AtWhatMileage
Steering · 29 owner reports

Other steering problem on the 1998 Chevrolet Tahoe

1 crash 1 of the 29 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 6 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 29
With an odometer reading 6
Reports per 1,000 built 22 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 0%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 1
Typical repair $350–$2,400
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 3rd

When other steering problem gets reported

There are 29 reports of other steering problem on the 1998 Chevrolet Tahoe, 6 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 95,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 6 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 85,000 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 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 $350–$2,400 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 19 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2008, at a median of 12 miles, and latest on the 2005 at 150,000 miles.

By volume the 1997 carries the most reports, with 93; the 1998 has 29. 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.

Median
  1. 1996 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 1997 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 78k
  3. 1998 (this one) 85k
  4. 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 75k
  5. 2000 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 29k
  6. 2001 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 55k
  7. 2002 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 100k
  8. 2003 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 41k
  9. 2004 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 69k
  10. 2005 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 149k
  11. 2006 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 124k
  12. 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 115k
  13. 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 12
  14. 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  15. 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 135k
  16. 2011 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 172k
  17. 2012 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 63k
  18. 2013 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 46k
  19. 2014 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 5k
  20. 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 73k
  21. 2016 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 29k
  22. 2017 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  23. 2018 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 59k
  24. 2019 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 12k
  25. 2020 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  26. 2021 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 60k
  27. 2022 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  28. 2023 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  29. 2024 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 1k
  30. 2025 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem 40k
  31. 2026 Chevrolet Tahoe other steering problem
    no odometer readings given
    —

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.

While driving the steering wheel would make a sharp right or left which caused the consumer to jerk the steering wheel back in place. The dealer was notified. *nlm evo sensor replaced. *tt

72,000 miles NHTSA complaint 402739 filed 2003-04-15

The vehicle experienced problems with the steering mechanism. The vehicle lost power steering. The 2nd issue involved the windshield wipers which worked intermittently. *ph the steering wheel position sensor was replaced. *scc

60,000 miles NHTSA complaint 440479 filed 2003-11-12

When turning the steering wheel to the right feels like driving on ice. When it is cold the steering feel like this all the time till the tahoe warms up then I am back the random turning. Will not let anyone in my household drive the tahoe because of this. Found a bunch of other tahoes with this problem on the internet and it sounds like the steering evo sensor is bad. Looks like the tahoe would send some type of message to inform the driver to have this repaired or a bypass installed in case of failure. *tr

63,300 miles NHTSA complaint 644134 filed 2007-10-30

Also reported on the 1998 Chevrolet Tahoe

Wiper or washer failure

45 reports median 73k

ABS module or sensor failure

44 reports median 82k

Other electrical problem

17 reports median 87k

Other wheel or tire problem

13 reports median 113k

Premature brake pad or rotor wear

12 reports median 90k

Other powertrain problem

11 reports median 67k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 29 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 29 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 other steering problem happen on the 1998 Chevrolet Tahoe?

Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 85,000 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 other steering problem on the 1998 Chevrolet Tahoe?

29 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 22 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