Car Models: M
Open-data reference.
175 models starting with "M"
175 vehicle models in the NHTSA complaint and recall dataset begin with the letter M. The 50 shown on page 3 of 4 represent 16 different manufacturers and span model years 1973–2026. This alphabetical index is the fastest way to reach a specific nameplate when you already know the model name; the A-Z strip above lets you jump to any other letter, and the sort toggle above the table lets you re-rank by most complaints or most recalls instead of alphabetical.
Across this page's slice of the "M" cohort, the listed models carry a combined 41,691 NHTSA complaints and 347 safety recalls. The highest-volume nameplate in this view is the TESLA MODEL 3 with 7,127 complaints across model years 2017–2026. Complaint volume by itself is a function of how many vehicles are on the road — a bestseller will outrun a low-volume trim on raw counts alone — so pair the count column with the recall column and with each model's detail page before drawing conclusions about relative reliability.
Every figure on this page flows from the Office of Defects Investigation complaint and recall tables. Consumer complaints are self-reported and unverified by federal engineers; the database exists so that patterns, not individual filings, can be detected. Open any model link to see its year-by-year breakdown, its top component complaints, its crash and fire counters, and any open or closed NHTSA investigations. The deeper pages also surface cross-links to the specific VIN lookup, state-level filings, and component-level rollups that share the same underlying evidence.
Showing 101–150 of 175
| Model | Complaints |
|---|---|
| MILLENIA | 338 |
| MINI COOPER | 4 |
| MINI RAM VAN | 33 |
| MIRAGE | 940 |
| MIRAGE G4 | 94 |
| MIRAI | 43 |
| MITSUBISHI | 55 |
| MKC | 644 |
| MKS | 484 |
| MKT | 377 |
| MKX | 1,702 |
| MKZ | 1,957 |
| MKZ HYBRID | 231 |
| ML | 9 |
| ML250 | 13 |
| ML320 | 1,087 |
| ML350 | 1,235 |
| ML400 | 8 |
| ML430 | 194 |
| ML450 | 1 |
| ML500 | 142 |
| ML55 | 16 |
| ML550 | 53 |
| ML63 | 6 |
| MODEL 3 | 7,127 |
| MODEL S | 5,136 |
| MODEL X | 2,274 |
| MODEL Y | 6,492 |
| MONACO | 81 |
| MONARCH | 2 |
| MONKEY125 | 2 |
| MONTANA | 1,451 |
| MONTE CARLO | 2,961 |
| MONTEGO | 359 |
| MONTEREY | 548 |
| MONTERO | 989 |
| MONTERO SPORT | 452 |
| MONZA | 1 |
| MOTOR HOME | 151 |
| MOTOR HOME | 7 |
| MOTOR HOME | 103 |
| MOTOR HOME | 11 |
| MOTORHOME | 7 |
| MOTORHOME | 3 |
| MOUNTAINEER | 52 |
| MOUNTAINEER | 2,646 |
| MP4-12C | 5 |
| MP4-12C SPIDER | 8 |
| MPV | 1,156 |
| MR | 1 |
Top Models on This Page
Methodology
Every model listed flows from federal data: the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) complaints database, the NHTSA recall campaign API, and NHTSA New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) crash-test ratings. Consumer complaints are self-reported and unverified by federal engineers — the dataset exists so that patterns, not individual filings, can be detected. PlainCars does not rewrite or score the underlying figures. See the full methodology page for the processing pipeline and limitations.
How to read this letter index
The letter index groups model names by their leading character so that you can quickly scan through the federal dataset in alphabetical chunks rather than paging through every entry. Each row represents a single make-model combination that has at least one record in either the NHTSA complaints database, the NHTSA recall ledger, or the NCAP crash-test program. Counts shown next to a model name are lifetime totals across all model years present in the source — not annualized or trim-specific. Use the rankings pages below to pivot from "alphabetical browse" to "highest complaint volume", "most-recalled", or "best crash-test rated" if you need a different sort.
Why fleet size matters when reading these counts
Complaint and recall volume are heavily influenced by how many vehicles of a given model are on the road. A model that sold five million units over a decade will accumulate more raw complaints than a niche model that sold fifty thousand — even when the per-vehicle defect rate is identical. The federal data does not normalize for fleet size, and neither does this page. If you are comparing two models, also check NHTSA's investigations tab on NHTSA.gov for that VIN-family: an active Engineering Analysis or Preliminary Evaluation is a stronger signal of systemic risk than raw complaint count alone. The rankings pages on PlainCars sort by absolute counts to surface vehicles operating at scale, not to imply one model is "worse" than another in isolation.
Related entry points on PlainCars
- Most-complained models (rankings)
- Most-recalled models (rankings)
- Safest models by NHTSA NCAP (rankings)
- Complaints by U.S. state
- Repair-cost CPI trends
Data refresh cadence
NHTSA publishes daily updates to the complaints database as consumers file new reports, weekly updates to the recall ledger as manufacturers initiate new campaigns, and roughly monthly updates to NCAP as new crash-test results are scored. PlainCars ingests these on a rolling schedule and refreshes the static derivatives — model counts, rankings, letter indexes — within a day of upstream changes. Detail pages show the upstream document age so you can tell whether a specific complaint or recall is fresh or historical. See the methodology page for the full ingest pipeline.