Total Complaints
4 filings
MERCURY CAPRI · model year
4 NHTSA complaints for this specific cohort.
NHTSA overall rating
Not crash-tested
New Car Assessment Program
The 1985MERCURYCAPRI carries 4 consumer safety complaints in NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation database for this specific model-year cohort. Within that volume, owners reported 0 crashes, 4 fires, 0 injuries, and 0 fatalities. No NCAP 5-star crash-test rating is available for this model year in the federal database.
Component-level analysis is where model-year complaints become actionable: the top complaint category for the 1985 CAPRI is electrical system:ignition:switch with 4 filings. Concentration in one or two component groups is the classic signature of a systemic defect; a flat distribution usually reflects normal aging, warranty complaints, or isolated build-plant variability.
NHTSA currently has 22 investigation files overlapping the 1985 CAPRI. Owners comparing this cohort against neighboring years should pair the counters above with the complaint-by-year trend on the parent model page — a spike in a single year often tracks to a platform refresh, a new transmission supplier, or an updated ECU calibration. Use the related-complaint feed below to read raw owner narratives before deciding whether any pattern here affects your specific use case.
Total Complaints
4 filings
Crashes Reported
0 reports
Source
NHTSA ODI
Federal complaints database
At or below the fleet median complaint volume.
| Component | Count |
|---|---|
| ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:IGNITION:SWITCH | 4 |
GARAGE / HOUSE FIRE CAUSED BY DEFECTIVE IGNITION SWITCH IN 1985 MERCURY CAPRI ASC MCLAREN. *JB
Mileage: 28,000
WIFE STARTED VEHICLE TO WARM UP, TURNED BACK, VEHICLE STARTED SMOKING AND THEN FIRE ENGULFED VEHICLE AND TOTALLY BURNED IT. *AK
WIFE STARTED VEHICLE TO WARM UP, TURNED BACK, VEHICLE STARTED SMOKING AND THEN FIRE ENGULFED VEHICLE AND TOTALLY BURNED IT. *AK
VEHICLE WAS PARKED AND CAUGHT FIRE, UNDER THE HOOD ENGINE COMPARTMENT FIRE, ELECTRICAL SHORT. *AK
Data as of 2025. Sources: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) complaints database, NHTSA recall campaign API, NHTSA NCAP crash-test ratings, and NHTSA FARS for fatality cross-reference.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.