NHTSA Complaint #11495905 — 2011 FORD FUSION

Received a fault warning on the instrument panel about the power assist system and the power steering was out; fortunately this was not while driving. After a little research, found out this can be intermittent. On the third try of starting, the error cleared and steering was fine. Took it to the Ford dealer as power steering failure is obviously very dangerous if it occurs while driving, which often happens to people with this problem. Lots of internet searching revealed this is a common problem with Ford's electronic power steering. No related recall but the Ford website and the dealer both showed that there was a "customer relationship program" related to this, but only for the first 10 years you own the car (mine is 11 years old). Will be $3k-$4k to fix. I could skip the fix and pray it never happens while driving, but that seems dangerous. Options seem to be to pay multiple thousands of dollars, drive a dangerous car, or trade it in (hoping it doesn't fault when they inspect it).