Interactive tool

Complaint severity index calculator

Two cars can have the same complaint count yet very different risk. Enter the numbers from any model page to see how often its complaints escalated into a crash, fire, injury, or death.

How the index is computed

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the agency's Office of Defects Investigation holds more than 2,054,142 consumer complaints filed since 1995, as of June 2026. Raw volume tells you how often owners spoke up; it does not tell you how serious those complaints were. This calculator divides the harm events a model accrued (crashes, fires, injuries, deaths) by its total complaints to produce an escalation rate - the share of complaints that involved real-world harm - and weights fatalities and injuries most heavily. A high-volume model with a low escalation rate is noisy but rarely dangerous; a low-volume model with a high rate deserves a closer look. Copy the five numbers from any model page on PlainCars, and see our methodology for how the federal records are processed.

Source data: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation complaint records (1995–2026). The index is a transparent ratio of harm events to complaints, not an official NHTSA metric. Methodology: /methodology.

Compiled by PlainCars Editorial, Vehicle Safety Editorial Team

Every figure on PlainCars is rendered directly from NHTSA complaint and safety data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on NHTSA complaint and safety data, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.