Loss of power steering on the 2013 Ford Explorer
3 crashes 3 of the 121 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 loss of power steering gets reported
Owners of the 2013 Ford Explorer report loss of power steering at a median of 90,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 67,500 miles and a quarter after 112,500 miles, from 97 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 80,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 32,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 147,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 116,120 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.
11% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31,480 miles | 67,000 miles | 90,000 miles | 112,000 miles | 147,600 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, 3 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 $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 10 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2018, at a median of 20,000 miles, and latest on the 2014 at 95,000 miles.
By volume the 2013 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.
Power steering failure while backing up and driving. Turning vehicle off and on causes power steering to work. Very hard to steer, not safe to drive... Dealer is putting a hole new power steering unit in... *tr
As I was turning left at a light, my power steering went out completely in the car. I looked down at the instrument panel and it was bright yellow and said advance trac failure. It was very difficult for me to control the SUV and it took every ounce of upper body strength in me to pull into a parking lot. I barely avoided a head on collision with another SUV as I turned into the lot. I pulled into the back of the lot and put the SUV in park and turned it off. Upon turning it back on the power steering was working again. I was very shook up since I had my 6 year old daughter with me as well. I hope someone looks into what is causing this to happen. My brand new car is at the local ford dealership and when I dropped it off this morning I was told that they have never heard of such a thing happening to anyone. *tr
As I was turning left at a light, my power steering went out completely in the car. I looked down at the instrument panel and it was bright yellow and said advance trac failure. It was very difficult for me to control the SUV and it took every ounce of upper body strength in me to pull into a parking lot. I barely avoided a head on collision with another SUV as I turned into the lot. I pulled into the back of the lot and put the SUV in park and turned it off. Upon turning it back on the power steering was working again. I was very shook up since I had my 6 year old daughter with me as well. I hope someone looks into what is causing this to happen. My brand new car is at the local ford dealership and when I dropped it off this morning I was told that they have never heard of such a thing happening to anyone. *tr
Also reported on the 2013 Ford Explorer
Other steering problem
Other body or interior problem
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
Exhaust leak or fumes in the cabin
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 121 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 2013 Ford Explorer?
Across 97 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 90,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 67,500 miles and a quarter after 112,500 miles. 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 2013 Ford Explorer?
121 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.6 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