Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 2011 Toyota Camry
3 crashes 3 of the 8 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.
Only 7 reports 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.
When steering rack, gear or tie rod failure gets reported
There are 8 reports of steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 2011 Toyota Camry, 7 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 98,000 miles. It is the 18th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 52,317 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, 3 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 $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 16 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2014, at a median of 15,000 miles, and latest on the 2012 at 150,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 21; the 2011 has 8. 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.
Backing out of driveway onto the street and noticed the steering was somewhat difficult and felt thick. Driving down the road to turn the corner it felt similar, but not as bad. Got home and asked my wife if she noticed anything previously and she stated now that I mentioned it she did, but didn't think to tell me. Drove it for another few days and no improvement was noticed. Contacted my toyota dealer and scheduled and appointment for the following tuesday, june 25, 2013. The mechanic agreed it wasn't right, but the belt looked good and the fluid was full with no noticeable problem. A call to tech. Support services had me return for further diagnostics on friday june 28, 2013. Metal contaminants were noticed inside the power steering pump. It was recommended the rack and pinion and power steering pump be replaced. I am waiting for parts to arrive and the repairs to be completed. *tr
The car requires almost constant driver input in the steering to maintain it within the lane of traffic at freeway speeds. There is play in the steering wheel and the car does not track securely while driving on a freeway. As a result it is fatiguing to constantly have to correct from right to left and back again left to right while driving at freeway speeds. Toyota rep and dealer mechanics claim there is no problem. It feels as though the electronic variable assist power steering is not decreasing when at freeway speeds as it is supposed to which causes the car to not track securely within it's lane. There are no tire or alignment issues. Toyota is pretending there is no problem and hoping I will go away. *tr
July 2016 I was pulling away from my bank atm at approx.2-5 MPH in my 2011 toyota camry when the car took off. The car accelerated so fast. I hit the brakes but it didn't stop the car. I missed a car and a van, went up over the parking block and hit a pole. That stopped me! I had 2 passengers in the car. Somehow no one got hurt. I had 3 blown tires and the right side window broken out with damage to that door. The front bumper was pulled from the body. The car has damage to the tie rod and will have to be replaced. Front end alignment will also have to be done. My car had to be towed home. Airbags did not deploy. I called the dealership from which I bought it from but it's been over 10 days and several phone calls with no response. This seems to be a problem with 2011 camry's from the complaints I have read. When will something be done about this, after a death? The problem needs to be addressed asap.
Also reported on the 2011 Toyota Camry
Other visibility problem
Other body or interior problem
Other speed control problem
Other powertrain problem
Other brake problem
Other suspension problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 8 reports 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 8 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 2011 Toyota Camry?
Across 7 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 50,000 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 steering rack, gear or tie rod failure on the 2011 Toyota Camry?
8 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 5.2 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