Bought a certified pre-owned 2005 Malibu Maxx in 2007. Still had the bumper to bumper warranty which was great. Before that warranty expired, so less than 50,000 miles, we would occasionally hear a "chirp", "squeak", or "whistle" like noise under hard acceleration. It sounded like it came from under the vehicle toward the rear and never thought in a million years it was the transmission. Given we had the bumper to bumper warranty we decided to take it to the stealership... and lucky we did!

They had it for a week! Apparently it was a BIG problem. They had to rebuild the transmission in order to fix the problem. I never got a straight answer with any details about what exactly went wrong but they said if I hadn't caught it early it would have ruined the transmission. This was all covered under warranty with no fuss or debate on either side... no hassle! I was really happy about that.

Now with 64,000+ miles we have had no further issues. I've heard the same noise once or twice, which kinda scares me but it's not consistent like it previously. The original problem was very easy to reproduce... from a rolling start you'd just give it 3/4+ throttle (as if you had to pass someone or get onto the interstate) and the shift from 2nd to 3rd would exhibit the noise almost every time.

Despite this we still like the car and have kept it... and we are even considering buying another.