Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 2011 Ford Fusion
4 crashes 2 injuries 6 of the 202 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 2011 Ford Fusion report steering rack, gear or tie rod failure at a median of 93,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 65,000 miles and a quarter after 124,000 miles, from 173 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 98,000 miles. It is the 7th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 40,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 157,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 116,969 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.
7% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40,031 miles | 65,000 miles | 93,000 miles | 123,839 miles | 157,000 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, 4 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 carries the most reports, with 232; the 2011 has 202. 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.
Yesterday, as I was driving up an on ramp, my advance trac light and alarm came on and the power steering failed. Steering was very difficult as the steering wheel was basically frozen. I was able to pull off to the side of the road.I turned the car off and back on and everything seemed to go back to normal and the power steering worked. Today I took it to a dealer to get it repaired. At first they told me my car must have stalled while I was driving and they replaced the throttle body. I insisted the car did not stall or turn off or decelerate and that only the power steering was not working. I left the dealership. Later in the day they contacted me after discussing the problem with some peers, they realized what the problem was and asked me to return. I took it back and they told me I would need the power steering rack replaced. I'm really surprised that there has not been a recall--in doing a google search, I see that it is not a new problem with fusions and it has happened to quite a few people. I spoke to 2 colleagues today with the same car who also had their power steering malfunction. *tr
The car suddenly developed some slop or play in the steering of the car with a clunking noise upon steering. A garage checked it out and determined that the "rack and pinion" assembly housing, which is made a aluminum, had a vertical crack in the middle of it. This is very dangerous situation that could cause steering failure resulting in a total loss of vehicle control. Car is drivable at this point. *tr
The steering of the vehicle went out and locked while driving. This is a fairly new vehicle and I see some trending of complaints and similar descriptions of the failure. Extremely dangerous. Very thankful I was not on the highway. Was advised by ford that rack and pinion needed replacement and they could not diagnose cause. $2000 repair. Not covered, outside warranty period of 36k miles. Seems to be more of a recall issue? *tr
Also reported on the 2011 Ford Fusion
Other steering problem
Airbag inflator rupture
Loss of power steering
Other engine problem
Other speed control problem
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 202 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 2011 Ford Fusion?
Across 173 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 93,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 65,000 miles and a quarter after 124,000 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 2011 Ford Fusion?
202 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 2.0 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