How Reliable is the Chevrolet Cobalt?

Front 3/4 view of a Chevrolet Cobalt

Cobalt owners have made 1055 complaints over 6 model years. It ranks 35th in reliability out of 40 eligible Chevrolet models.

Our reliability rank is based on our PainRank™ system. A higher number means you can expect more significant problems. The average Chevrolet score is 18.80 while the Cobalt comes in at 40.8.

The 2 Most Common Cobalt Problems

We've pulled together a list of the problems Cobalt owners.

  1. Ignition Switch Safety Recall

    In February, 2014, General Motors recalled 1.6 million vehicles because of a faulty ignition switch that has been linked to the deaths of 13 people. To make matters worse, the company may have known about the defect for over a decade.

    Continue

  2. Passlock Security

    One of Chevrolet’s solutions for stopping thieves from driving away with a car is, coincidently, doing the same thing to the actual owner.

    Continue

What Cobalt Owners Complain About

Sometimes it helps just to tally up the complaints and see where the biggest stacks are. Use this information to learn about troublespots or to run for the hills.

Worst Issues

What Breaks

Years to Avoid

Full Lists on CarComplaints.com

Cobalt Generations

Generations are groups of model years where few, if any, changes were made to the vehicle which means their model years tend to break in similar ways. The Cobalt has 1 generation available in North American markets.

  1. 1st Generation Cobalt

    Years
    2005–2010
    Reliability
    70th of 80
    PainRank™
    31.78
    Complaints
    1054
    Continue Front 3/4 view of a Cobalt

Cobalt Key Numbers

  1. 1,055 complaints

    Running tally of owner grievances filed to CarComplaints.com.

  2. 1,002 service bulletins

    Documenting the process of troubleshooting common problems.

  3. 11 recall campaigns

    Time-sensitive, free repairs for widespread safety problems.

Recent Cobalt News

There's a lot of news out there, but not all of it matters. We try to boil down it to the most important bits about things that actually help you with your car problem. Interested in getting these stories in an email? Signup for free email alerts over at CarComplaints.com.

  1. **Th

    federal case against GM’s handling of their ignition switch recall might be over, but a judge has left the door open for owners to sue the automaker for economic losses if they want. Judge Jesse Furman ruled on claims of "manifest defects," or what claims can proceed based on if the defect manifested itself to a customer. The consolidated lawsuit is a massive 1,700 pages of arguments that GM should pay any vehicle owner who owned a recalled car equipped with bad ignition switches.

    If you own (or have owned) one of the affected cars, this judge says you should be able to sue GM even if problems related to the ignition switch never affected you personally.

    Normally I’d say there’s no way that’ll hold up in court … but it just did.

    keep reading

  2. A proposed settlement will award certain GM owners in Arizona about $200 each for owning cars with ignition switch problems.

    The $6.28 million will be paid to about 33,000 GM owners in Arizona, as long as they purchased the vehicles between July 2009 and July 2014 and didn't get rid of the vehicles before the ignition switch recalls were announced in 2014..

    As with any settlement, there are plenty of stipulations which you can read about here.

    keep reading

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