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Vehicle safety rankings

Vehicles ranked from NHTSA's consumer-complaint, defect-investigation, recall, and NCAP crash-test datasets, rebuilt against the latest federal release.

The verdict

FORD F-150 leads NHTSA complaint volume with 45,624 reports, ahead of FORD EXPLORER at 42,132; the Top 5 cutoff is 30,820 (spread 14,804 from #1 to #5). Volume tracks filings, not confirmed defect rates.

45,624
#1 FORD F-150
42,132
#2 FORD EXPLORER
30,820
Top 5 cutoff
14,804
#1–#5 spread

Figures are live from NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation complaint totals, open any leaderboard below for the full ordered list.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), more than 2,000,000 consumer safety complaints sit in the Office of Defects Investigation file (2,054,142 rows as of August 2026). PlainCars rebuilds each leaderboard against that federal release. See our methodology for how each metric is sourced and weighted.

Complaint Trends → Recall Rankings → Safety Ratings →
Top 5 most-complained models Horizontal bar chart of the top 5 items by value (complaints). Top 5 most-complained models 1. FORD F-150 45,624 2. FORD EXPLORER 42,132 3. JEEP GRAND CHERO… 39,285 4. FORD ESCAPE 34,642 5. HONDA ACCORD 30,820 Bar to make Top 5 = 30,820 NHTSA complaints (allmodel-years combined).

Make complaint-load bands

Every make sits in exactly one filing-volume band, the corpus shape behind the model leaderboards below.

Which vehicles draw the most complaints?

Models ranked by total NHTSA consumer-safety complaints on record.

  1. 1
    FORD F-150 45,624 complaints
  2. 2
    FORD EXPLORER 42,132 complaints
  3. 3
    JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE 39,285 complaints
  4. 4
    FORD ESCAPE 34,642 complaints
  5. 5
    HONDA ACCORD 30,820 complaints
  6. 6
    FORD FOCUS 29,538 complaints
  7. 7
    CHEVROLET MALIBU 28,985 complaints
  8. 8
    FORD FUSION 28,242 complaints
  9. 9
    FORD TAURUS 23,867 complaints
  10. 10
    TOYOTA CAMRY 23,201 complaints
  11. 11
    CHEVROLET SILVERADO 1500 22,161 complaints
  12. 12
    JEEP WRANGLER 21,786 complaints
  13. 13
    HYUNDAI SONATA 21,712 complaints
  14. 14
    JEEP CHEROKEE 20,437 complaints
  15. 15
    HONDA CR-V 20,090 complaints
  16. 16
    NISSAN ALTIMA 20,032 complaints
  17. 17
    HONDA CIVIC 19,764 complaints
  18. 18
    FORD WINDSTAR 19,456 complaints
  19. 19
    DODGE DURANGO 19,139 complaints
  20. 20
    CHRYSLER TOWN AND COUNTRY 18,994 complaints
  21. 21
    DODGE GRAND CARAVAN 18,729 complaints
  22. 22
    FORD EDGE 17,239 complaints
  23. 23
    RAM 1500 15,767 complaints
  24. 24
    HONDA ODYSSEY 15,581 complaints
  25. 25
    DODGE RAM 1500 15,420 complaints

Source NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation · 2026-08-08

Most death-flagged complaint reports

Model-years with the most NHTSA complaint records carrying a death flag. Voluntary reports, not confirmed defect rankings.

  1. 1
    2010 HONDA CIVIC 137 death-flagged
    48 crash-flagged
  2. 2
    1987 FORD BRONCO 120 death-flagged
    3 crash-flagged
  3. 3
    1996 FORD EXPLORER 89 death-flagged
    248 crash-flagged
  4. 4
    2017 TESLA MODEL X 56 death-flagged
    38 crash-flagged
  5. 5
    2000 FORD FOCUS 50 death-flagged
    358 crash-flagged
  6. 6
    2010 FORD EXPLORER 50 death-flagged
    13 crash-flagged
  7. 7
    2002 NISSAN XTERRA 48 death-flagged
    33 crash-flagged
  8. 8
    2004 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER 47 death-flagged
    42 crash-flagged
  9. 9
    1997 FORD EXPLORER 41 death-flagged
    180 crash-flagged
  10. 10
    2011 LINCOLN MKS 40 death-flagged
    3 crash-flagged
  11. 11
    2001 DODGE NEON 38 death-flagged
    50 crash-flagged
  12. 12
    2015 FORD TRANSIT 36 death-flagged
    8 crash-flagged
  13. 13
    1998 CHEVROLET BLAZER 33 death-flagged
    58 crash-flagged
  14. 14
    1998 MAZDA B-SERIES TRUCK 32 death-flagged
    11 crash-flagged
  15. 15
    1995 CHEVROLET C30 30 death-flagged
    5 crash-flagged
  16. 16
    1997 CHEVROLET C/K PICKUPS 30 death-flagged
    1 crash-flagged
  17. 17
    2009 CADILLAC ESCALADE 30 death-flagged
    1 crash-flagged
  18. 18
    1998 JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE 27 death-flagged
    194 crash-flagged
  19. 19
    2014 TESLA MODEL S 27 death-flagged
    74 crash-flagged
  20. 20
    1994 FORD EXPLORER 25 death-flagged
    124 crash-flagged
  21. 21
    2003 MERCEDES-BENZ CL CLASS 24 death-flagged
    8 crash-flagged
  22. 22
    2013 LINCOLN MKS 24 death-flagged
    6 crash-flagged
  23. 23
    2002 INFINITI I35 23 death-flagged
    17 crash-flagged
  24. 24
    2003 PONTIAC GRAND AM 22 death-flagged
    40 crash-flagged
  25. 25
    2008 CHEVROLET COBALT 21 death-flagged
    108 crash-flagged

Source NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation · 2026-08-08

Source: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) - Complaints, Recalls, Investigations + NHTSA NCAP/IIHS safety ratings NHTSA ODI complaints (1979-2026), recalls, deaths, crashes, fires + safety ratings · 2026 NHTSA ODI data updated continuously as complaints, recalls, and investigations are filed; not all complaints are confirmed defects. Safety ratings from NHTSA NCAP / IIHS where available.

Every figure on PlainCars is rendered directly from NHTSA complaint and safety data, no number is typed in by an editor. Leaderboard counts are queried live from NHTSA ODI complaint totals (2,054,142 filings; vintage August 2026). Volume is not a defect rate. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of August 2026.