Original research
Original data research from the PlainCars editorial team, drawing entirely on NHTSA datasets. Every figure is computed fresh from the current dataset, no hardcoded numbers.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), more than 2,054,142 consumer complaints have been filed against U.S. vehicles since 1995, as of June 2026. Our original research breaks that federal record down by make, model, and component; see our methodology for how the data is compiled.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data ranking U.S. vehicle manufacturers by total volume of consumer complaints filed in the NHTSA database. Every number on the page reflects the current NHTSA dataset as of your visit.
PlainCars ranks U.S. vehicle nameplates by total consumer complaints filed in the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation database. The ranking reflects the most recently published NHTSA data.
Component-level breakdown of the NHTSA consumer complaint dataset. PlainCars ranks vehicle subsystems by the total number of complaints citing that component, with parallel counts of crash, fire, and injury incidents in the same complaint record.
Which vehicle subsystems most often escalate from a routine complaint into a crash, fire, injury, or death. PlainCars ranks component systems by crash and fire flags and computes an escalation rate, crashes divided by complaints, from the current NHTSA data.
How NHTSA complaint, crash, and fatality volumes vary across vehicle model years, and why the newest vintages always look safest, with the survivorship and exposure effects spelled out honestly.