PlainCars

State profile

Hawaii vehicle complaints

3,053 NHTSA complaints filed by Hawaii drivers across 50 vehicle models — the models your neighbors flag most.

Complaints
3,053
Crashes
146
Models
50

Hawaii drivers have submitted 3,053 safety complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration across 50 distinct vehicle models. Those filings include 146 crash reports , 72 fire incidents , and 6 reported fatalities — every one of those events self-reported by the vehicle owner through NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation intake form.

TOYOTA carries the highest cumulative complaint volume in Hawaii with 694 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 Hawaii right now is the TOYOTA TACOMA (177 complaints, model years 1995–2024). 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 Hawaii 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 Hawaii's fleet turnover over time — the same dataset federal regulators rely on when they open Preliminary Evaluations.

Severe outcomes reported in Hawaii

146
Crash reports
72
Fire incidents
6
Reported fatalities
Most complained make in Hawaii
TOYOTA (694 complaints)

Most-complained vehicles in Hawaii

Ranked by NHTSA complaints filed by in-state owners

complaints

What this shows The TOYOTA TACOMA draws the most NHTSA complaints from Hawaii 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 Hawaii

# Vehicle Complaints
1 TOYOTA TACOMA 177
2 HONDA CR-V 118
3 FORD F-150 105
4 TOYOTA PRIUS 104
5 HONDA CIVIC 101
6 JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE 98
7 FORD EXPLORER 97
8 TOYOTA CAMRY 93
9 TOYOTA COROLLA 92
10 DODGE CARAVAN 91
11 FORD ESCAPE 85
12 NISSAN FRONTIER 82
13 HONDA ACCORD 78
14 NISSAN ALTIMA 76
15 JEEP WRANGLER 75
16 FORD FOCUS 75
17 HONDA ODYSSEY 72
18 DODGE DURANGO 67
19 TOYOTA SIENNA 61
20 JEEP CHEROKEE 60
21 HYUNDAI SONATA 60
22 DODGE GRAND CARAVAN 59
23 TOYOTA 4RUNNER 55
24 DODGE RAM 1500 53
25 TOYOTA RAV4 49
26 HONDA PILOT 49
27 FORD FUSION 49
28 SUBARU FORESTER 47
29 CHEVROLET SILVERADO 1500 44
30 CHEVROLET MALIBU 43
31 CHEVROLET COLORADO 43
32 NISSAN ROGUE 42
33 MAZDA TRIBUTE 42
34 NISSAN PATHFINDER 41
35 HYUNDAI ELANTRA 41
36 FORD RANGER 41
37 DODGE DAKOTA 40
38 NISSAN MURANO 38
39 TESLA MODEL 3 37
40 NISSAN LEAF 37
41 RAM 1500 36
42 NISSAN SENTRA 36
43 KIA SOUL 36
44 CHEVROLET CORVETTE 35
45 NISSAN MAXIMA 34
46 KIA SORENTO 34
47 TOYOTA HIGHLANDER 32
48 NISSAN TITAN 32
49 TOYOTA TUNDRA 31
50 VOLKSWAGEN PASSAT 30

Most-Complained Hawaii Vehicles

TOYOTA TACOMA

177 complaints

HONDA CR-V

118 complaints

FORD F-150

105 complaints

TOYOTA PRIUS

104 complaints

HONDA CIVIC

101 complaints
Compare TOYOTA TACOMA vs HONDA CR-V →

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

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 Hawaii resident about a vehicle they purchased in a neighboring state is still tagged to Hawaii; conversely, an out-of-state visitor whose vehicle developed an issue while driving through Hawaii 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 Hawaii'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 Hawaii?
Vehicle owners in Hawaii have filed 3,053 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 Hawaii?
The table above ranks the top 50 most-complained vehicles in Hawaii 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.

Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.