NHTSA owner complaints: what they tell you, what they don't, and how to file one

NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation keeps a file of the safety complaints it receives about vehicles, tires, car seats and equipment; the downloadable version covers complaints received since January 1, 1995. Each one is recorded as a Vehicle Owner’s Questionnaire, or VOQ, whether it arrived through the Report a Safety Problem form on nhtsa.gov, by phone through NHTSA’s Vehicle Safety Hotline, or in a letter that NHTSA converts into questionnaire form.

The people filing are owners and lessees, or someone filing on their behalf. By NHTSA’s own count it received an average of 58,350 complaints a year from 2018 through 2020. The file also records how each complaint arrived: the website, the hotline, the mobile app, a letter, a portable PDF form, and several other channels, including insurance companies, consumer groups and congressional offices.

Field meanings from NHTSA’s published layout for its complaints file.

The vehicles on this site carry 319,236 complaints between them. Each vehicle page shows its own.

NHTSA describes what complaints contain as consumers’ allegations of a safety defect. Its technical staff review every one, and an investigator may call a filer to clarify or verify details, but the agency says the volume it receives does not allow a return call on each report. A published complaint is the filer’s account; unless NHTSA followed it up, nothing in the public record confirms it.

That does not make complaints worthless. They feed NHTSA’s screening, which, as NHTSA describes it, is a preliminary review of consumer complaints and other information to decide whether to open an investigation. The other information includes data manufacturers submit, anonymous tips, letters and social media content. Staff look for a trend rather than isolated reports, weighing the number of complaints and the severity of the outcomes against how many vehicles were built and how many years they have been on the road. NHTSA also analyzes complaints to monitor existing recalls, checking that each covers the right vehicles and is adequate.

A raw count is the most quoted number in the database and the least informative on its own. NHTSA’s own defects office has cautioned that complaint volume taken at face value is not necessarily an indicator of a safety issue. Four things move a count without any change in how often a part fails:

• Sales. A model that sells 300,000 a year collects more complaints than one that sells 30,000, even if each car is equally sound. NHTSA’s staff measure complaint counts against the number of vehicles built.
• Time on the road. An older model year has had longer to collect complaints. Compare vehicles of the same age, and look at when complaints were filed as well as which model year they name.
• Attention. Filing is voluntary. A problem that is in the news, or that a recall letter has just described, is more likely to be reported than one owners live with quietly, so a jump in filings can reflect attention as much as failures.
• Duplicates and overlaps. A complaint that names several components appears once per component in NHTSA’s file, and the same person can file more than once. Complaints received before December 15, 2002 can also share one number across several products owned by the same person.

The component named deserves the same care. It is usually picked by the person filing, so it tells you which system the owner believed was involved, not what a technician found; NHTSA’s own presentation on the database put it plainly as “component code ≠ condition.” Read the descriptions to see what actually happened.

The components named most often in complaints about the vehicles on this site. A complaint counts once for every component entry it lists, so these figures overlap and add up to more than the number of complaints.

The questionnaire asks for the vehicle’s mileage at the time of the failure. Gathered across many complaints, it shows when owners report problems, which is a useful question when you are buying used. It does not show how often a part fails, and it is the filer’s own figure.

Across the 100,647 complaints on this site that record a mileage, the median reading is 32,000 miles, and 28% put the failure at under 12,000 miles.

Any mileage figure pooled across complaints depends on the ages of the cars behind it: a model year that has just gone on sale can only produce low-mileage complaints. Compare mileage between vehicles of the same age. Complaint mileage by nameplate, same-age vehicles compared → Complaint mileage by component →

The crash and fire fields are yes-or-no answers to whether the vehicle was involved in a crash or a fire; the injured and deaths fields are the number of people the filer reports. They carry weight in NHTSA’s review, because severity counts, and like the rest of the complaint they are the filer’s own report.

Of the complaints on file for this site’s vehicles, 14,021 say the vehicle was involved in a crash and 3,669 say it was involved in a fire. Between them, the forms report 11,874 people injured and 476 deaths. Read those totals as reports, not as a count of crashes a defect caused.

NHTSA takes complaints from anyone who has had a vehicle, tire, car seat or equipment problem that could be a safety defect. By its own estimate a questionnaire takes about 10 minutes.

1. Make sure it is a safety problem.
   NHTSA’s defect authority covers safety. Its own examples of problems it does not treat as safety-related include air conditioners and radios that don’t work, ordinary wear on parts that are replaced periodically such as brake pads, batteries and shock absorbers, cosmetic flaws and excessive oil consumption. Off-road vehicles such as ATVs and side-by-sides go to the Consumer Product Safety Commission instead.
2. Have the VIN and the facts to hand.
   The questionnaire asks for the 17-character VIN (the VIN guide shows where to find it), the part affected, the date of the incident, the speed, the mileage, whether there was a crash, a fire, an injury or a death, and your contact details.
3. Tell it in order, in plain words.
   Describe what the vehicle did, what you were doing, the road and weather, any warning lights or messages, and whether it has happened before. If a dealer or shop has looked at it, say what they found and include the repair order number, any trouble codes and any service bulletin they cited. A description an engineer can picture is worth more than a strongly worded one.
4. Attach what you have.
   Complaints can carry supporting documents such as photos, videos, repair invoices and police reports. If NHTSA needs more it may contact you for receipts or photos, though not every filer is contacted.
5. Decide whether the manufacturer may see your details.
   The form asks whether NHTSA may share your complaint, including your VIN and identifying information, with the manufacturer. If you opt out, NHTSA says it will not share your personal information with the manufacturer unless it opens a defect investigation or a recall is started. Sharing lets the manufacturer find the exact vehicle, which NHTSA says can help the recall process.
6. File online or by phone.
   Use the Report a Safety Problem page at nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem, or call NHTSA’s Vehicle Safety Hotline at 888-327-4236. For complaints about several vehicles at once, NHTSA asks you to call the hotline.

A complaint is evidence, not a repair request: it does not open a claim or get a car fixed. Free repairs come from recalls and warranties, which the guide to recalls, bulletins and investigations explains.

NHTSA says it publishes complaints without personally identifiable information: the name, street address, email address and phone number the questionnaire asks for are kept out of the public record. Four things are worth knowing before you file.

• The description is published as written. NHTSA tells filers that the narrative will be made public without edits, so anything typed there, including a name, phone number or email address, goes out with it. Keep personal details in the contact fields.
• The VIN is cut to 11 characters. The first 11 identify the make, model, model year, body style, engine and production plant; the last six are the vehicle’s own sequence number. NHTSA publishes only the first 11 because, without the last six, the VIN cannot be linked to a person.
• Location stays at city and state. NHTSA’s downloadable complaints file includes the city and state given with each complaint.
• Other agencies can see it in set cases. NHTSA may pass a complaint to the National Transportation Safety Board, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Federal Trade Commission or the Department of Homeland Security for matters within their remit.

• NHTSA — Report a Safety Problem
• NHTSA — Resources Related to Investigations and Recalls (complaint FAQs)
• NHTSA — Motor Vehicle Safety Defects and Recalls: What Every Vehicle Owner Should Know (DOT HS 808 795, rev. September 2024)
• NHTSA — Complaints data file: field definitions and change log (CMPL.txt)
• NHTSA — Datasets and APIs: Complaints
• DOT/NHTSA 415, Vehicle Owner Questionnaire (VOQ) System — Privacy Act notice, 84 FR 17234 (April 24, 2019)
• NHTSA — Consumer Complaint Information, information collection notice, 87 FR 20504 (April 7, 2022)
• NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation — NHTSA's Consumer Complaint Database (2011 presentation)