This article introduces a reliable control scheme for a four-wheel vehicle. This scheme assumes that actuators fail and external disturbances occur to the system. In contrast to existing results, this study assumes the actuator fault model includes linear and nonlinear terms, and an output feedback controller is designed to improve vehicle stability and handling when actuators fail. Using Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy models, a reliable fuzzy static output feedback (SOF) controller is designed to address the nonlinear aspect of the system. Based on the non-quadratic Lyapunov function with auxiliary matrices, less conservative sufficient conditions are established such that the closed-loop system is stable with a γ level of H_∞ performance against external disturbances. Furthermore, using an appropriate model transformation, a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) is formulated to synthesize the controller gains. The proposed scheme is then tested using numerical experiments to demonstrate potential applications and validate its effectiveness.