NHTSA ODI corpus · August 2026
Vehicle safety statistics
Key findings from PlainCars' rebuild of the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation complaint, recall, and investigation files. Counts are live from the federal extract; they describe filings and case files, not confirmed defect rates or purchase advice.
NHTSA ODI · August 2026
FORD F-150 leads model complaint volume at 45,624 filings; FORD leads makes at 372,583. more than 2,000,000 rows as of August 2026. Filings, not confirmed defects.
- 2,054,142
- complaint rows
- 372,583
- #1 FORD
- 45,624
- #1 F-150
- 233,377
- CA
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration consumer complaint file. See methodology for extract dating.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), more than 2,000,000 consumer safety complaints sit in the Office of Defects Investigation file (2,054,142 rows as of August 2026). PlainCars computes each finding below from that federal release. Read the methodology for how complaints, recalls, and investigations are compiled.
Key findings
Standalone, citable statements from this NHTSA rebuild. Reuse with attribution to PlainCars.
- 2,054,142 consumer complaint rows sit in this PlainCars rebuild of the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation file (more than 2,000,000 as of August 2026). Each row is a filed report, not a confirmed defect.
- 372,583 FORD leads make-level complaint totals in this corpus, ahead of CHEVROLET at 246,565 and DODGE at 151,708. Make totals sum model rows in this extract.
- 45,624 FORD F-150 leads model-level complaint totals; FORD EXPLORER is second at 42,132. Volume tracks filings, not defect rates.
- 180,040 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM is the most-cited component in complaint records (186 death flags in those rows); ENGINE is second at 157,570. Component is the filer's NHTSA category, not a repair invoice.
- 7,787 distinct NHTSA recall campaigns appear in this rebuild. Campaign count is not the same as model-level recall links on vehicle pages. See /recall for recent campaigns.
- 4,173 NHTSA defect investigations are in this file; 93 were open at extract time. Investigation status is NHTSA's case file, not a consumer complaint count.
- 233,377 California leads state-coded complaint filings, ahead of Texas (147,187) and Florida (145,685). State is the filer's reported state, not vehicle registration.
- 3,559 vehicle models across 70 makes are indexed in this corpus. Model-year rows carry 5,477 death flags and 113,482 injury flags summed from complaint records (incident fields, not a mortality census).
Make-level complaint volume
Top eight makes by summed complaint counts in this extract. Not a reliability or safety ranking.
Source: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation consumer complaints PlainCars make-level complaint aggregates · 2026 Make totals sum complaint rows attributed to each manufacturer in this rebuild. Filings are not confirmed defects.
Most-cited components
Component categories cited in complaint records. Death flags on a component row count incidents flagged in those filings.
How to read these numbers
Complaint counts track consumer filings to NHTSA, not verified defects or crash causation. Recall campaign counts are distinct recall actions in the federal file. Investigation totals are NHTSA case files. State totals use the filer's reported state. Download the make-level CSV or open rankings, research, and state pages for drill-downs.
Every figure on PlainCars is rendered directly from NHTSA complaint and safety data, no number is typed in by an editor. Key Findings aggregate getNationalStats, makes, models, component_summary, state-coded complaints, and investigations from the PlainCars SQLite rebuild of NHTSA public files. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of August 2026.