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Steering · 6 owner reports

Other steering problem on the 2006 GMC Sierra 2500

1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 6 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 5 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.

Reports of this failure 6
With an odometer reading 5
Reports per 1,000 built 11 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 60%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 2
Typical repair $350–$2,400
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 3rd

When other steering problem gets reported

There are 6 reports of other steering problem on the 2006 GMC Sierra 2500, 5 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 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 5 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 913 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 12 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2006, at a median of 900 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 140,000 miles.

By volume the 2005 carries the most reports, with 9; the 2006 has 6. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Dt*: the contact stated the vehicle's hydroboost was too small for the truck and made too much noise when the brakes or steering were used. The dealer determined the vehicle has no problems, but the contact expressed there will be difficulty doing towing work particularly going uphill and downhill. The vehicle is only two months old and has been demonstrating this problem since the beginning of the second month.

500 miles NHTSA complaint 587967 filed 2006-07-10

Dt*: the contact stated while attempting to exit a parallel parked position, the power steering failed. The steering wheel was only able to be turned one quarter turn in either direction. The vehicle was taken to a service dealer, where they were unable to determine the cause of the problem. The manufacturer was also notified. Updated 08/27/07 *tr

913 miles NHTSA complaint 606254 filed 2006-12-12

Tl*the contact owns a 2006 gmc sierra 2500. While attempting to exit a parallel parked position, the power steering failed. The steering wheel was only able to be turned one quarter turn in either direction. The vehicle was taken to a service dealer on three occasion, where they were unable to determine the cause of the problem. The manufacturer stated that without a recall they are unable to repair it. The failure mileage was 650 and the current mileage was 3745.

650 miles NHTSA complaint 635157 filed 2007-08-20

Also reported on the 2006 GMC Sierra 2500

Loss of braking

11 reports median 112k

Other brake problem

10 reports median 36k

Other wheel or tire problem

5 reports median 10k

Parking brake failure

4 reports median 58k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 6 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 6 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 2006 GMC Sierra 2500?

Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 900 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 2006 GMC Sierra 2500?

6 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 11 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