Steering column or shaft failure on the 2013 Jeep Wrangler
1 fire 1 of the 23 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 column or shaft failure gets reported
Owners of the 2013 Jeep Wrangler report steering column or shaft failure at a median of 45,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 35,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles, from 12 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 10th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 15,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 110,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 90,947 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.
25% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17,053 miles | 35,885 miles | 45,000 miles | 108,000 miles | 108,000 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, 1 a fire is 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 $600–$2,500 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2019, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2007 at 130,000 miles.
By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 67; the 2013 has 23. 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 was all most injured/killed by 2013 jeep wrangler with 6300 miles on it when the airbag deployed on its own and caught on fire. On sep 16 2013 at 2100 my jeep was caught in a rain shower with the top and doors off for about 15 minutes before I got off work, I drove it home in the rain and put it in the garage to dry off, it was not that wet so I thought I would just let it air dry,my drive home was a little over four miles. Around 2200 I was in bed on the phone when I loud bag (gun shot I thought) went off in my garage and I jumped to clear my home, as I got to the garage I seen that my airbag went off and the garage ceiling was full of smoke. The steering column was also smoking (I thought it was on fire) I got it out of my garage asp,so it did burn down my home and called 911. The fire dept came and said it was out and I left it out side I covered it up with a car cover for the night. I the morning I called the 800 # to jeep and get it towed to jeep dealership. After a week jeep hired inspector to read the computer. Jeep notified me that they will not say why it went off and it not there problem. Please help me with this to…
Driver seat adjustment feature is failing. Primary driver requires seat to be set at highest possible height (vertical) elevation position. Driver has had to repeatedly use manual adjustment feature to raise seat to required height majority of the time that the vehicle is driven. The frequency that the adjustment must be made before driving is increasing. Although the seat has not yet dropped while the vehicle has been in motion, the concern is that it will start to occur in the future. When the seat drops, the primary driver has issues with the visibility and reaching the both the brake pedal and the accelerator pedal. (note: when the driver seat is adjusted to a higher position, it also moves forward...closer to the steering column and brake/gas pedals). In addition, when the seat drops to its default position, the primary driver's face is also put at risk if the airbag is deployed. This could result in a potentially serious injury to the primary driver if the airbag deployed with the seat in the default position. The potential failure of the seat adjustment feature in this vehicle appears to constitute a major safety hazard…
Airbag signal failure (clock spring dust issue) 2013 jeep wrangler jku left-hand drive experiencing driver side airbag signal failure. A recall for the same symptoms (recall #16v288000) applies only to right-hand vehicles, which use the same part. Mileage approximately 45,000.
Also reported on the 2013 Jeep Wrangler
Other powertrain problem
Other steering problem
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
Airbag warning light or occupant sensor fault
Cruise control failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 23 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 column or shaft failure happen on the 2013 Jeep Wrangler?
Across 12 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 35,000 miles and a quarter after 110,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is steering column or shaft failure on the 2013 Jeep Wrangler?
23 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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