santa6

I am stuck 500 miles from home. I did a lot of driving in hevay rain today, in my 2009 Malibu LT 4cyl. I parked the car for a while. Got back in about 2 hours later. It started fine. Put my foot on the brake and put it in reverse. The car went nuts. It bucked back-n-forth with big clunks. The door locks were cycling up and down. The shift indicator lights in the console were flashing back-n-forth between P and R. The dinger was going off. The info center was flashing "Service Power Steering", "Service ESC", "Service Traction Control","ESC Off". Then the CEL came on and stayed on. Totally nuts!!!!

I turned it off and called the local Chevy dealer. They said they had no idea but that their wrecker was out bring in another guy with a Chevy PU that was having the exact same problems.

I got back in and tried to drive it. It goes okay in reverse. In drive, I have to really step on the gas and waaaiiitttttt for it to get going - almost like it's operating in some kind of "limp home mode".

Help needed urgently.

What the hell is this all about. I just bought this thing two weeks ago?

Chevrolet Customer Service

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Would you please PM me your VIN number on this vehicle. I would like to look into this further and see if I can find additional information within my resources.

I look forward to your reply.

Louis
GM Customer Service

santa6

One more symptom, I can drive it a little but the trans is stuck in one gear. Sounds like limp mode.

santa6

I limped the car to a Chevy shop 40 miles toward home. They quickly determine the main fuse box is shorted, probably caused by all the rain. They don't have the parts in stock and they are a week away, and I have to get home.

They figure out what circuit is involved and they run a jumper wire from a red wire with a white stripe up to a 10amp fuse in the main fuse box. This fixed everything. They ordered the parts and the plan was I would make an appointment when the parts come it. So I can now drive home for the weekend 450 miles.

I drive 400 miles. I'm cruising along at 70mph with the cruise control on and WHAM the problem comes back. Cruise turns off, speedo dies, engine jumps to 2800 rpm because I'm back to one gear in the transmission and it says "Power Steering" in the info window. I call the guys that did the jumper. They suspect the fuse they jumpered to is blown. I checked when I got home and the fuse looks good.

What is this? Also, is the fuse box the cause or symptom - could something else be causing this?

santa6

In the process of checking the fuse, I also verified that the splice was good - to the degree that I could without undoing the plastic connector. It must have been that the splice was a little loose or shifted away from a good connection, because after I played around with the fuse and the wire a little bit - everything was working again.

I drove the car all over town running errands this weekend and all is fine. Tonight I have to head back 500 miles to the new job. Later in the week the parts should come in and I'll have it in the shop to get the new fuse box installed.

I have my fingers crossed that the problem here is a poorly designed fuse box that was impacted by the huge rain fall last week. Replacing the box will make things right and the likelihood of a recurrance is very low - otherwise it could be one of those sinister electrical short problems that never gets found and this thing becomes a nightmare. No - not that.

santa6

Well it's been over a year since this disaster occurred.

The shop replaced the main fuse box. There was one additional event that couldn't be explained, but they got it right and I have since put 80,000 miles on the car without a hiccup. This weekend I replaced a noisy front wheel bearing/hub assembly and that went fine.

Car is awesome to drive for my super-commuting every week.