What owners actually reported
Every safety complaint filed with the US National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration since 1995, read back as a picture of each vehicle:
when things are reported to fail, which system generates the
most reports, and which safety recalls are open. Built from
533,344 complaints across 300 model years.
Highest share of first-year complaints
Vehicles where an unusually large share of complaints arrived in the first
year of service, against others of the same model year. Limited to those
with at least 200 complaints on record, and only where the margin of error
supports the claim.
Deepest complaint records
The vehicles with the most complaints on file. This mostly tracks how many
were sold — it is where the data is thickest, not a list of bad cars.
2010 Ford Fusion 7,012 reports 2012 Ford Focus 4,940 reports 2011 Hyundai Sonata 4,543 reports 2000 Ford Focus 4,476 reports 2002 Ford Explorer 3,976 reports 2014 Jeep Cherokee 3,964 reports 2013 Ford F-150 3,949 reports 2018 RAM 2500 3,804 reports 2013 Ford Escape 3,656 reports 2011 Ford Fusion 3,654 reports 2014 Ford Focus 3,618 reports 2015 Chrysler 200 3,388 reports Browse by make
What this is, and what it is not
- These are owner reports, not a reliability rating. People file with NHTSA about failures that alarmed them, not routine ones, and the number of complaints tracks how many cars were sold.
- Failure ages are derived from the incident date on each complaint. Mileage is shown where owners reported it — NHTSA’s 2021 system change cut mileage capture sharply, so it thins out after MY2020.
- Vehicles are compared only against others of the same model year, because a new car has not had time to accumulate old failures.
- Recall records come from NHTSA’s campaign database and are manufacturer actions. Check an individual VIN at nhtsa.gov/recalls.
- How these numbers are calculated