State profile
North Carolina vehicle complaints
30,077 NHTSA complaints filed by North Carolina drivers across 50 vehicle models, the models your neighbors flag most.
- Complaints
- 30,077
- Crashes
- 1,765
- Models
- 50
Volume is not severity
According to NHTSA ODI filings attributed to North Carolina drivers, the FORD EXPLORER leads complaint volume at 1,450 (#1 of 50 tracked models) but the TOYOTA CAMRY leads crash-linked reports at 139 (#1); the CHEVROLET SILVERADO 1500 leads reported fatalities at 5 (#1).
- 1,450
- FORD EXPLORER complaints #1
- 139
- TOYOTA CAMRY crashes #1
- 5
- CHEVROLET SILVERADO 1500 deaths #1
Counts sum NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation complaints self-reported by owners in this state. Crash and fatality flags come from those filings, not a separate crash registry.
Crash-flagged vs other filings
North Carolina filings in this extract split 5.9% crash-flagged (FLAG) versus other ODI rows, orthogonal to the make/model top-N bars below.
North Carolina vs all jurisdictions by NHTSA complaint volume
Where this state's owner-attributed ODI complaint count sits among every state and DC on PlainCars
64,852 12th of 51 higher than 39 of 51 jurisdictions
States and DC, banded by owner-attributed NHTSA ODI complaint count
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more jurisdictions. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source NHTSA ODI owner-reported state field · 2026-08-08
North Carolina has more filings than 39 of 51 jurisdictions in this extract. Absolute volume tracks population and reporting culture; it is not a per-vehicle defect rate.
Data updated August 2026. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), more than 2,000,000 owner filings sit in the national ODI file; this page counts the subset attributed to North Carolina drivers. See our methodology.
North Carolina drivers have submitted 30,077 safety complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration across 50 distinct vehicle models. Those filings include 1,765 crash reports , 647 fire incidents , and 36 reported fatalities , each self-reported through NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation intake form.
State is geocoded from the owner's self-reported ZIP. The table below ranks models by complaint count; crash, fire, and death columns isolate filings that reported a serious outcome.
Severe outcomes reported in North Carolina
Most-complained vehicles in North Carolina
Ranked by NHTSA complaints filed by in-state owners
- FORD EXPLORER
FORD EXPLORER
1,450 complaints
- FORD F-150
FORD F-150
1,374 complaints
- JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE
JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE
1,340 complaints
- FORD ESCAPE
FORD ESCAPE
1,211 complaints
- HONDA ACCORD
HONDA ACCORD
1,190 complaints
- FORD FUSION
FORD FUSION
1,131 complaints
- FORD FOCUS
FORD FOCUS
1,073 complaints
- CHEVROLET MALIBU
CHEVROLET MALIBU
877 complaints
- HYUNDAI SONATA
HYUNDAI SONATA
846 complaints
- TOYOTA CAMRY
TOYOTA CAMRY
830 complaints
What this shows The FORD EXPLORER draws the most NHTSA complaints from North Carolina drivers. State-level volume reflects how common a model is locally as much as its defect rate.
Full ranking: top 50 most-complained vehicles in North Carolina
Nearest ODI volume peers
Closest owner-attributed complaint totals to North Carolina's 64,852 filings (HEAVY band) - NHTSA ODI volume stamps, not an alphabetical state strip.
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 North Carolina compares to the national picture
North Carolina sits #12 of 51 jurisdictions on owner-attributed ODI volume (HEAVY; 39 jurisdictions file fewer). Absolute counts track population and reporting culture more than per-vehicle defect rates, pair North Carolina's FLAG crash-flag share (5.9%) with model-level national rankings before treating a local leaderboard as a reliability verdict. Inside this extract the FORD EXPLORER leads North Carolina volume; check whether that nameplate's local share exceeds its national share before calling a regional pattern.
A note on self-reported state data
The state field on each NHTSA complaint is supplied by the consumer at filing, there is no mandatory check that the owner filed from their registration state, nor that the incident occurred in North Carolina. A a North Carolina resident reporting a purchase made elsewhere still tags here; a visitor who filed from another home state will not. NHTSA does not deduplicate by VIN across years, so multi-year filings from the same vehicle accumulate. Treat North Carolina's HEAVY ranking as directional and open the model pages linked above.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Every figure on PlainCars is rendered directly from NHTSA complaint and safety data, no number is typed in by an editor. State totals sum NHTSA ODI complaints attributed to North Carolina drivers (30,077 filings across 50 models; vintage August 2026; HEAVY/FLAG). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of August 2026.