Consumer Safety Complaints
Search 2,245,377 safety complaints filed by vehicle owners with NHTSA, including 140,173 crashes, 56,794 fires, and 8,580 deaths.
What is a NHTSA consumer complaint?
A consumer complaint is a free-form report filed by a vehicle owner directly to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) describing a safety concern about their vehicle. NHTSA collects these reports through its Vehicle Owner Defect Report (VOQ) system and publishes them publicly. Each complaint includes the affected component, the date and circumstances of the incident, whether the failure caused a crash or fire, and any reported injuries or deaths. The owner's full narrative description is included verbatim, NHTSA does not edit or moderate the descriptions.
The database below contains over 2,245,377 individual complaints. NHTSA's investigators monitor it for clusters of similar reports, when enough owners describe the same failure mode on the same vehicle, NHTSA may open a Preliminary Evaluation that can lead to a recall. Many of the largest recalls in U.S. history, including the Takata airbag recall and the Hyundai/Kia engine fire recalls, started as patterns visible in this complaint database years before they became formal recalls.
How to interpret what you read
A few principles for reading consumer complaints usefully:
- One complaint is anecdote; a hundred similar complaints is data. NHTSA does not investigate the truthfulness of any individual report, that's the job of the Office of Defects Investigation, which looks at the full pattern. When evaluating a vehicle, look for whether multiple owners describe the same chain of events.
- Crash, fire, injury, and death flags are owner-set. They are not verified by NHTSA. They are still useful as a filter, because owners who tick those boxes are typically reporting more serious incidents than those who don't.
- Component categories are NHTSA-assigned, not owner-assigned. NHTSA standardizes the component field so that complaints can be aggregated. The owner narrative often goes into more detail than the component category captures.
- Complaint volume scales with sales volume. A best-selling model will accumulate more raw complaints than a niche model even at the same defect rate. To compare across vehicles, look at complaints per 100,000 units sold, not raw counts.
If you've experienced a defect
File a complaint. NHTSA's investigators rely on this database to detect emerging defects, and useful complaints, specific, concrete, with dates and mileage and clear descriptions of what happened, feed directly into the agency's pattern detection. The form takes about 10 minutes and is at nhtsa.gov/recalls under "Report a Safety Problem." Your complaint becomes part of the same public record that this page is built from. Owners filing detailed VOQs are how recalls get triggered.
Read more from our blog
Showing 117,775 complaints - component: UNKNOWN OR OTHER
Incident date: Jun 18, 2026
I was involved a car accident with two other co-workers (USDA-NRCS) on the job in our government issued F-150 by Ford. As were sitting still waiting to make a left turn, we were rear-ended by a 1990 Dodge van on 5/31/2023. During the impact my headrest deployed which led to me having three surgeries( ACDF procedure on C3-C5, right shoulder surgery, deviated septum) surgery and having to put in my ... Read more
Crash
2 injured
Incident date: May 31, 2023
WHILE DRIVING BETWEEN 50 AND 60 MPH, THE CAR SEEMS TO BE SWAYING LEFT AND RIGHT
Incident date: Jun 18, 2026
Backup camera became inoperable after a car wash and water leaked into the electrical components. This is already a current issue and many models have been recalled, but my year, 2019 has not been included. I can no longer view anything while backing up the video and the dash continues to flash Camera System Default. Please consider adding 2019 Evoques to the existing recall.
Incident date: Jun 23, 2026
Front windshield cracked driving in the rain. A very small pin size nick was at the top of windshield 1" away from the edge. Crack was instant in length of 13" plus. Vehicle was less then 1 week old.
Incident date: Apr 1, 2025
Rear window shattered while car was sitting in our driveway. Neighbor outside said there was a loud sharp bang but no people or cars around. Moderate morning temperatures.
Incident date: Jun 25, 2026
I am reporting a safety defect involving the infotainment touchscreen in my 2018 Subaru Outback (VIN [XXX]). The touchscreen has developed visible internal delamination, with lines and bubbling appearing beneath the surface of the display. As the delamination worsened, the screen began registering false touch inputs (“ghost touches”) without any physical contact. While driving, the infotainme... Read more
Incident date: Jun 12, 2026
My engine light came on about 6 months ago because I was smelling a gas. I had it run on a code computer and it just showed a gasket needed changed. I didn't think that that was serious enough to address urgently because was unsure how much the cost would be. But was going over a big mountain about a week ago and car was on cruise control at 55 Mpr and all of a sudden it just started dropping down... Read more
Incident date: May 12, 2026
Recall 26S28 As I put my hand in the center console and took it out it was cut by the trimming. I than had to stop as I felt and noticed blood was dripping off my hand. The following day I seen the recall not ice in the mail and that there is no repair available yet.
1 injured
Incident date: Jun 23, 2026
My passenger rear panel window just cracked out of nowhere. Nothing hit it, it just completely shattered.
Incident date: May 12, 2026
While driving on the highway on three separate occasions the blind spot warning will pop up and show as inoperative, next the active break assist warning flashes as inoperative, and then the entire vehicle shows as inoperative and loses all acceleration and breaks down. This has happened three times. Stayed over night at the dealership they “drove it for 70 miles” it didn’t happen to them. T... Read more
MERCEDES-BENZ
GLE 350
(2021) - UNKNOWN OR OTHER
Jun 25, 2026
Incident date: Jun 20, 2026
I am reporting a serious public safety concern involving Walmart Auto Care Center in Waterford, CT, after tire installation on my 2023 Dodge Challenger. Walmart installed four new Michelin tires on 05/12/2026 after Walmart.com order #[XXX]. On [XXX], a missing front passenger-side locking lug nut was discovered. I photographed the missing lug nut area and reported the issue to Walmart. When I ret... Read more
DODGE
CHALLENGER
(2023) - UNKNOWN OR OTHER
Jun 25, 2026
Incident date: May 12, 2026
Radiator cooling fan completely stopped working in 2023 and caused my car to overheat. Also caused all coolant to evaporate from the heat. Can not use AC at all without car overheating.
Incident date: May 4, 2026
The motorcycle unexpectedly shut off while accelerating into an intersection. It appears to be caused by a faulty ignition lock that turns the motorcycle off due to vibration while driving, recorded on video
Incident date: Jun 6, 2026
Loud static noise from radio. It was so loud it gave us a splitting headache.
Incident date: Mar 18, 2026
My vehicle is a hybrid and repeatedly gets high voltage battery warnings when the electric battery shows zero miles when idling. Four times it has shown pull over safely messages and high voltage battery warnings and then it is only in auxiliary mode. By the time a tow truck comes it is able to start again and Ford has been unable to find the issue after 4 visits
FORD
MUSTANG MACH E
(2023) - UNKNOWN OR OTHER
Jun 25, 2026
Incident date: May 15, 2026
While our 2013 Honda CR‑V was still drivable, we began experiencing a brief but loud rattle or grinding noise at cold start, especially after the vehicle had been sitting. Several years ago the dealer replaced the Variable Timing Control (VTC) actuator because of this cold‑start rattle. After a period without noise, the cold‑start rattle returned and became frequent, along with concerns abou... Read more
Incident date: Jun 24, 2026
Rear camera is not functioning. It does not pop up on the screen and says camera system fault, contact dealership.
Incident date: May 8, 2026
My 2020 Kia Telluride that has Snow White Pearl paint that is coming off in chunks. There are lots of records of 2017-2023 Kia's that have the Snow White Paint peeling off. The paint is coming off the roof and hood area. The exposed metal can quickly develop penetrating rust. This weakens the metal's ability to withstand impacts increasing the risk of failure during a crash. Also the flaking clear... Read more
Incident date: Jan 1, 2025
This car does not have reliable horn system. I have the steering wheel version (not the “yoke” version) but I believe it’s a similar problem on both. The steering wheel center (airbag) does NOT operate as a horn. Instead there is only a extremely small horn sensor on one side of the wheel that cannot be reliably accessed in an emergency situation b/c of its tiny size and b/c its position d... Read more
Incident date: Jun 23, 2026
On June 23, 2026, while operating my 2021 Genesis GV80, the vehicle's entire infotainment and system software rebooted without warning as I was leaving a parking lot. As a direct result of this reboot, the driver seat automatically moved out of my saved position. I was no longer able to reach the pedals and could not properly control the vehicle. This incident occurred while the vehicle was in mot... Read more
Incident date: Jun 23, 2026
Panoramic sunroof suddenly broke on my Mercedes GLE53 coupe while on a major highway. There was nothing near my vehicle when this happened. My children were in a car and this was a very scary moment for us. Mercedes will not cover the costs of Replacing the glass, forcing me to make a claim with my insurance. This is the first claim I’ve had to make in years. This is unfortunate.
Incident date: Jun 24, 2026
Unknown why car sparked & ignited. Car was driven to grocery store 5min away then sat for approx. 2hrs before catching fire.
Fire
Incident date: Jun 24, 2026
Open recall on this vehicle [XXX] since 10/9/25. This issue has taken an unreasonable amount of time to fix This vehicle transmission issue make it unsafe to drive. Loaner vehicle has not been made available INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)
Incident date: Jun 17, 2025
The car gave a "Emissions System Problem" warning while on a roadtrip on June 4, 2026. The code was P219F. Subsequently (a week or so later), every warning on the car came up for every system (too many to list here). My mechanic has gone through the Honda protocol for this code (checking spark plugs, compression tests, etc) and is now at the point of replacing all of the fuel injectors. The ca... Read more
Incident date: May 20, 2026
- Component/ System: (UNKNOWN). Possible Powertrain / Transmission . - YES available for inspection. - My Safety @RISK: mine and my child (passenger) - Problem Confirmed : YES at local mechanic shop and FORD dealer service shop. - Has the vehicle been inspected : YES - Any Warning Lights or Messages prior to Failure: Check Engine (appeared at time of incident) and “Engine Fault: Serv... Read more
Incident date: Jun 2, 2026
Spontaneously shattered sunroof. I was driving on the freeway going 50mph and I heard an extremely loud 'bang' and then glass was falling down on me and my passenger. The sunroof had completely shattered with no explanation or prior indication of cracks, etc. No extreme temperatures fluxes - this was in San Francisco on June 23, 2026. I know there are over 50,000 reports of this exact same thing... Read more
Incident date: May 28, 2026
Just recently I noticed that the leather on my dashboard has started to become unglued. My concern is 1) this is a defect that is common to not only C6 corvette modes (mine) but to C7 (google it on the internet) and some C8 models (information from Service Manager at Tasca Corvette in Wheeling, Illinois when he inspected my vehicle yesterday), 2) since there is an airbag in this location what af... Read more
CHEVROLET
TRAILBLAZER
(2022) - UNKNOWN OR OTHER
Jun 24, 2026
Incident date: Jun 4, 2026
I have not even 1000 miles on my new Tonale and my infotainment shuts down due to excessive heat. Service was authorized to install a new one and the same thing is happening. No back up camera, navigation or infotainment screen . It says too hot and shuts down. I am in Miami and I have virtually no system as it is not functioning. It's burning to the touch. I am offered no assistance and am to... Read more
Incident date: Jun 1, 2026
The electrical system failed and battery then exploded. The vehicle is behind held at a tow yard and has been inspected by allied insurance CPI of tower federal credit union. It is available to be inspected for the time being but will be scrapped soon. Both my safety and the safety of others was at risk- this occurred in a Wendy’s drive through near other vehicles, a building and of course peopl... Read more
Fire
Incident date: Jun 23, 2026
Air conditioner turns off when bulkhead door (inside vehicle) senses it is closed. I have 30 Rivian vehicles that this update has happened to and I have multiple driver's a day that are being affected by heat related issue with this new update.
10 injured
Incident date: Oct 29, 2025
Randomly but frequently, my car would turn off when coming to a stop and with the auto shut off - but the full car would turn off and to move, I would need to press the ignition to turn back on and drive. This even occurred while accelerating onto a highway. I took this to the shop and after 6 months of back and forth and paying for fuel injectors they 'repaired' it. Now, my car felt heavy with t... Read more
Incident date: Apr 24, 2026
The vision panel, located between the windshield and the moonroof, exploded and shattered into a ton of pieces. There are a multitude of fractures throughout the panel and the edges of the panel are falling apart, exposing the wiring underneath.
Incident date: Jan 1, 2020
The center console metal trim has peeled and left a razer sharp edge. I cut my finger really bad. Had to keep it bandaged over a week. I cannot seem to remove the sharp edges. I had to put a piece of duck tape over it to prevent getting cut again. It looks terrible. I have been driving around with the duck tape over the center console for 9 months. Please let me know when there is a repair availab... Read more
1 injured
Incident date: Jun 21, 2026
The rear occupant seat sensor after an update even if there is nothing on the back or on the seat it continues to activate the horn and advising we received a rear occupant alarm. I even deactivate the option and still goes off constantly. I have to leave the car unlocked to avoid the alarm going off.
Incident date: Jun 24, 2026
VIN # [XXX] Ford Customer Service Current Case Number: [XXX] Integrated Trailer Module Failure after recall completion. NHTSA Campaign ID Recall # 26C10 was completed at Coconut Point Ford in Florida on 3/26/2026. This recall identified that when towing a trailer, the integrated Trailer Module may lose communication with the trailer possibly causing a loss of brake and turn signal lights or a lo... Read more
Incident date: Jun 1, 2026
Lateral arms needed replaced at 60,000 miles causing shaking, accelerated wear on tires, increasing misalignment.
Incident date: Jun 24, 2026
Rear sunroof window exploded out while driving. Truck had just under 9000 total miles on it when this happened. Driving on I25 east of Casper Wyoming in very high cross winds. No other vehicle was within a quarter of a mile when the roof exploded with a VERY loud bang!
Incident date: May 27, 2024
In April 2026 the recall on this truck was done to correct a fault for the Trailer Disconnect. I hooked up my travel trailer for the 1st time here in June and the false warning still came on 5 times during my trip. The software update that was done is not solving the problem. Warning light comes on, says trailer disconnected while the trailer is still connected and all connections are plugged in.
Incident date: May 23, 2026
The shifter grip has a plastic or Chrome pice that is delaminating and a extremely sharp edge is parroting up and has sliced open my Wife’s finger more than 5 times we have a bandaid over it know the dealership states it is a known issue But VW will not take responsibility for it
1 injured
VOLKSWAGEN
GOLF SPORTWAGEN
(2015) - UNKNOWN OR OTHER
Jun 24, 2026
Incident date: Dec 1, 2025
Vehicle was operating under Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) on [XXX], on [XXX]. While FSD was engaged, the vehicle struck a large object/debris that was present in the travel lane. The system did not appear to detect or avoid the obstacle. The impact caused severe damage to two wheels and two tires, and the vehicle required towing. Tesla Service later confirmed that the damage was caused by... Read more
Incident date: Jun 23, 2026
The 2017 to 2022 Honda CR-V are lemons in my opinion. I bought the car new in 2018 and it has 79,000 miles on it. I recently had to have my head gasket replaced at a cost of $4,000. This seems to be a big problem with these years. I am in two different Honda CR-V blogs and a lot of people are having this same problem. I am [XXX] and I was hoping this would be my last car to buy. I like the car but... Read more
Incident date: Jun 23, 2026
Regarding Safety Recall Notice 25S53 / NHTSA Recall 25V347, I received the recall literature June 2025. This past week, a trim piece in this recall came off the vehicle while in motion. This is a safety hazard and can cause accidents. Upon reaching out to Ford, NO remedy is available and might have something (might) November 2026. That is too long to wait for other pieces to fall off and poss... Read more
Incident date: Aug 26, 2025
While in traffic, the van goes into idle and then will not restart. This has happened to us at least 5 times. The frequency has increased and now occurs at least once a week. We are very much worried about how unsafe this is because we could be hit from any direction while in active traffic. We noticed NHTSA investigation (ID# PE25-03) is already underway and feel that the issues apply to our situ... Read more
Incident date: Apr 1, 2026
In January I experienced a “backlite leak” that allowed water to enter the cab of my vehicle. As a direct result of this water intrusion, my RFH (Radio Frequency Hub) module failed due to electrical shorting caused by moisture exposure. This failure was sudden and completely outside of my control and was not the result of misuse, neglect, or normal wear and tear. Not to mention the risk it put... Read more
Incident date: Jan 18, 2026
The digital instrument cluster and center infotainment display screen went completely black and blank while the vehicle was in motion. This immediate failure blinded the driver to critical safety telemetry, including the current vehicle speed, gear positioning, and active safety warning telltales, creating an immediate, severe crash hazard on the roadway.This symptom is identical to the failure co... Read more
Incident date: Jun 18, 2026
This is in regards to Recall 25SA9. Ford has had ample time to come up with a solution, and it has been almost nine months since the recall was announced. The backup camera on my 2015 Ford Police Interceptor Sedan gets very grainy at night when backing into my driveway, causing an extremely dangerous situation when backing into my driveway, as it is very hard to see the image of the driveway with ... Read more
Incident date: May 30, 2026
My vehicle should've been included in a recall. While exiting my garage to pick up my son from school, a loud mechanical banging noise came from the front of my car. I abruptly stopped and proceeded to reverse back into my garage to inspect my vehicle. While inspecting my vehicle and the surrounding area, I discovered a large bolt on the ground. A quick image search says "on a Tesla Model 3, t... Read more
Incident date: Jan 2, 2026
Traveling on highway with no other cars anywhere around. Going 80 mph on an 80 degree day when sun roof on 2025 Toyota 4 runner exploded. Sun roof was closed at the time, but could have had devastating consequences if it had been open. Toyota rep did not take a look at the broken glass to check for imperfections or manufacturing issues, just told us we needed to make an insurance claim.