Other steering problem on the 2002 Ford Focus
10 crashes 7 injuries 1 death 18 of the 37 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 other steering problem gets reported
Owners of the 2002 Ford Focus report other steering problem at a median of 55,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 70,000 miles, from 17 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 10th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 115,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 106,900 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.
35% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6,600 miles | 15,002 miles | 55,000 miles | 70,000 miles | 113,500 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, 10 a crash, 7 an injury and 1 a fatality 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 $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 2009, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2011 at 85,000 miles.
By volume the 2012 carries the most reports, with 567; the 2002 has 37. 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.
I purchased this vehicle new, took delivery 9/28/02. A few months later, I noticed the material covering the steering wheel had developed some rough spots in the surface. I could not remember doing anything that would have scraped or roughened the surface. The material covering the steering wheel has continued to crumble off until now, large chunks are missing off about 6" of it, with the metal of the underlying steering wheel showing in a couple of spots. Another several inches are starting to disinigrate. The wheel does not rub against me while I am driving, but is occurring along the lower 1/3 of the wheel. Today, 7/16/03, I took it into the dealership to be replaced under warranty. They eventually agreed to do so, but not before the service technician tried to intimidate me out of replacing it by insisting that I had damaged it myself. I had to argue with both the technician and the service manager before they agreed to replace the wheel under warranty. This is a safety issue, for had they been successful in intimidating me, or other owners with the same problem, a faulty steering wheel unsafe to hold is what the owner would…
Steering wheel lost control while driving at normal speed. As result, lower and upper ball joints and brake were damaged. Dealer notified. *ak updated 1/11/2006. There was popping and clicking in the steering wheel while turning. This caused the consumer to lose control and hit a curb. The impact resulted in a blown tire. *nm
During the rain when the vehicle is driven through a puddle, the steering would become difficult. The steering wheel was hard to turn and unmanageable. As a result, the driver lost control of the vehicle and hit the curb. The dealership indicated that this could possibly be caused by the brakes, which were replaced. The problem remained. *ph *sc *jb
Also reported on the 2002 Ford Focus
Other electrical problem
Other body or interior problem
Other wheel or tire problem
Other engine problem
Ignition switch, key fob or immobilizer failure
Fuel pump failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 37 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 2002 Ford Focus?
Across 17 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 55,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 70,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other steering problem on the 2002 Ford Focus?
37 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 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