Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 1997 Pontiac Grand Prix
9 crashes 5 injuries 1 death 15 of the 152 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 rack, gear or tie rod failure gets reported
Owners of the 1997 Pontiac Grand Prix report steering rack, gear or tie rod failure at a median of 85,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 97,500 miles, from 36 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 98,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 45,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 152,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 106,000 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.
8% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 46,000 miles | 55,675 miles | 84,150 miles | 98,500 miles | 152,000 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, 9 a crash, 5 an injury and 1 a fatality 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 $700–$2,600 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 12 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2008, at a median of 25,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 95,000 miles.
By volume the 1997 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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 consumer noticed that the steering wheel would not turn. When the vehicle was serviced the technician noticed that the rack and pinion need to be replaced. *nlm *jg *nlm
I was doing some research on campaign number 02v286000. I am being told by the manufacturer that my vehicle is not affected by this recall. My VIN is [xxx]. I am concerned because my vehicle is having the same symptoms that the campaign describes. It is of my opinion that the safety of my vehicle has degraded greatly do to the fact that I am unable to steer the vehicle accurately when in operation. I would ask that you would research my problem and give any assistance possible. Information redacted pursuant to the freedom of information act (foia), 5 u.s.c. 552(b)(6). *tr
I am driving my father-in-law's grand prix (he is in a nursing home). The power steering on my 97 grand prix gtp failed completely. Had the car not been on a side street (as opposed to an expressway), it could have caused a serious accident. I've contacted several pontiace dealers and gm/pontiac and was told they no nothing of a recall and that I should pay to have it fixed and they might reimburse me if they find out about a recall and if it meets their specs. Even after I gave them the NHTSA campaign id they still said they had no knowledge of this. How could they not??? I heard about it months ago on the news.
Also reported on the 1997 Pontiac Grand Prix
Headlight failure or clouding
Other engine problem
Wiper or washer failure
Other steering problem
Other electrical problem
ABS module or sensor failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 152 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 rack, gear or tie rod failure happen on the 1997 Pontiac Grand Prix?
Across 36 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 85,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 55,000 miles and a quarter after 97,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 1997 Pontiac Grand Prix?
152 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 2.9 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