Other steering problem on the 2004 GMC Sierra 1500
1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 5 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.
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 other steering problem gets reported
There are 5 reports of other steering problem on the 2004 GMC Sierra 1500, 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 95,000 miles. It is the 18th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 43,500 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, 1 a crash and 1 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 $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 17 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2005 at 80,000 miles.
By volume the 2014 carries the most reports, with 98; the 2004 has 5. 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.
Power steering faded at high speed. This was caused by the steering rotation sensor. Consumer had to put pressure on the steering wheel. When the power steering kicked back in vehicle veered off the highway from too much pressure on the steering wheel.*ak a normal steering rotation senor will fade out power steering at high speeds so you have better feel of the road. As speed decreases the steering should once again become easy when speed decreases. Problem is intermittent, the steering would be hard at low speeds and while you are applying a lot of pressure to make a turn the power steering would suddenly come back on causing the consumer to pull the truck off the road or over the yellow line. Consumer talked to several people who have the same problem with this model truck. *bf
I have a 2004 z71 sierra truck with a 5.3 engine that has a speedometer problem. It reads 120mph all of the time and they have quoted me around $550 to fix. I also have a clunk in the steering wheel when turning. I have had this problem fixed once by warranty but it has returned again. *tr
Me and my two boys where headed home and I was taking a curve at 50mph a went to slow down to 45 when I started to take the curve I heard some kind of metal bone breaking sound and my truck jerked to the oncoming lane and a jerked it back but after that everything went loose and me and my boys went sideways of of the bank of the curve and we rolled 3 times before we stopped tank up. My air bag didn't go off neither the passenger's airbag. I heard a hissing noise I got my boys out as fast as I could with some help of bystanders breaking the passenger side window so we could crawl out. They carried my boys and helped me hop to the other side of the road. Me and my boys went to the hospital. They were alright thank god I received some injuries to my back, neck, stomach and head. My truck was totaled and ivy hall towing in jacksonville, ar keep my truck and put a lien on it. How they except someone to pay after they were in a wreck and lost their job because no ride to get back and forth. My rollover wreck happened on hwy 107 and cleveland in arkansas on march 21st 2018
Also reported on the 2004 GMC Sierra 1500
Instrument cluster or gauge failure
Other electrical problem
Loss of braking
Other brake problem
Brake line, hose or caliper failure
Steering column or shaft failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 5 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 5 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 2004 GMC Sierra 1500?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 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 other steering problem on the 2004 GMC Sierra 1500?
5 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 5.1 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