State profile

Arizona vehicle complaints

17,905 NHTSA complaints filed by Arizona drivers across 50 vehicle models — the models your neighbors flag most.

Complaints
17,905
Crashes
1,135
Models
50

Arizona drivers have submitted 17,905 safety complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration across 50 distinct vehicle models. Those filings include 1,135 crash reports , 315 fire incidents , and 36 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 Arizona with 5,077 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 Arizona right now is the FORD F-150 (889 complaints, model years 1989–2024). 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 Arizona 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 Arizona's fleet turnover over time — the same dataset federal regulators rely on when they open Preliminary Evaluations.

Severe outcomes reported in Arizona

1,135
Crash reports
315
Fire incidents
36
Reported fatalities
Most complained make in Arizona
FORD (5,077 complaints)

Most-complained vehicles in Arizona

Ranked by NHTSA complaints filed by in-state owners

complaints

What this shows The FORD F-150 draws the most NHTSA complaints from Arizona 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 Arizona

# Vehicle Complaints
1 FORD F-150 889
2 FORD EXPLORER 795
3 FORD FOCUS 713
4 JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE 663
5 JEEP WRANGLER 630
6 HONDA ACCORD 506
7 CHEVROLET MALIBU 503
8 FORD ESCAPE 502
9 FORD FUSION 475
10 HONDA CIVIC 462
11 JEEP CHEROKEE 431
12 DODGE DURANGO 423
13 FORD F-250 419
14 HYUNDAI SONATA 409
15 TOYOTA CAMRY 395
16 HONDA CR-V 392
17 CHEVROLET SILVERADO 1500 385
18 DODGE GRAND CARAVAN 384
19 NISSAN ALTIMA 369
20 TOYOTA PRIUS 364
21 DODGE RAM 1500 358
22 RAM 1500 347
23 CHRYSLER TOWN AND COUNTRY 320
24 FORD EDGE 317
25 TESLA MODEL 3 304
26 KIA SORENTO 303
27 FORD TAURUS 288
28 CHEVROLET TAHOE 275
29 TOYOTA COROLLA 271
30 TOYOTA TACOMA 270
31 DODGE RAM 2500 267
32 HYUNDAI ELANTRA 266
33 TOYOTA RAV4 259
34 CHEVROLET CORVETTE 247
35 CHEVROLET COBALT 247
36 HONDA ODYSSEY 245
37 DODGE CARAVAN 243
38 NISSAN SENTRA 242
39 JEEP LIBERTY 240
40 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA 233
41 TOYOTA TUNDRA 233
42 HYUNDAI SANTA FE 231
43 HYUNDAI TUCSON 230
44 FORD EXPEDITION 229
45 FORD MUSTANG 225
46 FORD FIESTA 225
47 CHEVROLET SUBURBAN 224
48 KIA OPTIMA 221
49 TESLA MODEL Y 219
50 CHEVROLET IMPALA 217

Most-Complained Arizona 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 Arizona 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 Arizona's totals fairly, consider the per-capita complaint rate against the U.S. average — and check whether a specific model's share of Arizona 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 Arizona

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 Arizona resident about a vehicle they purchased in a neighboring state is still tagged to Arizona; conversely, an out-of-state visitor whose vehicle developed an issue while driving through Arizona 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 Arizona'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 Arizona?
Vehicle owners in Arizona have filed 17,905 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 Arizona?
The table above ranks the top 50 most-complained vehicles in Arizona 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.