Well, anything can suffer a catastrophic failure, its just how likely is it to happen and
its extremely unlikely with a steering box. They design them to be stronger because of how serious it would be if they did fail, notice the steering and suspension bolts all have some sort of locking feature, either cotter keys or interference bolts, etc. The rest of the vehicle doesn't have that.
As well,
popping noise often come from somewhere else in the suspension or drivetrain, like mentioned, U-Joints, or the ball joints in the suspension or the steering (tie-rods). I'd inspect and experiment (putting the front up on jack stands with the weight off) trying to isolate exactly what was making that sound and then repair it.
I had, well it was my wife's when she was my fiance`, a chevy citation (GM X-Car) that the rack&pinion failed in. It gave us plenty of warning, with increased force in a dead spot and some sticking in spots in turns. When it became slightly dangerous, i.e. in the middle of turn it was a little scary as you had to strain to force the steering wheel thru a sticking spot, we got a junkyard rack and replaced it.
I have heard the Chrysler LH platform had this steering defect. My Father in Law had a Chrysler Concord (same vehicle) and I've looked at the steering setup, totally different than any car I have seen before. Not only did the move all the steering components to the top of the engine compartment, with the tie-rods attaching to the top of the McPherson Strut (just under the spring perch), NOT at the steering knuckle like very other car does it. Also, the rack and pinion was even freaky; the tie-rods did NOT attach to the end of the rack, the center of the rack moved back and forth with the tie-rods bolting in there.
Throw in, the typical Dealership, sending people away with valid warranty claims, by claiming its normal, this seems to have compounded to be a big problem with these vehicles.
It seems the weird setup increases the stress on the steering more than thought and the rack&pinions wear out prematurely.
I guess some of the scary incidents come from the bolts shearing off with no warning on the tie-rod ends. Again, greater stress's than thought cause the catastrophic failure of the bolts in tie-rods, not the steering rack itself, but can have the same result. When a rack&pinion wears out prematurely and leaves a driver stranded, you can put some responsibility on the owner/dealers/maintainers for NOT correcting the problem when they had symptoms; but tie-rod bolts shearing off, that definitely falls under designer and you may never have gotten a warning or symptoms of such.
There has been several cases of accidents from the LH platform steering failing. I have never been able to find a cause other than generic steering. I'd like to know if the steering has ever failed because both sides of the steering had tie-rod bolts fail at the same time? That would be a truly catastrophic case that would kill people without any warning.
