Steering Tie Rod Assembly problems of the 2005 Dodge Stratus

My daughter was driving through a parking lot and the car suddenly stopped. She got out and looked at the front and discovered the both front wheels were turned out in opposite directions. The tie rod had broke and came apart. This could have been disastrous at highway speeds. I was able to fix it at home, but as a father, I worry about just this thing happening!.

As I pulled into the car lot where I am buying the car I heard a kind of clunk but was unsure what it was. I went in and made my car payment upon starting my car and putting in reverse to leave my car would not turn in any direction. I put the car in park and shut it off went back into the car salesman and asked him if he could help figure out what was going on . He jacked the car up and checked to see the problem but was unable to see anything until he removed the drivers side front tire . Here he immediately noticed that the rack and pinion had broke free from the tie rod end and was unable to get back together as the bolts that held these parts together were stripped completely out and there was no way to fix . .

One day I went to back out, I turned the wheel and hear this crunching, clunking sound which sounded like a huge rock scrapping on metal. I immediately stopped and walked around the car and saw nothing. It started again as soon as I started the car back up. Anytime I turn the steering wheel, I heard this sound. I took it to a mechanic who told me it was the tie-rod ends. He said a lot of people have this issue but there was no recall yet. I called the dealer to see if they would fix it since there were a lot of complaints. Nope ! the dealer said they could not fix it for free without an official recall. It's a costly repair $900-$1100 b/c it requires many different services - tie rod ends, tires, balance, alignment, but they would not drop the price by a single penny. Now they are doing a piecemeal recall beginning with the trucks. Why not force them to recall them all ? I have been on multiple sites and I have seen complaints from as far back as 2003 to as recently as 2014. I wish the government was a hard on the dealers as the dealers are on the buyers.