A recent failure of the steering rack on my car has somewhat caused be to be phobic about another imminent failure. I'll try to cut a long story short. Basically I am curious to know if anyone has had experiences with the failure of the steering rack in your vehicle. If yes, is your vehicle running on electric power steering and at what mileage did the steering rack fail.

From my conversation with an experienced mechanic, I was made to understand that the steering rack failure is common with all vehicles which operate on Electric Power Steering, and the lifespan is about 8 to 10 years. He mentioned that vehicles with hydraulic power steering rarely have steering rack failures. Is this true?

The recent failure of the steering rack in my vehicle has also suggested that a half-cut steering rack is not a wise option for the replacement of the faulty or broken steering rack as in my experience, it does not last long. The steering rack of my vehicle a Ford Focus mk3 malfunctioned last year when it was 8 years old with mileage 70,000+ km. During that time, the steering rack could not be turned when the engine was started and the error message came up on the display, it was towed to the workshop for the replacement of the steering rack. However, just after 8 months, the (half-cut) steering rack failed again this year and this time, it was much dangerous. It happened when I was driving the car on the road, and the message suddenly came up and the steering wheel cannot be turned! This was when the car was moving at speed on the road and the steering wheel became very stiff and cannot be turned easily. I have to use all my energy to steer the vehicle to the emergency lane. This is extremely dangerous and can cause an accident. If it's a senior citizen, he/she might not have the energy to steer the vehicle to the emergency lane due to the very stiff steering wheel, and the vehicle might need to stop in the middle of the road or highway.

I am not sure if this is an inherent issue with the Ford Focus mk3 in that the steering rack fails rather early, in my case going into the 8th year with low mileage. I was made to understand that all other Focus mk3 also has this same problem and some owners experienced even earlier failure in their 3rd or 4th year. So back to the question. Does anyone here experience a steering rack failure in your vehicle, and how was the situation like? In my case it was a dangerous experience. Does this happen in all vehicles which come with EPS? Some checks on the internet revealed that the steering rack has a lifespan and will somehow fail at some point of time, and the average lifespan is around 160,000 km depending on usage pattern.

Perhaps I made a mistake of going with half-cut steering racks which have a short lifespan. A new steering rack will likely have a longer lifespan but it's fairly costly (RM13k at service centre for the Focus mk3), lower price at outside workshops.

I thought the Ford Focus mk3 is the only vehicle which has this steering rack failure but apparently Honda cars such as City and Civic also have this which is surprising. I am not aware of any Honda owners who encountered this steering wheel lockup issue like the Ford Focus mk3. Since there are so many Honda cars on the roads, I suppose these should be complaints if the vehicle also has the steering wheel lockup problem where Focus mk3 owners are experiencing. It's a serious situation if it happens.

It's good to know that the Ford Fiesta does not have this steering rack issue which causes the steering wheel to lock up when the vehicle is still moving on the road. It's an extremely dangerous situation to me.