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
Incident date: Jul 17, 2019
Full self drive 14.1 removes the max speed setting that allows drivers to control the speed of the vehicle while under computer control, leaving no way to prevent the car from speeding when the speed profiles choose to drive over 28+ mph over the speed limit. The lack of ability to control the speed of the system is fundamentally unsafe by design.
Incident date: Jan 10, 2025
I am a 77 year old senior and was driving my 2025 Hyundai Tucson Highbrid at approx. 70 MPH on the highway, then suddenly there was significant shuddering through the Tucson with noticeable loss of power. The Tucson dropped to 30 MPH. After that it would accelerate with significant shuddering. This would repeat several times while driving. In addition there were no Malfunctioning indicators, or w... Read more
Incident date: Sep 20, 2025
I bought the car before less than 3 months the car was good but before 10 days when I was driving it on highway , suddenly the car stopped without any light warnings I was In dangerous situations hard to got the car to right side way exit 19 A express highway when I opened the hood was smoking from engine and smile like plastic fire I brought the mechanic said starter I bought starter I replaced i... Read more
Incident date: Oct 5, 2025
All lights have popped up on dash. Stayed on for 2 days back in july and then went off. Came back on 2 days ago (oct 5th) and have not went off yet. LKA, cruise control, parking brake light, TPMS, traction control, and engine light.
Incident date: Oct 6, 2025
one or more of the rear-wheel speed sensors may experience an electrical failure, which potentially could lead to a disablement of the Electronic Stability Control (“ESP”) control unit functions. If ESP control unit functions are disabled, vehicle driving stability may be impacted under certain driving conditions, increasing the risk of a crash.
Incident date: Oct 1, 2025
While driving ~70 mph on highway on adaptive cruise control, the car suddenly LOST ALL POWER/ACCELERATION, including POWER STEERING and ALL WARNING LIGHTS FLASHED ON THE DASHBOARD. I recalled some were BREAK SYSTEM, ACC, ABCS, CHECK ENGINE, POWER, TPMS...etc. Essentially any warning light Accord has was flashing. The car slowed with no power steering, I managed to parked on the shoulder and turned... Read more
Incident date: Aug 10, 2025
As I am driving, does not matter speed or weather, the instrument cluster screen will do a "System Check" as if the vehicle is being started. The screen will go blank for about 5 seconds and then will reappear. If the vehicle is in cruise control, that will disengage and the vehicle will slow down and I have to catch it and keep speed up. This does not happen every day and has happened at differen... Read more
Incident date: Sep 30, 2025
I'm an employee at a driving school in Colorado and have experienced numerous occasion when loss of power is experienced. The most recent was in 10/05/2025 at 02:10pm. No warning light came on. The car was not accelerating more then 18mph. This issue is concerning. We have students driving for the first time that are affected by this Nissan Versa 2024 malfunction. Please have this issue reviewed ... Read more
Incident date: Mar 1, 2025
Speedometer & gauges will randomly blackout and not work and it causes the engine to do funny things while driving. Battery drains from the issues (stranded twice even after new batteries installed). Rear view camera sometimes glitches as well and freezes up.
Incident date: Jul 15, 2025
The bike is prone to stalling as you come to a stop and are pulling in the clutch. It can happen without warning. There is also an issue with the side stand. It stacks out pretty far and if your boot touches it can kill power delivery leading to a sudden loss of power.
Incident date: Oct 3, 2025
Please failure of windshield camera 36160 thr a11 has malfunctioned IDAS
Incident date: Oct 6, 2025
Unknown
Crash
NISSAN
PATHFINDER
(2014) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
Oct 6, 2025
Incident date: Oct 1, 2025
As I am accelerating once the car reaches 30-60 mph there is a very distant shuddering that occurs that cause the engine to lose some power and turns the check engine light on. This appears to be a common problem as I have found many complaints on forums describing very similar symptoms.
Incident date: Jan 6, 2025
This is related to recall #25V-481. A Mercedes Benz dealer (Mercedes Benz of Loveland) is refusing to complete the recall fix issued to my vehicle, even though I have the safety notice letter with my VIN. In conditions where the charge on the house batteries is low, the secondary alternator activates while the engine may be in a low idle state which can cause the engine to stall. The gas pedal c... Read more
Incident date: Oct 5, 2025
While pulling into parking lot jeep suddenly accelerated deployed brakes it would not stop. Hit pillar in front of store. Did considerable damage to build and vehicle.
Crash
Incident date: Oct 4, 2025
So my engine failed at 70K. Nissan replaced it with a remanufactured engine the is failing faster than the original engine. Currently at 112K, I have replaced the catalytic converter, muffler, Egr sensor twice, mass airflow sensor and oil changes at 3K just to have the vehicle in the shop for 6-7 months in 2025 alone. Do not buy a 2023 Nissan Rogue with the 1.5L. The reman engine is under a sa... Read more
Incident date: Oct 4, 2025
I just filled a report but on October 3rd @ 3:34pm the same thing happened where while in cruise control the car just brakes and there was no reason for that to happen.
Incident date: Sep 3, 2025
Upon vehicle startup, the speedometer does not show on the instrument cluster (completely digital readout, analog readout not possible). In its place is the EV's remaining battery % with absolutely no way to access the speedometer and know the speed of the vehicle. This places the driver, other drivers, pedestrians, anyone else on the road at risk of excessive vehicle speed. There is no warning,... Read more
Incident date: Sep 1, 2025
I had adaptive cruise turned on and set to 36 mph, a vehicle which was a good distance in front of of me turned left across the oncoming lane and into a parking lot. Even though the car that made the turn was already in the parking lot the car slammed on the brakes. I have the entire incident in video. Of course this problem also exists and is even more dangerous at high speeds. I have complained ... Read more
Incident date: Sep 22, 2025
The rear knuckles on these cars are constantly going bad and the parts are expensive and so is the labor. So we have to pay a fortune to fix a common issue that GM should be recalling and fixing for the people who buy these vehicles. It's crazy how common this issue is and it's still not recalled. If you hear a clunking/rattling noise coming from the back of your car then it's almost certainly a k... Read more
Incident date: Aug 1, 2025
First incident was July 2025 . Car had 1300 miles. Would not accelerate over 25 miles an hour. Made an appointment with Route 60 Hyundai in Vero Bch, Fl. They could not find anything wrong. (invoice # [XXX]) Second time [XXX]. 3009 miles on the speedometer. The car would not accelerate over 4mph. After several minutes acceleration was possible. We will once again return to Route 60 Hyundai. Car c... Read more
Incident date: Oct 4, 2025
Date of Incident: [XXX] Time: [XXX] Location: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina Vehicle: 2024 Jeep Gladiator Rubicon X Mileage at Time of Incident: Approximately 11,000 miles System Involved: Adaptive Cruise Control / Braking System Speed at Time of Incident: 45 MPH in a 45 MPH zone Road & Weather Conditions: Dry, clear weather, good road conditions Description of Incident: While driving at approxim... Read more
Incident date: Sep 26, 2025
Cannot use any driver assistance features while wearing sunglasses (even the lightest lens). I have macular degenation and this affects my future vision. I either can't wear sunglasses (which my eye doctor says are a MUST) or cannot use cruise control or driver assistance features with them. This was not disclosed prior to car purchase and Hyundai claims it is to guard against drivers falling asl... Read more
Incident date: Jul 30, 2024
The Forward Attention Monitor (or Driver Attention Monitor/Warning...or something similarly named) that monitors the driver's eyes to insure he/she is looking forward at all times) is overly sensitive and shuts off the adaptive cruise control and lane keeping systems. While it does this, there is a beeping, and a text display on the dash that requires reading, it is probably a sentence long, furth... Read more
Incident date: Nov 1, 2023
Myself, my husband and our son were driving on the freeway going 70 mph and all of a sudden with no warning and our engine lost all power we almost got killed by a semi my husband had to put the car in neutral to restart it and then it would only go about 40 mph, the RPM were between 4 and 5 going 30 mph, I took my car to valley Ford of Columbus and they told me it was some kind of valve and it wa... Read more
Incident date: May 9, 2024
Today while merging into the high way the car suddenly slowed down to 40 miles per hour and would not accelerate . We took the car to Toyota however they said they could not find any thing or replicate the problem
Incident date: Aug 15, 2019
MY CAR HAS 15 RECALLS AND 3 different FORD dealerships REFUSES TO do recall work This has gone on for more than 2 years. They claim to have done recall work that has not been done. It has a defective transmission. It took off while in park and hit a tow truck.
Crash
FORD
EXPEDITION
(2019) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
Oct 3, 2025
Incident date: Oct 1, 2025
I don’t know the exact name of the system that failed but my Bronco would not accelerate after making complete stops. When I would press on the gas pedals to move from a stopped position the Bronco would move very very slowly which in turn almost caused me to have over 3 car accidents as when I would press the gas to move from a stopping position it would move forward very slowly no matter who m... Read more
Incident date: Sep 9, 2025
I was driving in the morning car was started to lag on accelerating and shifting gears slightly. My dashboard and gps system flickered on and off when this happened. The truck putted as well. On my way home the car had trouble accelerating and dropped from 5th gear all the way to first causing me to almost lose control of the vehicle. It continued hard shifting and loss all acceleration. It contin... Read more
Incident date: Dec 12, 2024
The contact owns a 2013 Nissan Altima. The contact stated that while attempting to accelerate from a stop, the RPM became elevated, and the vehicle started accelerating unintendedly. The contact immediately depressed the brake pedal and entered a parking lot where the vehicle lost automotive power, and the engine shut off. Several unknown warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle was taken to a... Read more
Incident date: Oct 3, 2025
ABS module has failed and has shut off the cruse control system. The O.E. module is on national back order with no idea of it availability. The unit is still in the vehicle. Non-A.B.S. brakes work. How ever the traction control system is shut off as well as the cruse control system posing a greater risk to all. Search on several internet sites confirms that this issue has been noted to the manuf... Read more
Incident date: Sep 17, 2025
The car transmission hesitates to accelerate at slow speeds and jerks or lurches forwards in a uncontrollable way. Dangerous at stop signs or on slow or hilly roads. Dealership does not directly acknowledge this issue, despite mechanic mentioning very clearly it is related to T-SB-0107-19 which Toyota dealerships charge to repair. No warning messages. Issue has existed as long as I have owned the ... Read more
Incident date: Oct 2, 2025
1. While backing up and going over grass (not curb), brakes slam on. Passenger was leaning forward while this happened and it abruptly jolted him. He thought I did it but my foot was on the gas to back up. Car rarely detects a large curb though. Service could not reproduce. Started in March 2025 2. While driving behind a car that is slowing down or turning, brakes will (sometimes) slam on and a l... Read more
Incident date: Aug 13, 2025
TCM shift issues
TOYOTA
GRAND HIGHLANDER
(2024) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
Oct 3, 2025
Incident date: Sep 28, 2025
Throttle stuck at 4500 RPM. Had to stand on brakes and turn key off. Was backing into my back yard and almost hit the house. From dead stop pushed gas petal to back up and it took off at a high rate of speed.
HYUNDAI
SANTA FE HYBRID
(2025) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
Oct 2, 2025
Incident date: Oct 2, 2025
The contact owns a 2025 Ford F-350. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, the vehicle independently accelerated. The contact stated that the transmission independently shifted from first gear. In addition, the contact stated that the vehicle was uncontrollable. The contact turned the vehicle off, shifted into neutral, and parked the vehicle in the nearest driveway. There w... Read more
Incident date: Oct 2, 2025
On 8/22/25 I was driving on the Interstate and attempted to set my cruise at 74 mph. After turning the cruise on and reaching the speed of 74 mph, I pressed the "set+" button. Almost immediately the car sped forward and within seconds I had reached the speed of 83 mph. I applied the brakes and looked down to see the cancelled cruise speed of 100 on my screen. I turned the cruise off and then b... Read more
Incident date: Sep 25, 2025
ABS kicks in with even the slightest bump. Had an incident a couple weeks ago where I went over a bump while leaving a store and the car almost did not stop before hitting oncoming traffic. Have had issues for 10 months with the car not accelerating properly or shifting properly. Have tried to drive in every mode (smart, sport, comfort) and nothing makes it better. I have had the vehicle to the ... Read more
Incident date: Jan 8, 2025
6 speed automatic transmission downshifts while traveling at high speed into low gear by itself, causing vehicle to change speed and lock up rear wheels. Very dangerous! Vehicle has 66,150 miles on it, and isn’t used for work. The transmission also shifts into second and third gears while sitting still at a traffic light. This has happened multiple times. It is just now 1 month out of service c... Read more
FORD
EXPEDITION
(2016) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
Oct 1, 2025
Incident date: Aug 15, 2025
Experiencing reduced speed, rattling noise, check engine light, power steering light on. Chevy app shows throttle control system and antilock break system error messages. Took to Chev dealership. Advised it was fuel injector (1 /4 was burned out). Had all 4 replaced ($3000). Picked up car on a Friday, vehicle was having the same issues next day Saturday. Took it back on Monday, it is now Wednesday... Read more
KIA
SPORTAGE HYBRID
(2023) — VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
Oct 1, 2025
Incident date: Feb 11, 2024
1.What component or system failed or malfunctioned, and is it available for inspection upon request? The vehicle exhibits trembling while idling and previously showed erratic behavior during hard stops. Possible issue with the engine control software or powertrain system. The vehicle is available for inspection upon request. 2.How was your safety or the safety of others put at risk? The trembling ... Read more
Incident date: Apr 24, 2025
February 2024 (27,813 mi): Vehicle lost acceleration while driving, would not transition from EV to engine mode, entered limp mode. Dealer replaced high-pressure fuel pump under warranty after consulting Kia Tech Line (case #[XXX]). September 2025 (58,000 mi): Vehicle will not start without manually resetting 12v battery module integrated in hybrid battery system. Pattern suggests hybrid control ... Read more
Incident date: Oct 1, 2025
Motor problems and transmission problems, so can’t use the cruise control.
Incident date: Sep 1, 2025
Screen has bubbling starting to appear on it, ghost touch is activating every button on the screen. Doesn’t stop when restarted and causes for navigation system to be hindered. This is a safety hazard because it is spreading across the screen and could potentially cause navigations and air conditioner system lost. When pressure is applied, stops momentarily.
Incident date: Sep 1, 2024
Problem Statement: Instrument cluster has an instrumentation update lag of approximately 10 seconds. The problem may or not be present when you turn the vehicle on. Description of Problem: Turning on the vehicle. The Instrument cluster does not load properly. Different display elements appear in a different sequence than normal. The speedometer remains at zero even though the car is moving. ... Read more
Incident date: Feb 1, 2025
My vehicle was purchased new and has less than 5100 miles on it. The screen and heads-up display randomly begin to glitch and then simply go dark. I can't see my speed, fuel or charge levels or any important data while driving. This has happened multiple times already. My vehicle is a 2025 model. Interestingly, Hyundai had the same type issue on 2024 models and issued a TSB to resolve this is... Read more
Incident date: Sep 28, 2025
In August of 2024, I got into my car in a parking lot and turned the key in the ignition. The car started revving really high. I waited for it to slow down, and then I put it into reverse. The car shot back and would have hit the building if I hadn't slammed on the brakes. Fortunately, there wasn't anyone behind the car at the time, but the woman who had just walked in back of my car to enter the ... Read more
Incident date: Sep 26, 2025
When the cruise control is activated and the set(+) button to accelerate the car continues to accelerate after the button is released. The vehicle will accelerate to 100mph or higher. I have to deactivate the cruise control to get it to stop accelerating. The vehicle is available for inspection. +Unsafe to use cruise control for fear of excessive speed. I have taken to dealer, they say it is not c... Read more
Incident date: Sep 30, 2025
I was steering my car into my own garage as I do daily. Suddenly, as the car was making the turn, the car accelerated abruptly on its own. I was somehow able to steer into the garage, but the rapid acceleration continued. I braked and stopped the car just before it went into the wall that adjoins the interior of my home. There was an inch to spare. There were no warnings or messages or sympoms ... Read more