Loss of power steering on the 2010 Pontiac G6
1 crash 1 of the 26 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 loss of power steering gets reported
Owners of the 2010 Pontiac G6 report loss of power steering at a median of 110,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 95,000 miles and a quarter after 140,000 miles, from 22 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 80,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 80,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 180,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 97,619 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.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 82,000 miles | 94,963 miles | 111,590 miles | 141,000 miles | 179,619 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 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–$2,800 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 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2006, at a median of 74,000 miles, and latest on the 2008 at 120,000 miles.
By volume the 2006 carries the most reports, with 183; the 2010 has 26. 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 getting ready to drive one morning. I started up my car and put it on drive so as I started driving out the parking lot my power steering locked up and on the dash board it said "power steering unserviceable". It was hard to steer so I put it on park, popped the hood open and looked underneath the hood. Then I remembered I have a electronic power steering so I turned my car off and on and everything went back to normal. Then I drove to the dealership and they told me that it reset itself and there's nothing to diagnose. So I did some research and found out that there was recalls for other models for the same problems. I was browsing the web, looking at articles and what are the odds of people with the same car same year with about the same mileage having the same problem. This is definitely not safe and not safe to sell if ever the problem comes back. *tr
Dear NHTSA; I own a 2010 pontiac g6 that within the last week incurred a power steering failure. Recall research shows that on march 2014 the NHTSA required gm to issue a recall for this exact problem, however, it only covered the g6 models up to the year 2009. The service advisor at the dealership acknowledged that the "problem" was very similar to the steering problem for earlier models that are subject to the recall. However, since the 2010 model year was not included in the NHTSA recall, the cost to repair the problem falls to the consumer and is estimated to be in the $1,800 to $2,000 range. This is clearly a safety issue and mirrors the same characteristic's as earlier models included in the recall. I have contacted gm regarding this matter and have been assured that a local customer service representative will be contacting me within 48 hours. While I appreciate gm's willingness to "consider" the matter, I urge the NHTSA to re-visit the model years subject to the recall. The consumer should not be burdened with the cost of repairing what is obviously a design defect. Further and more importantly is safety for the passengers…
Dear NHTSA; I own a 2010 pontiac g6 that within the last week incurred a power steering failure. Recall research shows that on march 2014 the NHTSA required gm to issue a recall for this exact problem, however, it only covered the g6 models up to the year 2009. The service advisor at the dealership acknowledged that the "problem" was very similar to the steering problem for earlier models that are subject to the recall. However, since the 2010 model year was not included in the NHTSA recall, the cost to repair the problem falls to the consumer and is estimated to be in the $1,800 to $2,000 range. This is clearly a safety issue and mirrors the same characteristic's as earlier models included in the recall. I have contacted gm regarding this matter and have been assured that a local customer service representative will be contacting me within 48 hours. While I appreciate gm's willingness to "consider" the matter, I urge the NHTSA to re-visit the model years subject to the recall. The consumer should not be burdened with the cost of repairing what is obviously a design defect. Further and more importantly is safety for the passengers…
Also reported on the 2010 Pontiac G6
Other steering problem
Other driver assistance problem
Other electrical problem
Headlight failure or clouding
Cruise control failure
Steering column or shaft failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 26 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 loss of power steering happen on the 2010 Pontiac G6?
Across 22 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 110,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 95,000 miles and a quarter after 140,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is loss of power steering on the 2010 Pontiac G6?
26 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