Vehicle Reliability Statistics
Headline findings from the federal owner-complaint and recall record — each one a live count from the database, with the full dataset free to download and cite. The numbers update every week.
Vehicles With the Most Complaints and No Recall
Across model years 2005–2025, 4,798 distinct vehicle-and-component failure patterns have drawn enough NHTSA owner complaints to clear our threshold without a single recall for that component. The largest gap: the 2017 Ford Escape engine, with 1,715 complaints and no recall on record.
4,798 unrecalled failure patterns ›The Failures That Hit Right After the Warranty Ends
5,001 failure patterns have a median reported failure mileage past the 60,000-mile powertrain warranty. The median across all of them is 80,000 miles — the typical covered defect surfaces just after coverage ends.
5,001 post-warranty failure patterns ›The Worst Transmissions, 2005–2025
The Ford 6F35 leads with 52,412 NHTSA complaints across 62 model-year entries, against 469 recalls.
10 transmission families ›Engine Families by Complaint Volume
The Hyundai/Kia Theta II 2.4L leads with 30,358 NHTSA complaints — about 722.8 per model-year entry across 42 of them.
21 engine families ›Where Owners Report Fires, Crashes, and Injuries
Owners alleged 11,530 fires and 1,101 deaths across 14,116 failure patterns in the federal complaint record. These are unverified consumer allegations, ranked here to show where the most severe outcomes are reported.
14,116 harm-flagged failure patterns ›Every figure derives from NHTSA public-record complaints and recalls. Methodology is documented on each page; raw datasets live in the Data Center.