Other steering problem on the 2009 Pontiac G6
5 crashes 1 fire 4 injuries 10 of the 200 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 2009 Pontiac G6 report other steering problem at a median of 112,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 84,000 miles and a quarter after 145,000 miles, from 164 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 58,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 179,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 121,410 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
3% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 57,550 miles | 84,000 miles | 112,000 miles | 145,148 miles | 178,960 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, 5 a crash, 1 a fire and 4 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 2009 has 200. 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.
While driving the vehicle on a city street ( where speeds are slow) the power steering indicator flashed on the dashboard and power steering failed to work. It was incredibly hard to turn the steering wheel and I almost turned the vehicle into oncoming traffic. The car has low mileage on it. When I took the car to the dealer, he said I needed to replace the power steering motor and the column had to be replaced with it. This appears to be a manufacture defect in the vehicle but again I had to pay out of pocket for the repairs. It was a costly repair. *tr
G6 began to shift gears on its own in the middle of the highway leading to near accidents due to sudden stops or slow downs. Cars transmission locked in park and won't reverse. Car begins to reverse on its own in park but ends up catching itself back in park. Transmission seems to be set on park and won't change to go in reverse. Also the power steering high pressure hose burst at random while driving straight, caused severe melting of various wires around it. Nearly lit the car on fire after causing the starter to catch fire from the power steering fluid getting inside of it. *tr
Intermittent very hard up shifts (including changes from park-drive etc), cruise flys off and stops working while going down road, speedometer stops working and flickers randomly, car flashes "power steering" on radio panel and "error" on odometer read, hard turning, car loses power as it revs to realize it needs to shift (automatic transmission) initially, restarting car would help for awhile, but now the problem is consistent. Gm dealership could not diagnose problem and thought it was loose wiring. After not being able to trace the communication errors the dealership simply gave it back with no fix or answers. Major issue considering the car has only 36500 miles to date with an issue clearly other pontiac g6 owners have had to deal with as well. The inconsistent issue has contributed to a recent car accident. *tr
Also reported on the 2009 Pontiac G6
Headlight failure or clouding
Other electrical problem
Cruise control failure
Other lighting problem
Loss of power steering
Other brake problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 200 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 2009 Pontiac G6?
Across 164 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 112,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 84,000 miles and a quarter after 145,000 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 2009 Pontiac G6?
200 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.9 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