State profile
Washington vehicle complaints
17,240 NHTSA complaints filed by Washington drivers across 50 vehicle models, the models your neighbors flag most.
- Complaints
- 17,240
- Crashes
- 1,100
- Models
- 50
Volume is not severity
According to NHTSA ODI filings attributed to Washington drivers, the FORD F-150 leads complaint volume at 891 (#1 of 50 tracked models) but the TOYOTA PRIUS leads crash-linked reports at 60 (#1); the FORD RANGER leads reported fatalities at 10 (#1).
- 891
- FORD F-150 complaints #1
- 60
- TOYOTA PRIUS crashes #1
- 10
- FORD RANGER 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
Washington filings in this extract split 6.4% crash-flagged (FLAG) versus other ODI rows, orthogonal to the make/model top-N bars below.
Washington vs all jurisdictions by NHTSA complaint volume
Where this state's owner-attributed ODI complaint count sits among every state and DC on PlainCars
39,187 17th of 51 higher than 34 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
Washington has more filings than 34 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 Washington drivers. See our methodology.
Washington drivers have submitted 17,240 safety complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration across 50 distinct vehicle models. Those filings include 1,100 crash reports , 337 fire incidents , and 31 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 Washington
Most-complained vehicles in Washington
Ranked by NHTSA complaints filed by in-state owners
- FORD F-150
FORD F-150
891 complaints
- FORD EXPLORER
FORD EXPLORER
800 complaints
- JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE
JEEP GRAND CHEROKEE
779 complaints
- FORD FOCUS
FORD FOCUS
739 complaints
- FORD ESCAPE
FORD ESCAPE
577 complaints
- SUBARU OUTBACK
SUBARU OUTBACK
561 complaints
- TOYOTA PRIUS
TOYOTA PRIUS
475 complaints
- JEEP WRANGLER
JEEP WRANGLER
457 complaints
- HONDA ACCORD
HONDA ACCORD
443 complaints
- HONDA CR-V
HONDA CR-V
442 complaints
What this shows The FORD F-150 draws the most NHTSA complaints from Washington 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 Washington
Nearest ODI volume peers
Closest owner-attributed complaint totals to Washington's 39,187 filings (FULL 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 Washington compares to the national picture
Washington sits #17 of 51 jurisdictions on owner-attributed ODI volume (FULL; 34 jurisdictions file fewer). Absolute counts track population and reporting culture more than per-vehicle defect rates, pair Washington's FLAG crash-flag share (6.4%) with model-level national rankings before treating a local leaderboard as a reliability verdict. Inside this extract the FORD F-150 leads Washington 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 Washington. A a Washington 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 Washington's FULL 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 Washington drivers (17,240 filings across 50 models; vintage August 2026; FULL/FLAG). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of August 2026.