Other steering problem on the 2005 Pontiac G6
13 crashes 3 injuries 16 of the 275 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 other steering problem gets reported
Owners of the 2005 Pontiac G6 report other steering problem at a median of 90,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 59,000 miles and a quarter after 135,000 miles, from 224 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 26,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 164,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 137,512 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.
14% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26,378 miles | 58,786 miles | 90,050 miles | 135,000 miles | 163,890 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, 13 a crash and 3 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 2006, at a median of 79,000 miles, and latest on the 2010 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2006 carries the most reports, with 773; the 2005 has 275. 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.
Steering system locked. This occured on the highway, going around a right turn at 50mph (uphill). It resulted in a collision with the concrete barrier on the side of the road. The ability to steer returned after the driver yanked the wheel hard. The driver felt a pop and the steering returned, but there was no time to regain control of the car.
Steering on this vehical has locked up multiple times, causing the vehical to go off the road. Gm has investigated the car after the previous incident and claimed there was no problem and will not check the car again. Most recent steering lockup occured at 8400 miles.
Power assisted steering locks up. This has happened in cold weather and mainly in low speed situations immediately after starting my vehicle. The failure prevents you from turning the wheel at all and you are unable to steer the vehicle for a limited amount of time. *nm
Also reported on the 2005 Pontiac G6
Loss of power steering
Steering column or shaft failure
Other electrical problem
Cruise control failure
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 275 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 Pontiac G6?
Across 224 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 90,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 59,000 miles and a quarter after 135,000 miles. 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 Pontiac G6?
275 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 2.6 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