NHTSA Complaint #11510684 — 2009 MERCURY MARINER

Driving and my steering totally quit...almost wrecked it was so hard to control. Had not had any previous issues prior to this. I had my vehicle towed to mechanic and code that came up says steering assist has failed and will need to replace whole steering column assembly. There was no warning light...nothing! Upon my research, I see this is a frequent problem and there was a recall (1 million vehicles) but only for certain models, and of course mine is not one, in fact I haven't read any reports where the steering column was replaced, only reprogrammed and then the problem comes back. My car was manufactured at the Kansas City plant, which I have seen complaints numerous times for this problem coming out of this facility. Mechanic contacted Ford to inquire about the part...was told it was a 6 month minimum time to get the parts!! 6 months...am I just SOL for 6 months since my car cannot be driven safely? I purchased a Ford because they were not part of the government buyout...big mistake. At this point, I cant have it repaired with no parts. They know this is an ongoing problem, yet refuse to do anything about it.