu may have been stolen. Three days after the path lock system was installed the vehicle shut off. The dealer diagnosed the failure again and stated that a BCM may need to be installed. The contact would like for the manufacturer to assume responsibility for the repairs. The current mileage was 77,000 and the failure mileage was 23,000.
I have had a number of problems with my 2004 Chevy Impala, it started with my temperature gauge not reading correctly, blinkers working when they wanted too and then the speedometer one day just stopped at 5 mph. The final straw was that my security light came on and after I shut my vehicle off and try to restart it, it would not start. I would have to wait for about 20 minutes to start my vehicle. This has happened numerous times and I finally had to spend over $1200 dollars to get my vehicle fixed. Not happy with Chevy.
2004 Impala, speedometer problem works when it wants to, at times registers 0 and at other times the needle buries itself, would be able to click back to 0 by turning the ignition on and off until it went back to 0 but worked erratically, finally stopped working altogether, temp gauge same way. Only way to fix problem was to have each and every gauge rebuilt and not replaced with GM part as the part they replace it with is the same '!@#$% originally installed, researched this on line and found 1000's of others with same problem, this should be recalled, as when the temp gauge buries itself you don't know for sure what is going on, if its for real or "??"
My speedometer stopped working about a year ago. One day I was driving at it just stopped working. After I turned my car off and then back on a little later it started to work again. Then it would randomly stop working and then work fine again later. It would either stop working all together or read the numbers wrong by saying I was doing 45 mph when I wasn't even moving. I didn't have the money to spend on getting it fixed so I borrowed my boyfriends gps so I could read my speed. Since then I noticed a pattern of the problems, every time I was getting close to the time to change my oil it would start acting up again. Now the problem has gotten worse and all my gauges are acting the same way. My fuel gauge, temperature gauge, and speedometer all pick and choose when they want to work and when they don't and they frequently don't work now. I decided to see if there was a recall and noticed that this was a common problem in this type of car. From how common this problem seems to be there should have been a recall on this a long time ago.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Nixa, MO, USA