Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 2005 Ford F-250 SD
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 steering rack, gear or tie rod failure gets reported
There are 4 reports of steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 2005 Ford F-250 SD, 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 98,000 miles. It is the 21st most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 39,186 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
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 13 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2017, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2016 at 140,000 miles.
By volume the 2019 carries the most reports, with 25; the 2005 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.
2005 f-250 short bed 4x4 super duty 5.4 v-8. Truck shakes out of control at high speed when rough roadway is present. Has done this since 18,000 miles and gets worse with age. Ford refuses to find the problem, as they only drive truck around town. Have ask them to take onto interstate, but they don't have time ! Ford replaced the damper at 34,000, helped, but did not fix! Have had my front end man look at front end, and he could only find slack in the steering gear box, but that didn't fix the problem either. This truck is unsafe and ford needs to step up to the plate and fix the issue before someone gets killed! The last time it did it I had my 5th wheel trailer behind me and it took me across 2 lanes of traffic into the median, and scared me to death, to the point I am selling the 5th wheel and truck as it is junk, and will never buy another ford after being a ford man for over 35 years. The only way to stop the violent shaking is to slam brakes on and reduce speed to under 35 MPH. I have put up with the problem for some time as the truck now has 61,000 miles on it! *tr
1) @50,000 miles, normal city driving, speed less than 30 MPH. 2) left tierod broke without warning. The tie rod dropped to the ground and the left front wheel no longer had steering control. The tie rod looks like the castellated nut was over torqued causing the stud to break off and the tapered shaft to fall out of the spindle. This is not a case of the ball joint in the tie rod wearing out. I'm lucky in this case it happened at a slow speed and no trailer in tow. If I was moving faster with a trailer, it could have been a disaster to lose steering control of the left front tire. The right side tire was still able to steer. The truck swerved out of the lane momentarily while I regained some control. In the act of dropping down, the tie rod made contact with the bead area of the front rim. As a result the wheel rim was also ruined. It was interesting that the tow truck driver and the service manager both mentioned that they have seen this kind of problem before. 3) the truck was flatbedded to the dealership for repair. The tie rod end was replaced at my expense for ~$750, not including the damaged wheel. I have the old part and…
1) @50,000 miles, normal city driving, speed less than 30 MPH. 2) left tierod broke without warning. The tie rod dropped to the ground and the left front wheel no longer had steering control. The tie rod looks like the castellated nut was over torqued causing the stud to break off and the tapered shaft to fall out of the spindle. This is not a case of the ball joint in the tie rod wearing out. I'm lucky in this case it happened at a slow speed and no trailer in tow. If I was moving faster with a trailer, it could have been a disaster to lose steering control of the left front tire. The right side tire was still able to steer. The truck swerved out of the lane momentarily while I regained some control. In the act of dropping down, the tie rod made contact with the bead area of the front rim. As a result the wheel rim was also ruined. It was interesting that the tow truck driver and the service manager both mentioned that they have seen this kind of problem before. 3) the truck was flatbedded to the dealership for repair. The tie rod end was replaced at my expense for ~$750, not including the damaged wheel. I have the old part and…
Also reported on the 2005 Ford F-250 SD
Other suspension problem
Other steering problem
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
Fuel injector failure
Other body or interior problem
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 steering rack, gear or tie rod failure happen on the 2005 Ford F-250 SD?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 40,000 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 2005 Ford F-250 SD?
4 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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