1997 MERCURY MARQUIS — Complaint #746791
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about STEERING:GEAR BOX:SHAFT SECTOR filed December 4, 2009
NHTSA complaint #746791 (ODI reference 10294479) concerns a 1997 MERCURY MARQUIS and was filed on December 4, 2009. The owner reports the failure occurred on November 26, 2009. The vehicle had 63,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Florida 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: yes, fire: no, injuries: 1, fatalities: 0. A complaint that flags a crash, fire, or fatality is escalated on NHTSA's internal review queue and factors more heavily into any Preliminary Evaluation decision on this make and model. No VIN was supplied by the filer, so this complaint contributes to model-year trend data but cannot be tied to a specific vehicle.
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 MERCURY MARQUIS 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 MERCURY MARQUIS shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
TL*THE CONTACT OWNS A 1997 MERCURY MARQUIS. WHILE DRIVING APPROXIMATELY 15 MPH ON NORMAL ROAD CONDITIONS. THE DRIVER LOSS STEERING CONTROL. THE VEHICLE CRASHED INTO AN UTILITY POLE, BOULDER AND FENCE. THE DRIVER SUSTAINED MINOR INJURY. THE POLICE WAS NOT CALLED TO THE SCENE. THE VEHICLE WAS TOWED TO AN INDEPENDENT MECHANIC. THE TECHNICIAN STATED THE FAILURE WAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE STEERING GEAR BOX. IN ADDITION, THERE WERE DAMAGES TO THE STRUCTURE BODY OF THE VEHICLE. THE VEHICLE IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING REPAIRED. THE FAILURE AND CURRENT MILEAGES WERE 63,000. THE DEFECTIVE STEERING GEAR BOX IS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST. THE VIN WAS UNAVAILABLE.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 746791 |
| ODI Number | 10294479 |
| Date Filed | December 4, 2009 |
| Failure Date | November 26, 2009 |
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.