AtWhatMileage
Steering · 1 owner report

Other steering problem on the 2012 Subaru Wrx

Only 1 report 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.

Reports of this failure 1
With an odometer reading 1
Reports per 1,000 built 0.0 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 0%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $350–$2,400
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 4th

When other steering problem gets reported

There are 1 report of other steering problem on the 2012 Subaru Wrx, 1 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 4th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 1 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 56,000 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

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, every year of the Subaru Wrx

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.

Median
  1. 2012 (this one) 56k
  2. 2015 Subaru Wrx other steering problem 56k
  3. 2016 Subaru Wrx other steering problem 19k
  4. 2017 Subaru Wrx other steering problem 37k
  5. 2018 Subaru Wrx other steering problem 13k
  6. 2021 Subaru Wrx other steering problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  7. 2025 Subaru Wrx other steering problem
    no odometer readings given
    —

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 had checked my oil about a week prior to this happening. I was out on the interstate on my way to get my oil changed when I heard a loud knocking and lost all power steering and power brakes. Almost caused an accident on the interstate. I had it towed to a mechanic who told me all of my full synthetic oil was gone from the engine and it was blown. There was no smoking no leaking no lights or anything to let me know something was going wrong until it was too late. Subaru has been arguing with me for months and finally said they would cover half of the repairs but I do not feel I am responsible at all. I showed my maintenance records to a subaru engineer who said it would be no problem getting the engine fixed at no cost to me. Well apparently that decision was reversed by someone and now I only get half of the help they promised me. My engine has been defective from the get go and subaru needs to own up to it. Should not be replacing that engine at 56k original miles and I have every record showing I took amazing care of that car.

56,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1454208 filed 2018-03-13

Also reported on the 2012 Subaru Wrx

Other engine problem

1 reports median 56k

Other powertrain problem

1 reports median 56k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 1 report 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 1 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 2012 Subaru Wrx?

Across 1 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 55,000 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 2012 Subaru Wrx?

1 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.0 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