Loss of power steering on the 1997 Chevrolet Corvette
2 injuries 2 of the 4 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
Only 4 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When loss of power steering gets reported
There are 4 reports of loss of power steering on the 1997 Chevrolet Corvette, 4 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 80,000 miles. It is the 11th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 50,544 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 2 an injury is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $600–$2,800 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2000, at a median of 25,000 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 50,000 miles.
By volume the 1999 carries the most reports, with 7; the 1997 has 4. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
My 1997 c-5 corvette has a problem with the steering wheel locking up. The first time it happen when my wife had it at work, when she went to leave she started out but could not steer. The dashboard reader display said "column failure". When checking the owners manual we found "column failure" and it said to have vehicle towed to repair shop for service. The vehicle was repaired at my expense because general motors would not admit to a problem. There is an active recall for 1998-2002 c-5 corvettes for steering column lockup, but they said that mine was caused by a different part and they would not honor the recall. On tuesday 10 june the steering column locked up again this time while my wife was driving. She had just pulled into traffic and heard a click at which time the steering locked up. Fortunately she was able to stop without incident. The car had to sit part way in the road until a wrecker was dispatched to tow it in again. The service dealer has had the car since that time and we still don't know when or if it will be fixed. *jb ref. In ea02-031 *cjs
While driving at 65 MPH vehicle went onto an exit ramp, slowed down to about 35 MPH, and it turned right. Then, went to straighten out vehicle and steering locked up. Ran vehicle off the road into emergengy lane; did not hit anything, but hurt shoulder, popped it, trying to turn steering. Could not get steering unlocked. Gmc sent investigator out to check out car, and they fixed everything. Replaced steering column e7680/ part 267460, column lock/10424050s wheel, and sc4x 267460 (count 2). Claim type e om. Replaced n4800 533wc0.60, module 1 at 9381389, sc4x 9381389. Customer to send invoice.*ak
While driving at 65 MPH vehicle went onto an exit ramp, slowed down to about 35 MPH, and it turned right. Then, went to straighten out vehicle and steering locked up. Ran vehicle off the road into emergengy lane; did not hit anything, but hurt shoulder, popped it, trying to turn steering. Could not get steering unlocked. Gmc sent investigator out to check out car, and they fixed everything. Replaced steering column e7680/ part 267460, column lock/10424050s wheel, and sc4x 267460 (count 2). Claim type e om. Replaced n4800 533wc0.60, module 1 at 9381389, sc4x 9381389. Customer to send invoice.*ak
Also reported on the 1997 Chevrolet Corvette
Other steering problem
Steering column or shaft failure
Other body or interior problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Other engine problem
Stalling while driving
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 4 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 4 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does loss of power steering happen on the 1997 Chevrolet Corvette?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 50,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is loss of power steering on the 1997 Chevrolet Corvette?
4 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed