This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
On April 23, 2005, my son was traveling to work, about 12:30 in the afternoon, traveling westbound on the 210 freeway. At some point, his left rear tire went flat. His car lost control and spun counterclockwise, across four lanes of traffic, and head on into the center divider. His car continued to spin in the same dirrection and impacted again at the right rear quarterpanel, and the right rear bumper. My son got out of the car, and the chp arrived within ten minutes to have his car towed. I contacted daimler Chrysler to let them know what happened and to express my concern. They sent an inspector to the salvage yard. Two weeks later I got a letter from Chrysler saying that their recalled upper ball joint had nothing to do with the crash. I had a mechanic examine the vehicle, he had it lifted up with a forklift, and showed me the rack and pinion that was dangling down on the passenger side. He said that since there was no structural damage to the rest of the undercarraige, the broken steering was what caused my son's car to spin out of control, and crash into the median, injuring him, and threatening the other commuters.
The steering column and rack and pinion broke while driving the car at a speed of 35 - 40 and as a result, my husband had no control of the steering and we veered across the lane of the on-coming traffic and hit a light pole.
Driving at approx. 15 mph the steering system failed/locked on my car. The car was towed to the dealer on 10/28/02, and was initially diagnosed a "failure of the power steering pump". the dealer replaced the pump, and during the mechanic testing found that the newly replaced pump also immediately failed and steering again locked. The dealer then diagnosed the problem as being a total failure of the "rack" which needed replacement as it had "failed and was contaminating the pumps". both the power steering rack and power steering pump was replaced at a cost to me of $1728.33 parts/labor. The dealer service representative admitted to me that they had seen such failures before, and that the failure was not a result of my maintainence of this vehicle. In fact, I have vigorously maintained the vehicle with this dealer since its purchase on 6/30/97 - and they have performed all scheduled minor and major services. Yet, since I was just outside of the 5 year/50K mile warranty, the dealer refused to cover any of the labor/parts charges for the replacement. I then contacted damiler chrylser's customer service center on this matter. Daimler Chrysler confirmed that there were no vehicle recalls for rack/pump failures, and held no responsibility. They were uninterested in any discussion of defects, or risk if the failures occurred at highway speeds. If my failure had occurred under those circumstances, rather than on a residential street, there would have been injuries or fatalities since there was no ability to turn or control the steering of the vehicle. Chrysler may not be interested in customer satisfaction, but I would have hoped that they would have some concern for such dangerous failures.
Reported noises to dealership in right tire and steering wheel. They first told me they could not find any problems. Took it back because noise got worse. They finally found that the steering rack was broken. They claimed to have fixed the problem. About 1 1/2 weeks later was turning corner at busy intersection. Right wheel turned inward and locked. Spun around in the middle of the street. Luckly no one was hurt. Although they say that this time it was the steering column. We investigated the part that was replaced and found that it was steering rack again. Dealer admitted that the part installed was defective.
The vehicle had intermittent noise in the steering, and it was diagnosed that the vehicle had a faulty rack and pinion. The vehicle had to be towed to the dealer due to a failed battery.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Glendora, CA, USA