I’m new to this community and I have had my Malibu for about a year and a half, bought used at 35k miles, now at 53k. I’ve noticed for the past few weeks that the mpg calculator in the car used to say around 30 after each and every drive now I’m getting around 20-25. It used to hesitate on acceleration but that problem seemed to fix itself as it hasn’t done it in months. I had it taken into the dealership awhile back to diagnose the hesitation issue but all they did was check it out and give me a list of 10 different things it could be and almost all of them should not be faulty on a 2 year old car (at the time).
2019 Malibu LT mpg
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Anything can be faulty on a pre-owned or new car of any age. Cars made up of thousands of parts have warranties for a reason. In this case I have an idea and a bulletin to match but need a little more info. The car has no warning lights on, right? It did this more in warmer months but not this winter?
Yes the hesitation issue with acceleration was during warmer months. But the diminishing mpg is a new recent problem that started in this winter.
And no warning lights
I'd ask the dealer to update the ECM programming per the bulletin below. The bulletin is for problems with hesitation and can be with or without fault codes. It should be covered as you are inside the 8 years/80,000 miles.
It’s been a little bit since the last post, but I tried to do some things at home first to see if it helped. I changed my air filters and cleaned the maf sensor and it seemed to help at first but it wasn’t where it should be. I ran some Techron through it and didn’t see any increase in fuel efficiency or power. So I called the dealer today and asked about this bulletin and they told me it’s not specified to my vin and all they could do is schedule an appointment to get it looked at, however I did that last summer and they gave me a list of problems that could potentially be the issue. I am currently sitting around 20 mpg, mostly city, after changing air filters and maf sensor cleaning. Before all of that it was as low as 17-18 mpg.
Its going to be the knock sensor issue. But just for curiosity, what was this list of problems they mentioned? Was it just generic ideas or was it in response to actual diagnosis?
I can’t remember exactly it was a little while ago, but it was mostly fuel system parts along with transmission fluid drain. Maybe I’ll take it in to them to see if they can get the problem to occur.
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