How NHTSA defect investigations work: from complaint to recall

Defect investigations belong to NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI). Its job is to gather and analyze information that points to a safety defect, investigate potential defects, and manage the recall process. NHTSA describes the work in five stages: data collection, data review, issue review, investigation and recall management. Only the fourth is an investigation in the formal sense, and most of the office’s work never reaches it.

The evidence comes from several directions:

• Owner complaints. Reports filed online or through NHTSA’s Vehicle Safety Hotline become Vehicle Owner Questionnaires, one of ODI’s primary sources.
• Early Warning Reporting. Manufacturers report to NHTSA on a quarterly basis, with the details depending on what they make and how many: claims and notices of death or injury, property damage claims, warranty claims, consumer complaints and field reports.
• Manufacturer communications. Copies of technical service bulletins and other notices about defects, filed monthly whether or not the problem is safety-related.
• Petitions. Any interested person can ask NHTSA to open a defect proceeding.
• Everything else. Foreign recall reports, NHTSA’s own crash investigations, first responders, news reports, lawsuits, online forums and whistleblowers.

No set number of complaints triggers an investigation. Staff weigh how many reports there are and how serious the outcomes were against how many vehicles were built and how long they have been on the road, to judge whether they are looking at a trend or a few isolated cases. ODI uses risk matrices that combine how severe a failure could be with how often it has happened.

Keep the scale in mind: NHTSA says most decisions to recall are made voluntarily by manufacturers before the agency is involved at all. An investigation is how NHTSA pursues the problems that do not resolve that way.

NHTSA separates defect investigations, which ask whether a safety defect exists, from administrative investigations, which ask whether a manufacturer has met its legal obligations. Every investigation has an identifying number that starts with its type.

• Defect Petition (DP) — a request from any interested person that NHTSA open a defect proceeding. NHTSA tells the petitioner within 120 days whether it grants or denies it. A granted petition opens an investigation; a denial is published in the Federal Register with the reasons.
• Preliminary Evaluation (PE) — the usual first formal step for a new potential defect.
• Engineering Analysis (EA) — the escalation when a PE shows that more information, testing or analysis is needed.
• Recall Query (RQ) — an investigation of a recall that already exists: whether owners were properly notified and are getting an adequate remedy within a reasonable time. It can end with a recall’s scope expanded or its remedy changed.
• Timeliness Query (TQ) — whether a manufacturer filed its defect or noncompliance report on time.
• Audit Query (AQ) — whether a manufacturer has provided its early-warning data and reports on time.

77 of the 790 investigations on this site are open: 24 Preliminary Evaluations, 20 Engineering Analyses, 13 Audit Queries, 11 Recall Queries and 9 Defect Petitions.

Opening. A Preliminary Evaluation opens with a public opening resume that defines the issue and the vehicles it covers, and the manufacturer is notified by mail. The investigator then sends an information request letter: technical documents about the vehicle, system or component, and the manufacturer’s data on related complaints, crashes, injuries, warranty claims, modifications and part sales.

Escalation. If the answers are not enough to decide, the PE is upgraded to an Engineering Analysis. ODI can send more information requests, including “peer” requests to other manufacturers, and can call on NHTSA’s Vehicle Research and Test Center, its Special Crash Investigations team or outside testing organizations for inspections, tests and studies. During the investigation the manufacturer has the chance to present its views on the alleged defect.

Closing. A closing resume explains the conclusions and the actions taken. NHTSA’s owner guide says investigations are generally resolved within 18 months of opening. The file — resumes, information requests and the manufacturer’s responses — is published, with personal and confidential business information removed.

ODI also issues a monthly report of investigations opened, closed, pending and suspended. A case is marked suspended when the information available does not justify going further; unless new information arrives, it closes automatically 60 days after it appears in a monthly report as suspended.

Closed investigations on this site, by type: the median time between the date each was opened and the date it was closed.

The longest-running investigation still open on this site is EA15001, an Engineering Analysis opened on February 24, 2015.

Investigations are ordinarily resolved before NHTSA makes any formal finding, in one of two ways.

• The manufacturer recalls. An investigation is a running exchange between NHTSA and the manufacturer, and it usually resolves when the manufacturer files its own recall report. NHTSA calls this an influenced recall, and it runs like any other recall: the same free remedy, the same owner letters.
• The file is closed. If the evidence does not show a safety defect, ODI closes the investigation and takes no further action unless new information turns up.

Between the two sits a firmer step. When a PE or EA turns up enough evidence of a safety defect and the manufacturer has not recalled, ODI may take its findings to a panel of agency experts, and NHTSA then sends the manufacturer a recall request letter.

Of the 713 closed investigations on this site, 351 (49%) list a recall among their outcomes.

If a manufacturer will not recall, the law gives NHTSA a formal route, set out in 49 U.S.C. 30118 and 49 CFR Part 554.

1. Initial decision.
   NHTSA makes an initial decision that the vehicle has a safety defect or does not comply with a federal safety standard, and notifies the manufacturer with the information the decision rests on. A notice is published in the Federal Register.
2. A chance to answer.
   The manufacturer can present information, views and arguments that there is no defect, or that it does not affect safety, and any interested person can do the same. Submissions, at a public meeting or in writing, are normally due about 30 days after the initial decision. A transcript is kept, and there is no cross-examination.
3. Final decision and order.
   If NHTSA decides a defect exists, it orders the manufacturer to notify owners, purchasers and dealers and to remedy the defect. If it closes the case instead, it notifies the manufacturer and publishes the closing in the Federal Register.

A manufacturer can challenge an order in federal district court, where the burden of proof lies with the agency, and the government can go to court to compel a manufacturer to recall. That route is the exception: most investigations never get near it.

Formal investigations are made public when they open. A search by year, make and model at nhtsa.gov/recalls returns a model’s investigations alongside its recalls, complaints and manufacturer communications, and an investigation’s documents can also be found by its number.

Read them in order: the opening resume, for what NHTSA is looking at and which vehicles; the information request letter, for the questions the manufacturer must answer; and, when it comes, the closing resume, for what NHTSA concluded and why. For a defect petition, watch the Federal Register: if NHTSA denies one, a notice giving the reasons is issued within 45 days of the denial.

Every investigation on file here has its own page, with NHTSA’s summary, whether it is still open, any recall it led to and the model years it names.

An investigation that ends in a recall produces a recall campaign, and free recall alerts tell you when one is filed against your model year.

Complaints are the evidence investigations are built on, and NHTSA says its staff review every call, letter and online report. File at nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem, or call the Vehicle Safety Hotline at 888-327-4236 (TTY 888-275-9171). What makes a report useful:

• The VIN. NHTSA asks owners to have it ready.
• A plain account of what happened: when, how fast the car was going and in what conditions, what warning lights or messages appeared, and whether it has happened more than once.
• Supporting documents: photos, repair orders, police and fire reports, and any correspondence with the manufacturer.
• Your contact details. They are optional, but NHTSA says a name and contact information greatly increase a complaint’s usefulness, because ODI can follow up.
• Permission to share it with the manufacturer. Also optional; NHTSA says it significantly increases ODI’s ability to investigate and act on the complaint.

You do not have to own the vehicle to report it. For child car seats, NHTSA prefers a call to the hotline, which captures more detail. Complaints are published in NHTSA’s public database with personal information removed, and although NHTSA cannot reply to every report, an investigator may contact you to clarify one.

• NHTSA — Risk-Based Processes for Safety Defect Analysis and Management of Recalls (DOT HS 812 984)
• NHTSA — Motor Vehicle Safety Defects and Recalls: What Every Vehicle Owner Should Know
• 49 U.S.C. 30118 — Notification of defects and noncompliance
• 49 CFR Part 554 — Standards enforcement and defects investigation
• 49 CFR Part 552, Subpart A — Petitions for defect and noncompliance orders
• 49 CFR 573.13 — Reimbursement for pre-notification remedies
• NHTSA — Search recalls, investigations and complaints