My daughter who is a nurse and advance EMT brought her 2014 Ford Explorer with 75,000 miles to the Ford Dealership because she was hearing a binding noise in her steering wheel and in some cases the steering locked up. They diagnosed the problem to be in the rack and pinion and that it needed to be replaced. The cost to replace this was quoted at $1,905. I have read several blogs on line of other incidents of this. I called the Ford Customer relations Dept. and filed a claim. They said based on the year of the vehicle and the mileage they would not cover it. I talked to the mechanic and he said that the steering gears were all rusted and binding. How do gears in a sealed steering system get rusty?? Obviously the outside elements are getting into the unit or contamination is occurring from parts breakdown. The dealership said it should not be driven because I could loose the steering at any minute while driving. Isn't this a safety issue? Looked at other blogs and Ford came out with a recall for the same thing on 2011 and 2012. Don't know about 2013? There were probably more deaths recorded for the 2011 and 2012 model years and not so many for the 2014 yet! Oh and top it off my daughter couldn't even get the price discounted for being a Nurse and Advance EMT during these times. Keep up the good quality work US Auto makers!

At just over 60K miles, grinding noise at low speed when turning either direction, with a rough feeling in the steering wheel. Noise was isolated to the Power Steering Control module of the Steering gear. Self replaced steering gear with a remanufactured unit and then aligned and PSCM reprogrammed. Had I taken it to a shop would have easily been over $1200 as the part alone lists at $1500 MSRP. Unacceptable that a steering gear fails within 60K miles. Design is terrible. Exhaust y pipe runs around the PSCM, which is full of electronics and wrapped in a thin heat shield. Eco-Boost engine would even be worse as the turbo would be sitting in the same area and adding even more heat.

This is the MAJOR problem that just began happening, though I can report that the vehicle has had a mild "pulling" problem (to the left, ever since we leased it) a bit over two years ago. I reported the trouble to the service shop when we had it in for one of our service visits, and it seemed "corrected" for the most part, as it was only intermittently occurring after that. I assumed road conditions may have been the cause, even though there were no extraordinary changes or differences in the terrain where we live and operate most frequently. The GRINDING and/or GROWLING noise started only a week ago at low to moderate speeds, but seems to clear up with higher engine rpm(s). There is an amount of hesitation, or grabbing when correcting road position intermittently, as well. Sometimes it feels like heavy resistance, and other times it over-responds to minor corrections (unstable), even at 40 mph+. After reading some of the other related complaints, I am VERY WORRIED about the prospects of this becoming a much worse issue than it is currently. I am calling the dealership later today. This also followed the behavior of the gear shift being reported "NOT in PARK" after stopping, and having the shift lever securely seated in PARK position. I have not yet noticed light failures, and absolutely NO reports of failure have shown up on the Sync info screen yet. Very CONCERNED!