Steering Gear Box Shaft Pitman problems of the 2010 Jeep Wrangler

I was returning home from the grocery store and was driving on a paved city street with no potholes, speed-bumps, or other obstructions. As I made a left turn into our driveway I heard a noise and then suddenly the Jeep turned hard right and I hit another care parked on the right side of our driveway. I had no control of the steering. Upon inspection, I noticed that the stud coming from the steering gear box had sheared in half between the steering gear box and the pitman arm. There was nothing that I did that would have caused this to happen. Also, this Jeep has never been off road. I contacted Chrysler and they said I need to contact my insurance company. They offered no assistance.

I have a 2010 Jeep jk unlimited 4x4. I bought the vehicle used from a local dealer in July of 2013, with approx. 10k miles on it. At about 18k miles, I began experiencing the common dreaded "death wobble". I was driving down a country road with my children in the back seats. All of a sudden, while hitting a small bump in the road, the steering wheel began rapidly moving back and forth and the frontend of the vehicle was shaking violently. I quickly stopped the vehicle, checked on my now frightened children, then go out to examine my vehicle. I couldn't find anything obvious, like tie rods or ball joints. So, I slowly drove home. I went over the entire front end. Couldn't find anything. After reading a lot of forums on the matter, I found I am one of many Jeep owners that have/are fighting this same issue. I went ahead and put on a new steering stabilizer, and trackbars, as these are claimed to be the most common issues (even though mine looked fine and had no play). I continually have had the problem and have had it to shop for an alignment, tire rotations, and checking the balancing on the tires. The shop said tires and alignment were fine. We found that there was some play in the sector shaft where the pitman arm connects to the steering gearbox. Some guys are saying they have replaced theirs 3 times in 30k miles. I don't offroad, my vehicle isn't exposed to harsh conditions, where one could expect mechanical failures. I currently have 26k miles on mine, and have been trying to find out the cause, meanwhile throwing $$ and parts on it to try and find the issue. After researching and seeing the large amount of owners fighting death wobble and the component failures which cause it, I feel Chrysler should be held accountable to some level. I think they should be recognizing the problem and the large scale of it, and offering some type of solution to fix the issue.

While driving over speed bumps or slower speed bumps I could feel a distinct "clunk" in the steering. The dealership looked at it and said they could not feel the clunk anymore. The clunk returned a few months later, now I can see there is play in the sector shaft as well as the pitman arm on the steering box.