Vehicles With the Most Complaints and No Recall

Failure patterns owners report in volume that regulators never forced a fix for — every row cross-checked against the live NHTSA recalls database, so vehicles that were in fact recalled for the component are excluded.

Across model years 2005–2025, 4,287 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 1,665 complaints and no recall on record.

year	make	model	component	complaints	severity	source
2,017	Ford	Escape	engine	1,665	moderate	view ›
2,010	Ford	Fusion	steering	1,657	moderate	view ›
2,014	Ford	Focus	powertrain	1,537	moderate	view ›
2,014	Jeep	Cherokee	powertrain	1,398	moderate	view ›
2,012	Ford	Focus	powertrain	1,348	moderate	view ›
2,018	Ford	Escape	engine	1,203	moderate	view ›
2,013	Ford	F-150	powertrain	1,188	critical	view ›
2,013	Ford	Focus	powertrain	1,049	critical	view ›
2,015	Jeep	Cherokee	powertrain	957	moderate	view ›
2,007	Toyota	Prius	lighting	957	moderate	view ›
2,012	Ford	Focus	steering	932	critical	view ›
2,006	Toyota	Prius	lighting	866	moderate	view ›
2,009	Nissan	Altima	steering	858	moderate	view ›
2,013	Ford	Edge	electrical	833	moderate	view ›
2,010	Ford	Fusion	powertrain	775	moderate	view ›
2,019	Ford	F-250	steering	769	moderate	view ›
2,017	Ford	Edge	engine	759	moderate	view ›
2,011	Ford	F-150	powertrain	755	moderate	view ›
2,005	Nissan	Maxima	powertrain	738	moderate	view ›
2,017	Ford	F-250	steering	717	moderate	view ›
2,018	Ford	F-150	powertrain	679	moderate	view ›
2,015	Chrysler	200	powertrain	665	moderate	view ›
2,016	Ford	Focus	powertrain	655	moderate	view ›
2,005	Ford	Freestar	powertrain	655	moderate	view ›
2,006	Chevrolet	Trailblazer	fuel-system	646	critical	view ›

Showing the top 25 of 4,287 unrecalled failure patterns. The full dataset is free to download and republish with attribution:

Download full CSV Download JSON All datasets ›

Methodology

Candidates are (vehicle, component) clusters with no recall for that component in our DB and ≥ the complaint threshold. Each candidate vehicle is then queried against the live NHTSA recalls-by-vehicle API; any cluster whose component is in fact covered by a real NHTSA recall is REMOVED. Survivors are genuine recall gaps as of the verification date. Complaints are unverified consumer reports; absence of a recall is per NHTSA records on the verification date.

Source: US NHTSA owner complaints + recalls (public record), MY 2005–2025. License: CC BY 4.0 — cite as ProblemsByVin (https://problemsbyvin.com). Computed from the database snapshot dated 2026-07-21.

Reporters: we'll pull a custom cut of this — by make, model year, state, or component — and our reliability analyst can speak to methodology on the record. Get in touch ›