Other steering problem on the 2005 Mercury Sable
1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 3 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 3 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 3 reports of other steering problem on the 2005 Mercury Sable, 3 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 11th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 69,000 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 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 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2001, at a median of 45,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 175,000 miles.
By volume the 1997 carries the most reports, with 9; the 2005 has 3. 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.
Traveling down road, heard a loud noise, and lost control of car. Car is one year old and has 30,000 miles. Car pulls to the right and slams into guard rail. $4000 of body and suspension damage. Car sent to local ford dealer where purchased from. Dealer instructed to retain all suspension parts by me and the insurance appraiser. Dealer conveniently loses the steering knuckle which from my initial investigation appeared to have been the cause of the accident(I have high res. Digital photos of the part). The pa state police deemed the cause of the accident mechanical failure. Driver was stiff and sore with serious emotional issues due to accident that she had no control over. Still do not have car back after 3 weeks(repair was supposed to take 8 days). No one has stated that ford is going to make this right. The car is still under warranty but at this time it seems myself and insurance company will be paying the bill. *nm
Tl*the contact owns a 2005 mercury sable. The contact states that while driving approximately between 45-50 MPH on normal road conditions. The vehicle began to shake and vibrate excessively. The failures occurred the following day and the check engine warning light indicator illuminated on the instrument panel. The failures occurred without warning. The warning indicator illuminated until the engine was turned off. The contact was in the process of taking the vehicle to an authorized dealer for inspection. The failure and current mileages were 73,000.
This was the third incident in which the car stopped on me. (one other time when I was leaving my apartment and one wednesday evening on my way to bible study; both times had to coast to the road side and try and get it to start again). The third time I was driving down the highway at the speed limit of 40 MPH. The car's dash board lite up; gave me one message that said "low pressure. The steering wheel locked and the gas pedal locked; I was able to coast to the side before it completed locked up and stopped one me. Had my year old grandson in the car with me. I let the car sit for a while and was able to get it started again. Drove it back to my apartment and parked it. Have not driven it since then - had it towed to a repair shop where it is right now - they want too much to have it repaired; they say there is a problem with the cylinder inside the ignition and that I also need a new key - want $1200 to repair it. I have been having problems trying to get it to started for about the past 6 months - have taken it to several repair shops; paid them but no one has solved the issue. Ford states that my car is not included in the…
Also reported on the 2005 Mercury Sable
Other speed control problem
Cruise control failure
Other powertrain problem
Torque converter failure
Other engine problem
Other brake problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 3 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 3 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 2005 Mercury Sable?
Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 70,000 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 2005 Mercury Sable?
3 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.6 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