Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 2006 Dodge RAM 2500
15 crashes 15 of the 106 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.
When steering rack, gear or tie rod failure gets reported
Owners of the 2006 Dodge RAM 2500 report steering rack, gear or tie rod failure at a median of 97,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 135,000 miles, from 90 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 98,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 37,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 165,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 128,714 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
8% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36,500 miles | 59,250 miles | 96,400 miles | 134,652 miles | 165,214 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, 15 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 $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 16 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2011, at a median of 40,000 miles, and latest on the 1996 at 195,000 miles.
By volume the 2006 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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.
I own a 2006 dodge ram 2500 that may be affected by a recall on 2008 model trucks. The recall number from chrysler is h36 and the NHTSA campaign id number is 09v005000. I just took my truck in for inspection and this joint on the pitman arm failed for too much play. We called to get the replacement part and were told it is no longer available because the part has been redesigned. You now have to replace multiple components because of this redesign which was initiated from the recall for 2008 trucks and it will cost you approximately $550 for the replacement parts. It will cost you this just for parts, if you truck is out of warranty. My truck has 50,170 miles on it which is over the 36,000 mile warranty. However, I should not have to pay $600+ because one joint is bad. If these parts were redesigned for safety reasons then this should be covered in the recall. I have confirmed with area dealers and all 2500 series dodge rams use this recalled linkage from 2003-2008. They all call for the same part number. Also, this was not a problem with just a certain 'batch' of parts. If so, chrysler would have only recalled the truck with the…
Tl* the contact owns a 2006 dodge ram 2500 mega cab. While driving at a low speed the right front axle failed. The mechanic discovered that the right front passenger side tie rod had fractured. The manufacturer stated that they could not sell him the part separately because the tie rod was re-designed and that it was sold as a unit. He contacted the dealer, and he was advised that the part was a common failure due to s manufacturers defect. The vehicle was repaired. The current and the failure mileages were 59,000.
2004 dodge ram pick up had repeated episodes of violent shaking, loss of steering control, and almost flipped over 2 out of the 10 episodes. Happened when driving over 45mph, usually on the highway, and 50% of the time started shaking after hitting a bump in the road. Took the truck to dodge several times, only to be told that there was nothing wrong with it. We were so terrified to drive it, that we ended up trading it in on another vehicle. Unfortunately, since we paid cash for the truck, we ended up taking a tremendous loss on it. Not to mention the thousands of dollars we spent trying to get it fixed. On one occasion we were stranded a few hundred miles from home, and had to stay at a campground for two weeks until it was " so called fixed". Dodge paid for nothing! After picking the truck up after being in the shop for 10 days, and several hundred dollars later, within 5 minutes of pulling out of the shop and accelerating to 45mph, the shaking became so violent it snapped a tie rod and put me in a ditch. When I called the dodge dealership that had just fixed it, they wanted to charge me for towing it back to the shop. This was…
Also reported on the 2006 Dodge RAM 2500
Other steering problem
Tail light, brake light or signal failure
Other suspension problem
Other electrical problem
Headlight failure or clouding
Other lighting problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 106 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 2006 Dodge RAM 2500?
Across 90 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 97,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 135,000 miles. 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 2006 Dodge RAM 2500?
106 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.6 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