When owners first complain: the odometer, by nameplate

NHTSA asks for the mileage on every owner complaint. Across 39,448 readings on 2018–2022 model years, the typical problem is reported at 23,000 miles — and the nameplate at the top of this table gets there at 0.08× the mileage of vehicles its own age, the one at the bottom at 3.71×.

Readingscomplaints with a mileage, 2018–2022 39,448

Typical odometermedian at complaint 23,000 mi

Reported earlyunder 12,000 miles 35.7%

Nameplates ranked100+ readings each 78

How this was measured, and why the ranking is by age

Source: NHTSA ODI complaints

Every complaint filed with NHTSA carries the odometer reading the owner gave. For each model year from 2018 to 2022 we took every reading on every nameplate we cover, dropped zeros and readings over 500,000, and kept a nameplate-year only when it had at least 30.

The comparison is made inside each model year. A 2018 has had years more to accumulate miles than a 2022, so pooling them would rank nameplates by their model-year mix. Instead a nameplate-year’s median is divided by the fleet median of that same model year, and the nameplate’s figure is the readings-weighted mean of those ratios. 0.50 means owners report problems at half the mileage of vehicles the same age; 1.50 means half again as far.

Complaint counts are never used. They scale with sales and with how loud an owner base is; the odometer on the complaints that were filed does not scale the same way. What this measures is when problems get reported, which is the closest the public record comes to when they happen.

Model year	Readings	Median mi	Middle half
2018	16,603	27,800	9,000 – 60,951
2019	12,084	18,000	5,000 – 52,000
2020	6,266	14,000	3,350 – 56,000
2021	2,873	35,000	10,000 – 65,000
2022	1,622	28,998	10,000 – 50,613

The fleet, by model year: the age curve every nameplate is measured against.

Reported earliest, against their own age

The twenty nameplates whose owners filed complaints at the lowest mileage relative to vehicles of the same model year.

Nameplate	vs same age	Median mi	Middle half	Under 12,000	Readings
Volkswagen Golf / GTI 2018–2019	0.08×	750	300 – 3,300	87.5%	232
Tesla Model Y 2020–2022	0.28×	7,000	1,200 – 30,000	60.1%	218
Volkswagen Tiguan 2018–2019	0.29×	7,200	2,000 – 18,000	65.1%	195
Hyundai Palisade 2020–2021	0.3×	5,000	1,375 – 16,000	69.2%	208
Jeep Wrangler 2018–2022	0.31×	7,900	2,000 – 21,000	59.4%	1,770
Toyota RAV4 2018–2021	0.32×	6,000	1,000 – 25,000	63.9%	703
Jeep Gladiator Pickup 2020	0.35×	4,900	900 – 38,000	62.5%	184
Volkswagen Jetta 2019	0.36×	6,500	590 – 18,000	66.5%	251
Kia Telluride 2020–2021	0.42×	6,398	2,000 – 22,325	63.3%	221
Chevrolet Corvette 2018–2019	0.42×	9,300	4,900 – 15,683	62.5%	144
Toyota Tacoma 2018–2020	0.43×	8,000	2,975 – 19,500	60.9%	225
Subaru Forester 2018–2021	0.49×	8,900	3,350 – 19,500	59.9%	995
Tesla Model 3 2018–2022	0.5×	12,999	4,000 – 33,000	48.1%	514
Subaru Legacy 2018–2020	0.52×	8,500	3,500 – 24,950	56.2%	146
Subaru Outback 2018–2022	0.53×	10,000	4,300 – 23,000	54.2%	1,460
Tesla Model X 2018–2020	0.56×	11,000	4,000 – 26,000	52.1%	142
Chevrolet Colorado 2018–2019	0.56×	14,000	5,000 – 35,000	46.5%	127
Volkswagen Atlas 2018–2021	0.57×	14,365	4,500 – 31,000	44.8%	404
Acura RDX 2019–2020	0.57×	9,200	2,800 – 27,000	55.8%	208
Subaru Crosstrek 2018–2020	0.61×	12,000	4,500 – 24,000	48.8%	320

Reported latest, against their own age

The twenty nameplates whose owners got furthest before filing, relative to vehicles of the same model year.

Nameplate	vs same age	Median mi	Middle half	Under 12,000	Readings
Ford Fusion 2018–2020	3.71×	79,225	46,000 – 102,495	7.2%	445
Ford Expedition 2018–2021	3.34×	67,000	37,800 – 91,000	9.7%	453
Ford EcoSport 2018–2021	3.17×	65,000	47,444 – 80,000	4.6%	654
Ford Edge 2018–2022	3.06×	66,000	40,000 – 86,000	12.4%	685
Ford Escape 2018–2022	2.82×	60,000	29,859 – 89,000	13.1%	1,520
Ford Flex 2018–2019	2.62×	53,000	35,500 – 75,186	7.2%	138
Dodge Grand Caravan 2018–2019	2.27×	52,000	39,500 – 75,000	7.5%	161
GMC Yukon 2018–2022	2.15×	60,000	25,000 – 86,000	15.2%	244
Chevrolet Malibu 2018–2020	2.1×	49,000	24,000 – 70,000	11.9%	405
Ford Focus 2018	2.04×	56,664	37,000 – 80,000	9.2%	413
Ford F-150 2018–2022	1.95×	42,700	14,102 – 80,000	22.5%	2,077
Chevrolet Traverse 2018–2020	1.92×	36,986	14,700 – 65,000	22.2%	329
Acura MDX 2018–2020	1.89×	35,000	10,000 – 59,000	27.1%	129
Nissan Sentra 2018–2020	1.84×	38,000	11,000 – 58,972	25.5%	235
Ford Explorer 2018–2022	1.84×	40,438	10,500 – 74,000	26.0%	958
Ram 3500 2018–2020	1.72×	40,000	16,000 – 80,000	19.0%	279
Ford F-350 Super Duty 2018–2022	1.68×	26,000	13,000 – 55,000	22.8%	526
Ram 2500 2018–2022	1.63×	45,000	19,000 – 77,300	18.9%	667
Kia Soul 2018–2021	1.62×	33,000	8,960 – 80,000	29.9%	345
Kia Optima 2018–2019	1.58×	36,826	17,000 – 77,200	16.2%	130

The data behind this

Everything above, as files. No key, no form, no attribution beyond the line below — if it is useful, use it.

CSV — every ranked nameplate · JSON — with the age curve and method

How to cite

WhichTrim, “The odometer at first complaint: 2018–2022 model years, ranked against their own age”, 2026-10-02. https://whichtrim.com/studies/failure-mileage/

The underlying records are U.S. federal public-domain data from NHTSA. The joins, the filtering and the arithmetic are ours, and we would rather be credited than not — but the figures are checkable from the source either way, which is the point.

Questions about this study

Source: NHTSA ODI complaints

Does a low number mean the car is unreliable?

It means owners of that nameplate reported problems to NHTSA earlier in the car's life than owners of other vehicles the same age. That is a signal about when trouble starts, not a failure rate: complaints are voluntary, unverified and filed by a minority. Read it beside the recall record and the complaint components on the nameplate's own page, which every row links to.

Why rank by a ratio instead of the miles?

Because a 2018 has had four more years on the road than a 2022. Ranking by raw median would just reward nameplates whose complaints happen to come from older model years. The ratio compares each nameplate-year with the fleet of the same model year, then averages across the years it appears in.

Why these model years?

2018–2022 are old enough that owners have had time to drive them and young enough to be the used cars people are shopping for now. Newer model years have too few miles to compare; older ones thin out as complaints taper off.

Where does the mileage come from?

The odometer field on NHTSA's complaint form, as the owner entered it. We drop zeros and anything over 500,000 miles and use the rest as filed. Nothing is estimated or modelled.

Can I use these numbers?

Yes. The full table is on this page as CSV and JSON, the source is public-domain federal data, and every nameplate links to the page that holds its complaints, so you can check us against NHTSA. Credit WhichTrim and link back.