State profile

Alaska vehicle complaints

2,234 NHTSA complaints filed by Alaska drivers across 50 vehicle models — the models your neighbors flag most.

Complaints
2,234
Crashes
138
Models
50

Alaska drivers have submitted 2,234 safety complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration across 50 distinct vehicle models. Those filings include 138 crash reports , 46 fire incidents , and 22 reported fatalities — every one of those events self-reported by the vehicle owner through NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation intake form.

FORD carries the highest cumulative complaint volume in Alaska with 752 filings, a concentration that typically reflects both registered-vehicle share and component-specific defect clusters already tracked in federal investigations. The single most-complained vehicle in Alaska right now is the FORD F-150 (174 complaints, model years 1991–2024). Concentration is a useful first lens, but a high-volume make in one state usually signals that the brand is popular there — not necessarily more defective. The crash, fire, and fatality counters in the table below isolate the filings that rose to a serious safety event.

State-level NHTSA data is geocoded from the owner's self-reported ZIP, so climate, road salt exposure, tow-load patterns, and emissions-testing regimes in Alaska all shape which defects surface here versus elsewhere. Use this page to triage which models your neighbors flag most often, then drill into each model's component breakdown and recall history on its detail page. Filings stay public for the life of the database, which means you can track a given nameplate's complaint curve against Alaska's fleet turnover over time — the same dataset federal regulators rely on when they open Preliminary Evaluations.

Severe outcomes reported in Alaska

138
Crash reports
46
Fire incidents
22
Reported fatalities
Most complained make in Alaska
FORD (752 complaints)

Most-complained vehicles in Alaska

Ranked by NHTSA complaints filed by in-state owners

complaints

What this shows The FORD F-150 draws the most NHTSA complaints from Alaska drivers. State-level volume reflects how common a model is locally as much as its defect rate.

Source NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation As of 2026

Full ranking: top 50 most-complained vehicles in Alaska

# Vehicle Complaints
1 FORD F-150 174
2 FORD ESCAPE 112
3 JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE 106
4 RAM 1500 83
5 FORD EXPLORER 75
6 CHEVROLET SILVERADO 1500 72
7 DODGE RAM 2500 71
8 JEEP CHEROKEE 69
9 SUBARU OUTBACK 67
10 FORD EXPEDITION 66
11 FORD FOCUS 62
12 FORD TAURUS 52
13 TOYOTA TUNDRA 51
14 TOYOTA TACOMA 50
15 FORD F-350 50
16 FORD F-250 48
17 CHEVROLET SILVERADO 48
18 DODGE DURANGO 46
19 GMC SIERRA 1500 45
20 DODGE DAKOTA 45
21 RAM 2500 43
22 HONDA CR-V 37
23 FORD RANGER 37
24 SUBARU FORESTER 34
25 JEEP WRANGLER 34
26 DODGE RAM 3500 34
27 DODGE CARAVAN 32
28 DODGE RAM 1500 31
29 FORD WINDSTAR 30
30 CHEVROLET TAHOE 30
31 CHEVROLET SUBURBAN 30
32 CHEVROLET MALIBU 30
33 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA 28
34 TOYOTA RAV4 28
35 SUBARU IMPREZA 28
36 DODGE GRAND CARAVAN 28
37 DODGE RAM 27
38 CHEVROLET SILVERADO 2500 27
39 GMC JIMMY 25
40 FORD EDGE 25
41 CHEVROLET EQUINOX 25
42 GMC ACADIA 24
43 SUBARU LEGACY 23
44 NISSAN TITAN 23
45 JEEP LIBERTY 22
46 DODGE JOURNEY 22
47 CHEVROLET BLAZER 22
48 HONDA PILOT 21
49 FORD F-350 SD 21
50 CHEVROLET S10 21

Most-Complained Alaska Vehicles

Sources: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) complaints database, with fatality-linked filings cross-checked against NHTSA FARS and crash-test ratings drawn from NHTSA NCAP. State is self-reported by the vehicle owner.

How Alaska compares to the national picture

State-level complaint counts in the NHTSA database are heavily shaped by population, registered-vehicle density, and reporting culture. Larger states like California, Texas, and Florida sit at the top of the ranked list almost regardless of model mix, because the absolute number of vehicles on the road there dwarfs smaller jurisdictions. To use Alaska's totals fairly, consider the per-capita complaint rate against the U.S. average — and check whether a specific model's share of Alaska complaints is significantly higher than that model's national share. When the local share is disproportionate, that's a stronger signal of a regional defect pattern (weather-related corrosion, fuel-formulation interactions, terrain-related wear) than a generic country-wide design flaw.

Other PlainCars data for Alaska

Beyond this state-level vehicle complaint roll-up, PlainCars surfaces national-level views you can use to triangulate a model that caught your eye:

A note on self-reported state data

The state field on each NHTSA complaint is supplied by the consumer at the time of filing — there is no mandatory validation that the owner is filing from their state of registration, nor that the incident occurred in that state. In practice this means a complaint filed by a Alaska resident about a vehicle they purchased in a neighboring state is still tagged to Alaska; conversely, an out-of-state visitor whose vehicle developed an issue while driving through Alaska but who filed from their home state will not appear in this view. NHTSA does not deduplicate by VIN across years, so multi-year complaints from the same vehicle accumulate in the totals. When using this page as a starting point for buying-decision research, treat Alaska's ranking as directional, not absolute, and pair it with the model-level rankings linked above.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many vehicle complaints have been filed in Alaska?
Vehicle owners in Alaska have filed 2,234 complaints with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). These complaints cover a wide range of safety issues including mechanical failures, electrical problems, and crash-related incidents.
What are the most complained-about vehicles in Alaska?
The table above ranks the top 50 most-complained vehicles in Alaska by total NHTSA complaint count. Each entry shows the make and model along with reported crashes, fires, and deaths to help you identify vehicles with the most safety concerns.
Where does the state vehicle complaint data come from?
All data comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) complaints database. Vehicle owners self-report their state when filing a complaint, and PlainCars aggregates this data to show state-level safety trends.
Can I file a vehicle complaint for my state?
Yes. You can file a vehicle safety complaint directly with NHTSA at nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem. Filing a complaint helps NHTSA identify safety defects and can lead to recalls that protect other drivers.