Other steering problem on the 2012 Toyota Rav4
2 crashes 2 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 5 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 other steering problem gets reported
There are 8 reports of other steering problem on the 2012 Toyota Rav4, 5 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 9th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 27,000 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, 2 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 $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 22 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2018, at a median of 100 miles, and latest on the 2024 at 145,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 carries the most reports, with 85; the 2012 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.
I was driving westbound on I-70 around mp 129. This is just before glenwood canyon. There was a flashing icy road sign at which time, I signaled my intention to move to the right lane which I did. I slowed down and put my car in 3rd. This was just before a curve to the right where the road and visibility narrow. The right lane was completely iced over as I realized when I got around the curve. In front of me, I saw a pileup, both lanes of traffic were blocked. I tapped my brakes to slow down but because of the ice, I did not stop or slow down. I went around one car stopped in my lane to avoid hitting it from behind. I went around on the shoulder. I continued to pump the brake. Immediately in front of me was a sierra 4x 4 that was perpendicular to the lane of traffic and it was also blocking the shoulder. I plowed into it about the middle of the truck at a rate of anywhere of 25 - 30 MPH. My airbags did not deploy. My dog and I were both restrained and we suffered no injuries. My car is in all likelihood totaled. *tr
I was slowly maneuvering into a parking space when the car revved up, jumped over the concrete barrier, over the curb and sidewalk. I was headed directly toward a building and a large plate glass window. The brakes did not stop the car, and felt squishy when I pushed them all the way to the floor. I swerved to the right, turned off the key and hit a parked car in order to stop. I also want to mention that the tire pressure gauge light would come on any time I was driving on the highway at speeds over 50 MPH. *tr
I had just gotten on a 6 lane expressway with a 45 MPH speed limit. Hands at ten and two - just watching the road going about 40 MPH in the far left lane so people could turn on the road. I had been having a clunking sound when I would pull out of my driveway for awhile but didn't want to go back to the dealer because I had just gotten a 10,000 mile oil change and after removing a tire with a nail in it found they had to order the tire, which took 3 weeks to get (apparently run flat tires are still in japan,,) so, I back to my near death experience- I was driving slower than the speed limit down the road when I lost all steering in my vehicle and I was headed into oncoming traffic. I hit the tall cement median and I pulled as hard as I could back to the right. After I hit I had a little control again. With both drivers side tires striped flat I had enough steering to put my hazards on and get back on the correct side of the road and pull the thing into a side parking lot to be towed. I feel like the thing is trying the kill me! Warranty has to cover this but I think I'm gonna have to trade it in. Too scared to drive the [xxx]…
Also reported on the 2012 Toyota Rav4
Other visibility problem
Other speed control problem
Other brake problem
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
Other powertrain 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 other steering problem happen on the 2012 Toyota Rav4?
Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 25,000 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 Toyota Rav4?
8 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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