Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 2010 Ford Fusion
3 crashes 2 injuries 5 of the 232 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 2010 Ford Fusion report steering rack, gear or tie rod failure at a median of 90,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 63,000 miles and a quarter after 130,000 miles, from 217 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 98,000 miles. It is the 9th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 48,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 160,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 112,200 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
5% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 47,800 miles | 62,680 miles | 90,000 miles | 130,000 miles | 160,000 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, 3 a crash and 2 an injury 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 $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 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2013, at a median of 57,500 miles, and latest on the 2011 at 93,000 miles.
By volume the 2010 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 was in a parking lot. It could be steered by man power. Took to ford garage and was the power steering rack. Was advised it could have been very dangerous if it had happened on the highway at high speed and on curves which we had just done that day. *tr
On october 4, 2012, I was driving my 2010 ford fusion around 40 m.p.h. On a four lane street when the power steering failed/locked for no reason. The electronic display said "power steering assist fault. Service advancetrac" I drove straight for 5 miles and knew there was a dealer on the left side and managed a wide left turn into the dealership. When I waited for the representative to come to my car, I turned off the engine. I explained what happened and he asked to see the display. I turned the car back on, the display was gone and the power steering was back on. I left the dealer and went on-line and found numerous complaints about the same problem. I also learned that it is useless to take the car to ford for service because dealers claim that the computer is not showing a diagnostic code and they need to "replicate the problem" (which is highly unlikely that it will happen while at the dealer). I also learned that it has happened to some customers many times and there is no warning or reason why the ps suddenly fails. Further, it appears that dealers have no idea how to correct the problem. It is a safety issue. It is…
On october 4, 2012, I was driving my 2010 ford fusion around 40 m.p.h. On a four lane street when the power steering failed/locked for no reason. The electronic display said "power steering assist fault. Service advancetrac" I drove straight for 5 miles and knew there was a dealer on the left side and managed a wide left turn into the dealership. When I waited for the representative to come to my car, I turned off the engine. I explained what happened and he asked to see the display. I turned the car back on, the display was gone and the power steering was back on. I left the dealer and went on-line and found numerous complaints about the same problem. I also learned that it is useless to take the car to ford for service because dealers claim that the computer is not showing a diagnostic code and they need to "replicate the problem" (which is highly unlikely that it will happen while at the dealer). I also learned that it has happened to some customers many times and there is no warning or reason why the ps suddenly fails. Further, it appears that dealers have no idea how to correct the problem. It is a safety issue. It is…
Also reported on the 2010 Ford Fusion
Other steering problem
Other powertrain problem
Other speed control problem
Other engine problem
Other fuel system problem
Airbag inflator rupture
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 232 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 2010 Ford Fusion?
Across 217 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 90,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 63,000 miles and a quarter after 130,000 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 2010 Ford Fusion?
232 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 2.3 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