Consumer Safety Complaints
Search 2,215,138 safety complaints filed by vehicle owners with NHTSA — including 138,663 crashes, 56,255 fires, and 8,561 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 2,215,138 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 72,878 complaints — component: VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
VOLKSWAGEN
TIGUAN
(2018) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
May 28, 2022
Incident date: May 28, 2022
Car has multiple malfunctions. Has had noisy valvetrain, lack of power upon acceleration, has sputtered with a load on engine especially uphill. Car shut off completely while at 60 mph and nearly caused a catastrophic collision with my whole family in the car. Car presents substantial safety risk. Multiple codes/warnings have flashed up on the display screen(Evap,Trans,fuel inj,etc). Transmission ... Read more
HYUNDAI
IONIQ HYBRID
(2022) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
May 27, 2022
Incident date: May 6, 2022
Driving on highway at 68 mph. Set cruise control and it raced speed up to 110 mph on its own. Cancelled cruise and tried to set at similar speed approximate 5 times with same result. Restarted car and gripe has not repeated in over 2,000 miles. Dangerous condition that should not be possible. Appears to be computer/software issue as no physical obstructions were present on cruise controls. I have ... Read more
Incident date: Jun 10, 2021
The contact owns a 2012 Ford Fusion. The contact stated while driving at an undisclosed speed, the vehicle jerked and was slow to accelerate. The air bag warning light was illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer where it was diagnosed that the throttle body needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and referred the contact to N... Read more
Incident date: May 27, 2022
My vehicle has a problem with torque converter shudder that has gotten worse over time. At first it was shuddering and now vehicle bulks and momentarily slows down at the speed of 20mph thus creating an unsafe situation. Toyota has a Torque Converter Shudder Warranty Enhancement Program (ZH1) for vehicles of my age and mileage, but my specific VIN number does not fall under this warranty enhanceme... Read more
Incident date: May 25, 2022
On Sunday I was getting on the expressway and my car accelerated on its own. I hit the brake and the car was ok. That was May 22, 2020, On Wednesday, May.25,2020 I was pulling into a parking spot at Kroger Store and my car accelerated on its own and I hit a pole. Over $4000.00 damaged to my car but I was not hurt. I took my car to the dealer and they checked it and said nothing was wrong. I am afr... Read more
Crash
Incident date: May 24, 2022
The wiring harness was touching the air condenser line. The line gets hot when air conditioning is used. It melted causing my truck to throw a lot of random alarms. It also would turn my cruise off and make it down shift all of a sudden startling me. Melted wires are also a fire hazard. There is a bulletin for wire harness chafing that GMC knows about this issue. If it had melted something major a... Read more
Incident date: May 20, 2022
The contact owns a 2019 Cadillac SRX. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, another vehicle cut her off. The contact slammed on the brake pedal however, the vehicle inadvertently accelerated. There were no warning lights illuminated. The contact regained control of the vehicle and turned off and restarted the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer but was not d... Read more
Incident date: Apr 15, 2022
The vehicle speed accelerates on its own when trying to come to a complete stop which almost caused me to rear end another car at a traffics light, the powertrain is completely off and creates an unsafe riding experience which impacts the steering and control of the vehicle, stalls randomly. There is rough shifting with the transmission, which jerks the car periodically. When driving at a speed ab... Read more
FORD
MUSTANG MACH E
(2021) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
May 26, 2022
Incident date: Mar 20, 2022
On approximately March 20, 2022, I was driving my Mach E vehicle. I pulled into a driveway and parked my vehicle. Upon exiting my vehicle, my vehicle began accelerating forward up the inclined driveway. It then struck a parked vehicle and came to a stop. The car accelerated uninetentionally which is in alignment with the current recall. Additionally, the advanced emergency braking did not work as... Read more
Crash
Incident date: May 26, 2022
Today I encountered a problem with my vehicle that not only put myself at risk but my children. This problem came out of no where since I have not had any problems with my vehicle before today. When going to leave I turned my car on to have it stall and die. I had someone come out and look at it and got it to work by pushing down on the gas pedals. Said nothing looked wrong since there were no che... Read more
Incident date: May 24, 2022
There is a small plastic cam on the throttle body that gets pulled by the throttle cable to control the butterfly valve. They break easily and cause a loss of power and engine control. I have seen many others posting on line with same issue
HYUNDAI
IONIQ HYBRID
(2021) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
May 25, 2022
Incident date: Apr 19, 2022
Two different scenarios with this cruise control are problems with this vehicle. When it is raining the system with the cruise control does not work and the shop told me it happens with other vehicles. A warning light appears when this happens. This last time it was not raining and the cruise control quit working and the warning light came on as well as another system warning light. I showed the p... Read more
Incident date: May 10, 2022
I own a 2014 Hyundai Elantra. When the accelerator pedal is engaged, the vehicle hesitates and only accelerates to about 20 mph. The vehicle also stalls while at a complete stop and while driving. The vehicle was taken to an independent mechanic to be diagnosed multiple times, but a failure code could not be found. The mechanic cleaned all the sensors; however, the failure was not corrected. T... Read more
Incident date: May 21, 2022
The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while driving at 40-60 MPH and making a turn using the self-driving mode, the brake pedal was depressed. However, the vehicle accelerated inadvertently at a higher speed. The contact depressed the brake pedal several times but the vehicle failed to respond. There was no warning light illuminated. The vehicle crashed into the front passenger... Read more
Crash
3 injured
Incident date: May 21, 2022
All lights came on and vehicle immediately slowed down, brakes became hard and it eventually just stalled out. Would not restart. Towed to repair shop . Mechanic found that the oil was full but no oil to engine. Found that the oil pump belt had malfunctioned and tore up leaving debris in the oil pan. Vehicle has approx 66,000 miles on it and manual says this piece if equipment should last until 15... Read more
Incident date: May 17, 2022
Downshifting while I was driving happened without warning. Besides the gear switch, I noticed problems with the speedometer, erratic gear shifting, and the transmission stuck in one gear. I could have caused a major accident by the vehicle as I was at moderately high speed in motion when the vehicle began to fail. I did also bang my head on the steering wheel when the truck began to decelerate on ... Read more
1 injured
JEEP
GRAND CHEROKEE
(2016) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
May 24, 2022
Incident date: May 1, 2022
electronic stability controls along with traction and FCW AFFECTING TRANSFER CASE WITH STEERING
Incident date: May 24, 2022
3x in the last 6months my Passport has failed to start after the auto stop at idle has engaged. The dealership said the battery is fine and one technician just said “disable the feature “. Today when adaptive cruise control was engaged, the car increased in speed from the set 72 to over 80mph. I also emailed Honda corp and their response was to see a dealer and did not acknowledge if the auto ... Read more
Incident date: Mar 21, 2022
I own a Nissan Altima 2014 SV 4 cylinder. While driving the car stops moving and it just relies on momentum, the gas pedal stops functioning. This has happened to me multiple times I then have to turn off the car and turn it back on so it can work and it does the same thing again. I stepped on the gas pedal all the way to the floor and it doesn't respond. I started doing research and I ran into th... Read more
Incident date: May 24, 2022
Touchscreen repeatedly freezes. Won’t show gear selection, speed, or any other items. The touchscreen freezes then takes some time to crash to black screen before reboot. Has happened daily since Tesla update. Tesla refuses to provide a fix and continues to tell us to wait for an update. This is unsafe.
AUDI
Q5 SPORTBACK
(2022) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
May 23, 2022
Incident date: May 14, 2022
We were driving home on the interstate when suddenly we got an “Electrical system malfunction. Safely stop vehicle!” notification. We pulled over to the shoulder and were able to restart the vehicle but the check engine light was on. We were able to get to the nearest exit when the error appeared again. This time as I was pulling over, the screen went blank and I completely lost power to the v... Read more
Incident date: May 15, 2022
I pulled into Regions bank parking lot to use ATM machine and before I could even park my car accelerated for no reason. I had my foot on the brake but it just made it go faster. I crashed into the building and airbag deployed. This was the scariest driving experience I’ve ever had. The car is totaled and caused serious damage to bank. I escaped by the grace of God with sprained wrist and elbow ... Read more
Crash
1 injured
Incident date: May 22, 2022
Vehicle shifts from a high gear to a low gear. While driving 60 miles an hour on the expressway my F150 went from six gear to first gear with no warning locking my rear wheels causing my speed to drastically or abruptly be lower almost causing several other vehicles to crash into the back of my pick up. Vehicle stays on gear sometimes first third or fifth gear with no warning switching back-and-fo... Read more
Incident date: May 22, 2022
The vehicle while in adaptive cruise control or autopilot will brake hard at high speeds on wide open highway. It has always done this from day one but while on a Kansas open highway it almost caused a major accident 3 times in a short period of time. After the third incident I discontinued any driver assistance. The speed limit was 75mph, the autopilot was set at 75mph, in under 2 seconds we w... Read more
Incident date: Apr 25, 2022
See attached report
1 injured
Incident date: May 21, 2022
While driving my vehicle is slowing down losing power it doesn't want to stay started while at a light Will hesitate to stay started and will just cut off. And hesitate to restart this is not the first time that this has happened ethier.
Incident date: May 22, 2022
Numerous accumulated problems, all have complaints already on NHTSA site here. First, Start/Stop malfunction, when it is active when stopped vehicle will stall when it tries to restart when you take your foot off brake and it’s troublesome to restart at times, when that happens lights on dash all come on (warning lights) and radio/entertainment resets as well. Second, the traction control light ... Read more
Incident date: May 22, 2022
Driving 25 to 30mph, car completely died and the D on the gear shift started blinking. Unable to get to side of road due to traffic. My husband and I were at risk of being rear ended as the car died without any warning. There was also a large CLUNK sound when it died.
Incident date: May 22, 2022
I have not gotten into an accident. I have noticed for a long time my van transmission seems to have problems shifting. I will be starting to accelerate, and when i reCh speeds between 25-55 it often feels like I have no power (more often with time) I can hear the van "revving" bur not increasing speed at the rate it should be. Then all of a sudden the transmission feels like it "catches" and it ... Read more
NISSAN
VERSA NOTE
(2015) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
May 20, 2022
Incident date: Jan 1, 2022
Las revoluciones no se quedan estable cuando estoy manejando, el vehículo empieza a dar jalones y podría ser la transmisión.
Incident date: May 11, 2022
11 May 2022: Turned right into four lane traffic and accelerated. Truck refused to shift out of first gear. I had to make the first turn I could to get out of traffic. Turned truck off and re-started engine. Problem was resolved. Wednesday 18 May: Driving west on Hwy 7 at about 65 MPH. Truck lurched slightly and all speed/distance indicators on dash went blank. A single wrench was display... Read more
Incident date: May 11, 2022
The contact owned a 2017 Honda HR-V. The contact stated that after starting the vehicle and switching to the reverse position while very slowly releasing the brake pedal the vehicle suddenly experienced unintended acceleration causing the vehicle to drive in reverse and crash into a tree. During the incident, the vehicle was destroyed. No injuries were reported and no police report was taken. The ... Read more
Crash
Incident date: Apr 21, 2022
I brought my truck into Miller Toyota of Anaheim due to a violent shuddering and acceleration at about 40 to 50 mph. This could have caused driver to lose control and injure themselves, passengers, and other drivers on the road. Dealership diagnosed the problem as a bad torque converter in the transmission and said it would cost about $3200.00 to repair. Couldn't afford that so I took vehicle to a... Read more
Incident date: May 16, 2022
On or about 4:30 pm Monday, May 16th there were two instances of unintended braking. Then at approximately 10:30am on 19 May another 6 instances of unintentional braking occurred. I believe this is a serious safety risk and Tesla should be required to correct.
Incident date: May 17, 2022
For the last few days my car has been hesitant to accelerate. At low speed acceleration it jerks a few times then the rpms go way high and is slow to shift & accelerate. It is automatic. This problem has been gradually increasing over past 2 years. I did take it to a dealership when the hood latch was replaced due to recall this year and they just suggested I drain/replace the transmission fluid i... Read more
Incident date: May 15, 2022
I was driving vehicle to work. Going approximately 70 mph, the truck suddenly lost the ability to accelerate and starts running very rough, like it lost a cylinder. Then the collision warning comes on the dash and advanced trac icon and then the manual icon with the wrench that says check manual. I coast down the hill from the far left lane to the slow lane and take the first exit off the freeway ... Read more
NISSAN
PATHFINDER
(2022) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
May 19, 2022
Incident date: May 19, 2022
While on the highway, I accelerated to pass a vehicle and the gas pedal stuck down quickly accelerating the car to over 90mph. I used the brake to slow the car, tried to stomp on pedal and ultimately had to remove my left shoe and jam my left foot under the pedal to pull it back up. I have manufacturer installed mats positioned in the proper placing with photographs to prove the all weather mat wa... Read more
Incident date: May 19, 2022
One day while we were driving, shifting became very slow and harsh. A few miles later, vehical slowed down enormously out of nowhere, and service brakes and transmission lights came on. No 4wd, no traction control available etc. Gigantic safety hazard, especially. With no prior indications or warnings.
Incident date: Dec 17, 2020
The contact owned a 2020 Subaru Crosstrek. The contact stated that as attempted to park her vehicle at 5 MPH, the vehicle independently accelerated without warning and drove onto a boulder. The air bags did not deploy upon impact. Three of the contact’s front teeth were knocked out as a result of the failure. The police were called to her property; however, a police report was not filed since th... Read more
Crash
1 injured
Incident date: May 17, 2022
Car surges at times when braking. Increased brake pressure to stop vehicle causes engine to accelerate rapidly when pressing hard to stop vehicle. Dangerous situation. This has happened numerous times when trying to stop at a traffic signal.
Incident date: May 14, 2022
Vehicle braking for no reason when using adaptive cruise control or autopilot. On a 485 mile trip on a 2 lane highway going one direction no oncoming traffic lanes and no vehicles close by vehicle would suddenly just slow down rapidly 20vto 30 moh. It did this 9 times until I just turned off cruise control.
Incident date: Mar 12, 2022
There is a safety recall on my vehicle. It could possibly catch fire.
Incident date: May 17, 2022
The contact owns a 2015 Subaru Forester. The contact stated that while driving approximately 35 MPH, the vehicle experienced unintended acceleration causing the driver to immediately depress the brake pedal to abruptly stop the vehicle. After the failure, the vehicle operated as normal. The cause of the failure was not yet determined. The manufacturer and local dealer were not yet notified of the ... Read more
Incident date: May 18, 2022
The car exceeds the speed limit with adaptive cruise control/autopilot, despite all the available settings being set to strictly obey the speed limit. Driving on the highway in a 60mph zone enabling autopilot will set the speed to 60mph, as expected. If the speed limit increases, the car will change to the new speed limit, e.g. 70mph. Now, if the speed limit drops back down to 60, the car will NOT... Read more
Incident date: May 13, 2022
on May13th I was slowly pulling into my garage : as I was slowly easing my foot off the brake (but still in contact with the brake pedal), the car suddenly accelerated. I pressed my foot hard on the brake but was unable to stop the car. It was traveling very slowly with only about 5 feet to go when it suddenly accelerated. It struck the water heater which is situated against the rear wall of the g... Read more
Crash
VOLKSWAGEN
ATLAS
(2019) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
May 18, 2022
Incident date: May 13, 2022
The contact owns a 2019 Volkswagen Atlas. The contact stated that while waiting in a drive-thru line with the brake pedal depressed, the vehicle lurched forward crashing into the vehicle in front. The contact stated that she attempted to shift into the park however, the vehicle shifted to reverse while the brake pedal was still depressed and the vehicle crashed into the vehicle in the rear. No war... Read more
Crash
Incident date: May 18, 2022
May 18, 2022; Vehicle has 140,650 miles. My truck drove fine all day until It seems the like the transmission failed, it just kicked out of gear. The check engine light came on, as did the air bag light. The truck had no power, no fuel control, and seemed no transmission control. The first time, I was able to coast to a safe area, stop, and put the truck into park. It would not shift back into gea... Read more
Incident date: Apr 18, 2022
When driving down the road, intermittently my truck will lose throttle input. I get a check engine light and the electronic throttle control light. this is extremely dangerous when pulling out into traffic or even pulling out onto a higher speed road because the truck will not let me accelerate. It will just sputter and I have to fight it to about 35mph when I can activate cruise control then am f... Read more
Incident date: Apr 16, 2022
The Output Speed Sensor has been failing multiple times since I had the recall remedied in September 2021. The codes p0720, p0721 and p0722 have been present, and it hadn’t been to much of an issue until it downshifted to first gear while going 60+ mph, causing me to temporarily lose control. Because of the downshift the engine redlined causing the 8th valve to fail. The dealership says I need a... Read more
Incident date: May 7, 2022
Repeated random automatic braking while using cruise control at highway speeds. Near miss of rear end collision. Tesla service representative just said to live with it and be careful.