Within a month I had the power steering assist fault warning come up twice and the power steering gives out. I took it in for service and they diagnosed it with needing a power steering gear assembly. The quote for the repair was $1,630. I got this car with just 42,000 miles on it and I have just put only 8,000 miles on it and had to get the throttle body replaced under recall but I can't understand why the power steering gear assembly part isn't considered a recall since it can be a huge safety risk! I'm very disappointed with how ford motor company is not taking issue this seriously!
2011 Ford Fusion steering complaints
Page 36 of 49: complaints 1,031 to 1,060 of 1,436, newest first, as owners wrote them.
A very dangerous and surprising power steering failure. The power steering stops functioning intermittently, which can, for a short period of time (maybe a couple of months), be corrected by restarting the car. Soon, the failure becomes a hard fault and can only be fixed by replacing the whole rack, which is not cheap. Beware, those individuals that do not have sufficient upper body strength will not be able to control the car in a turn. This includes my teenage daughter. I am very upset that ford is not being accountable nor yet being held accountable for this very hazardous condition when there is clear evidence that they have been using faulty parts. Note, unlike most cases with a lack of power steering, it does not seem to require less effort when at higher speeds. There is a pretty consistent amount of effort required to steer the vehicle regardless of speed. There is also a noticeable wandering the requires constant correction, best characterized as "negative stability", with minor variations in the road surface changing the steering angle/position.
Driver was entering a traffic circle and suddenly lost power steering functioning. Driver was able to continue through traffic circle exerting greater force on the steering wheel to complete turn in traffic circle. In car message came on regarding loss of power steering. Driver immediately turned into a parking lot and turned off vehicle. After waiting a minute or two, restarted the vehicle and was able to proceed with power steering apparently functioning. Took to dealer and was advised that needed new steering gear as it was failing.
The first time my daughter and I was backing out driveway power steering warning came on . I could not steer my car .I live on a very busy street my neighbor came out and pushed us back in my driveway. Now barely a year later it has gone out again this time in was driving on 31 w bypass and barely made it off road.
When leaving the parking lot I lost all steering and had to drive home with out power steering which made my drive very dangerous considering I had both of my children in the car
Went to town and parked the car went in to the store and when I started to leave I noticed that the power steering didn't work. I drove the car home with no power steering. It's a good thing this didn't happen while going the speed limit. The dealer said that this is a common problem my question is why has it not been recalled if it's a common problem.
While driving under normal conditions the power steering suddenly stopped working. Warning message on dash says "power steering assist failure". Barely avoided a crash due to unable to steer vehicle normally. I took to the dealer and they charged me $250 to tell me they could not identify the problem. This is an intermittent problem which has reoccurred more than 10 times since at speeds between 5 and 65 MPH. It happened again at my kids school parking lot and I thought I was going to hit a pedestrian child. It has now stopped working completely at 51,000 miles. Dealer couldn't identify the problem before, fortunately no one was hurt, yet. I fear they are going to repair with the same defect present making this safety hazard continue for the life of the vehicle. Hopefully there are no fatalities in the future because no action or recall was forced.
Driving down the highway came up to a slight bend and when I went to turn the wheel I noticed that it was hard to turn. Thinking it was tire going flat I went to get off the highway when I went to get off on the exit the steering was almost impossible to turn had to slam on the breaks to avoid driving off the exit ramp. With all the other complaints on here it would have been nice to know that this could happen
As I was making a turn my power sterring fault light came on. This happen to me three times . I cannot afford to pay for the repair or part please help. I took to ford and cost is 1800 to fix the problem . My car needs a steering rack.
Started my car on saturday morning at 9am, put it into reverse to back out of my spot, when the "power steering assist fault" and "service advance-trac" errors showed on the display. I promptly shut the vehicle down and waited one minute and restarted it, the errors were still present. I am contacting the local dealership. Thankfully this did not happen while driving on the interstate.
My daughter was driving and as she went to turn left, the power steering became very hard. She pulled over because she was unable to continue driving.
Driving on interstate and steering completely failed, more or less felt like it locked-up. If I was on the next road I was going to, I would have probably crashed. Stopped vehicle and turned it off. Once restarted seemed to clear up but is still harder to steer. Originally I thought it may have been an isolated incident but the problem has re-occurred several times since even with others driving the vehicle.
While driving the car the power steering stopped working, turned the car off and restarted and then it worked again. This has happened about 15-20 times since the first incident. Since the error message went away when the car was restarted, a diagnostic would not find the problem. 4 days ago we were backing out of the driveway and it happened again with the error message - power steering assist default- this time restarting the car did not make the message go away. And the power steering was completed gone. We had to have the car towed to the dealership. They said the the entire power steering module has to be replaced for a total cost of $2000. If this would have happened while driving at a high speed, this could of resulted in a very serious accident with injury and damages to the car. The repair of this defect with this car should of been handled by ford but they are not paying for the repair.
Power steering suddenly stops working. Has happened several times, and is very scary. Definitely an accident waiting to happen here. I have noticed lately every time I start up the car the power steering does not work for the first 20 seconds or so then kicks in. Have called the ford dealer to see what they think, and asked about the recalls, but I guess my model was not included, however I see is being investigated, so wanted to get my complaint in before doing so. Hopefully it will help the next guy. Shop says it will most likely need a new rack at like $1600+. I was about to just repair it when I found all these sites with hundreds of others complaining about the same thing which just pisses me off more..wince this was a car that the kids are learning to drive on, and were going to be driving, now have to figure out if we even trust it.
In may 2014 ford recalled 900,000+ vehicles due to an issue with the power steering torque sensor. It affected escape, mariner, and explorer models (including model year 2011 on all vehicles). I have a 2011 ford fusion and my vehicle has had the same issue several times. Around five times when I've put my car in reverse the power steering has gone out. The first three times it happened there were no lights or anything that prompted me there was an issue. I put the car in park, shut it off and restarted it and then the power steering was back working. The next time it happened, the warning message board on the dash showed a message that said "power steering default". I took the car to the dealer and they said it would cost $1,800 to fix as the torque sensor code appeared in their diagnostic test. The entire steering column needed to be replaced. I've contacted ford and told them I'm having the same issue as the recalled vehicles; however, they said that because the issue isn't prevalent in my model and year vehicle that they'll just look into a "goodwill" discount on the repair. I've asked them to replace the steering column at no charge which they won't do which confuses me as I'm certain the technology they use in all their vehicles is similar, if not the same, and thus if they fixed the issue in other cars they should fix it for me as well at no cost. I'm now waiting to hear back from ford or my dealer as to what discount they'll offer off the total repair cost - this however doesn't seem right to me so I'm contacting the federal safety agency in hopes they can provide some assistance.
The power-assisted steering suddenly failed causing the steering wheel to snatch out of my hands as I was pulling out of a parking lot. It then became harder to steer the vehicle. So I took it back to the ford dealership that I had just bought it from.
Received a steering warning message and the power steering went out. Turned engine of and the back on and it was fine.
While driving 25 MPH on a two lane local street the power steering of my 2011 ford fusion failed on a curve. The car pulled abruptly to the right, went off the road and hit a curb causing a flat and a dented rim. The warning messages "service power steering now" and "service advance trac" alternately came on. After changing the flat the car still had no power steering. I proceeded with great difficulty to drive to a repair shop. After repeated efforts to reset the electric power steering mechanism, the mechanic got it working again. However, being familiar with the problem, he said it could stop functioning at any time again and was unsafe to drive. He told me there were at least a thousand complaints about the power steering failing in the 2011 fusion. Should I pay over $2000.00 to replace the electric power steering system with another of the same faulty design? My car only has about 24000 miles on it. How many will I need? Furthermore, I have been driving over 50 years and never have myself or any member of my family had a problem with power steering cutting in and out. I can't recall in my lifetime anyone ever saying his or her power steering had to be repaired. As a mathematician, I would venture to say the number of failures in such a short time period is statistically significant when compared to the norm.
For the third time, power steering failure warning and a notice to service advancetrac, this time while traveling at 55 to 60 MPH in heavy traffic. Was able to put car in neutral and restart engine and put back into drive. Issue went away and drove car home safely.
Opened garage door and started car to leave for work. Put car in drive and started to exit garage when "power steering failure" message appeared on dash. Could not move steering wheel. Stopped car and killed the engine. Restarted car and error message went away and power steering was normal.
I started my car. A warning light started beeping and my steering wheel would not turn. The message said "power steering assist fault". I turned the car off and on three times. The message remained the same. 2 hours later, I started it and the message was gone. While the message was on, I had no control of my car. Luckily, I was in my driveway.
Had just navigated a sharp left turn from an exit ramp from an arterial road, and was driving below 40 miles per hour on major parkway/street when traffic light up ahead turned red. Applied brakes to stop with traffic ahead when "service advancetrac and power steering failure" warning messages appeared and stability control light lit up. Car had no power steering and it was difficult to move the wheel and I was unable to move over to the side of the road. When I came to a complete stop, I killed the engine and restarted the car. The warning messages went away and the power steering returned. This could be a potentially deadly problem, as the electric power steering does not behave at all like hydraulic systems do when losing power.
Power steering assist fault...along with andvancetrac issues....fails....turn off vehicle and used to work again well for a short time and again it would fail...failure occurred either at highway speeds or in parked position.... Making steering difficult...
Tl* the contact owns a 2011 ford fusion. The contact stated that while reversing at 5 MPH, the steering wheel became difficult to turn. The contact had to apply force to the steering wheel in order to turn the vehicle. In addition, power steering assist fault was displayed across the message board. The vehicle was taken to an independent mechanic, who diagnosed that the power steering rack needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure recurred on numerous occasions. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 74,600.
I started the car and I got a stabilitrac/power steering error message. The power steering will not work. I tried waiting and restarting as I read online that is a way to fix it short term and it does not fix the problem. It has happened in the past but I did not record the date or mileage.
As I attempted to pull out of a parking space, the steering wheel of my 2011 ford fusion became extremely hard to turn. A message on the dashboard indicated that the power steering assist had failed. After turning off the ignition and restarting the car, the steering seemed normal. Two days later the same thing happened as I prepared to leave a parking lot. The dealer replaced the rack and pinion for $1800. No additional incidents in the last few weeks.
Between june 1st and june 15, 2014, I began having problems with my battery not starting my car. After removing the cables and cleaning them, the car seemed fine for a few days then it went out. I replaced the battery and the car worked fine. A few days later, the power steering quit working. I learned at that time that my car is not equipped with hydraulic power steering after researching online, I also learned that my power steering outage was not unique and that there was an investigation into this problem for my make, model and year model. I have driven without power steering this entire time because I cannot afford to pay the high dealership diagnostic fees and what I'm sure will be expensive repairs since 3 two different calls to the dealership about their experiences with this problem were not answered with anything but "we have to see it first...", even though I asked only about what their recent knowledge and experiences with this problem have been.
Tl* the contact owns a 2011 ford fusion. While driving at 35 MPH, the steering wheel seized. The vehicle was taken to a dealer who diagnosed that the electronic power steering gears needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 72,000.
The power steering was inoperable, the power steering default light came on. Turned the car off to reset it and it went away temporarily. This happened once in our garage as I was leaving for work and then a day or two later when I was about 30 miles from home . I was able to reset it once more and make it home before it went out completely. My husband was able to drive it in to the local ford dealer, carefully and slowly.the steering was so difficult to manage I could not steer the car at all. We had it repaired at the cost of $1732.71. I had made the last payment 3/28/2015 and did not think the steering should become inoperable on a 4 year old car. We bought the car new and have taken good care of it, taking it in for all regular oil changes and maintenance. The steering gear assembly had to be replaced. I think the power steering recall should be applied to 2011 fusions as well.
My daughter was driving, made a right turn when the steering got tough. She was able to pull into an immediate driveway on the right when the steering froze up. She was not able to maneuver the car after that. I understand there are multiple complaints for the same issue. Ford has advised they do not have a recall for this so they will not repair.
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