1997 FORD F-250 SD — Complaint #661590
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STEERING:GEAR BOX:SHAFT SECTOR filed March 14, 2008
NHTSA complaint #661590 (ODI reference 10221202) concerns a 1997 FORD F-250 SD and was filed on March 14, 2008. The owner reports the failure occurred on March 1, 2003. The vehicle had 150,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Texas based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as steering:gear box:shaft sector, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same FORD F-250 SD cohort independently describe similar steering:gear box:shaft sector failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 1997 FORD F-250 SD shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
TL*THE CONTACT OWNS A 1997 FORD F250 HD. THE STEERING MECHANISM BECOMES LOOSE AND MAKES RANDOM NOISES. THE CONTACT TOOK THE VEHICLE TO A SHOP AND WAS INFORMED THAT THE STEERING LINKAGE WAS COMING APART. THE MECHANIC PLACED A TEMPORARY MAKESHIFT TO HOLD THE LINKAGE TOGETHER, BUT IT HAS NOT BEEN REPLACED. HE THEN LEARNED THAT THERE WAS A RECALL ON THE YEAR, MAKE, AND MODEL OF HIS VEHICLE FOR THE SAME FAILURE. THE MANUFACTURER STATED THAT HIS VIN WAS NOT INCLUDED AND THEY REFUSED TO REPAIR THE DEFECT. THE CONTACT FEELS THAT THE FAILURE SHOULD BE REPAIRED FOR FREE SINCE IT WAS IDENTICAL TO THE ONE MENTIONED IN THE RECALL. THE FAILURE MILEAGE WAS 150,000 AND CURRENT MILEAGE WAS 236,000. UPDATED 04/02/08. *LJ
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 661590 |
| ODI Number | 10221202 |
| Date Filed | March 14, 2008 |
| Failure Date | March 1, 2003 |
| VIN | 1FTHW25F6VE |
Similar STEERING:GEAR BOX:SHAFT SECTOR Complaints for 1997 FORD F-250 SD
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.