AtWhatMileage
Steering · 3 owner reports

Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 2007 Chevrolet Silverado 2500

1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 3 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 3 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.

Reports of this failure 3
With an odometer reading 3
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 100%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 2
Typical repair $700–$2,600
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 19th

When steering rack, gear or tie rod failure gets reported

There are 3 reports of steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 2007 Chevrolet Silverado 2500, 3 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 98,000 miles. It is the 19th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 3 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 32,000 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, 1 a crash and 1 an injury are 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 $700–$2,600 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.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2007, at a median of 30,000 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 200,000 miles.

By volume the 2016 carries the most reports, with 15; the 2007 has 3. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Tl*the contact owns a 2007 chevrolet silverado 2500. While driving approximately 45 MPH, the steering column became inoperable. The vehicle was driven to the dealer and they stated that the steering gear was defective. The dealer replaced the steering gear. Approximately six months later, the steering column became inoperable again. The vehicle was driven to the dealer and they replaced the steering column. Two weeks after the repairs were performed, the contact was involved in a crash due to the steering column failure. He sustained minor injuries and the vehicle sustained front end and alignment damage. A police report was filed. The dealer performed a realignment. The manufacturer advised him to take the vehicle to the dealer for diagnostic testing. The results of the test showed no defects with the vehicle. The current mileage was 28,325 and failure mileage was 2,800.

2,800 miles NHTSA complaint 692810 filed 2008-10-17

Tl* the contact owns a 2007 chevrolet silverado 2500. While driving approximately 30 MPH, the contact noticed that the windshield wipers stalled. The contact also heard a loud clunking noise coming from underneath the hood of the vehicle. Neither the dealer nor the manufacturer was notified of the failure. The vehicle was taken to a private mechanic who replaced the wiper assembly and the intermediate steering shaft. The current mileage was 35,000 and the failure mileage was 32,000. The VIN was unavailable.

32,000 miles NHTSA complaint 838653 filed 2011-01-25

Tl* the contact owns a 2007 chevrolet silverado 2500. While driving approximately 30 MPH, the contact noticed that the windshield wipers stalled. The contact also heard a loud clunking noise coming from underneath the hood of the vehicle. Neither the dealer nor the manufacturer was notified of the failure. The vehicle was taken to a private mechanic who replaced the wiper assembly and the intermediate steering shaft. The current mileage was 35,000 and the failure mileage was 32,000. The VIN was unavailable.

32,000 miles NHTSA complaint 838654 filed 2011-01-25

Also reported on the 2007 Chevrolet Silverado 2500

Airbag inflator rupture

47 reports median 100k

Other powertrain problem

13 reports median 51k

Other body or interior problem

12 reports median 80k

Loss of braking

10 reports median 67k

Other engine problem

10 reports median 16k

Other brake problem

9 reports median 44k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 3 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 3 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 steering rack, gear or tie rod failure happen on the 2007 Chevrolet Silverado 2500?

Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 30,000 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 steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 2007 Chevrolet Silverado 2500?

3 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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