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 41,082 complaints for BMW
Incident date: May 27, 2024
On May 26, the car was running in electric mode and switched to gas because the power batteries were depleted. Shortly after switching to gas mode, lights came on the dash board saying Engine Not Available Get Service Immediately. I was on a highway at the time and fortunately had just enough left to get off and the car would not move any further. Turning the car on and off did not resolve the ... Read more
Incident date: Aug 24, 2024
The contact owns a 2019 Ford Flex. The contact stated while attempting to park the vehicle, the rearview camera became inoperable. The contact stated that the rearview camera image was blank. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 24V951000 (Back Over Prevention); however, the part to do the recall repair was unavailable. The vehicle was towed to the dealer, where it was diagn... Read more
Incident date: Aug 24, 2024
Vehicle would not respond to any driver controls upon entering vehicle, disabled drive and stated the vehicle was being charged even though we were in the middle of an empty parking lot while shopping. I tried to shut it off in an effort to reset the systems but the vehicle would not shut down no matter what I did. Tried multiple times and it sat there with the charging in use indications and wo... Read more
Incident date: May 17, 2025
While driving home on the freeway in stop-go traffic, the check engine light suddenly came on. At idle and low speed, the engine ran very rough with lots of vibration and acceleration became difficult. I got off the freeway as soon as possible to take surface streets as I felt unsafe continuing to drive on the freeway. The car continued to vibrate significantly. This happened very close to home a... Read more
Incident date: May 17, 2025
With the Idle Stop feature on (meaning the car will shut the motor off when coming to a stop, but keep electrical equipment working), my Honda Pilot, at random times, will completely lose all power when I come to a complete stop. This results in the car being unable to be operated and can lead to numerous instances of injury or even death. In order to have the car work properly again as it should,... Read more
Incident date: May 8, 2025
During severe stop/go, thick, holiday traffic on I-495 (DC Beltway), during daylight hours, once AGAIN (this has happened several times before), the auto engine shutoff feature catastrophically malfunctioned, turning the car off, and simultaneously, activated the entirety of the dashboard to flash on/off, causing nearly every indicator light to come on, and then had difficulty restarting. This ha... Read more
Incident date: May 16, 2025
I have had Supervised Full Self Driving in the vehicle for well over a year. I have used the Smart Parking feature Monday-Thursday to park the vehicle at work and it has worked flawlessly. On [XXX] around [XXX], I went to [XXX] . After entering the gate to parking on [XXX], I drove slowly. I was able to select a parking spot and tapped on it on the screen for the selection and then started the a... Read more
Incident date: May 16, 2025
I have had Supervised Full Self Driving in the vehicle for well over a year. I have used the Smart Parking feature Monday-Thursday to park the vehicle at work and it has worked flawlessly. On [XXX] around [XXX], I went to [XXX] . After entering the gate to parking on [XXX], I drove slowly. I was able to select a parking spot and tapped on it on the screen for the selection and then started the a... Read more
BMW
R 1200 GS ADVENTURE
(2017) - FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: WARNINGS
May 24, 2025
Incident date: May 1, 2025
The forward-facing mulitpurpose camera has failed on numerous occasions. This causes failures of: Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), Collision Mitigation System, Auto High-Beam, Road Departure Mitigation, and Lane Keeping Assist. There are numerous incidents of the same failure across most Honda models for the same issue, documented in various forums.
Incident date: Feb 10, 2025
The gas tank fell onto the road while driving to pick up my daughter from the bus. I immediately pulled over due to the sound. I then saw the front of the gas tank on the ground , half a mile down the road I was traveling there are alot of pit holes and that could of ended in a fire or worse with my tank dragging the ground. I have taken it to the dealership that would help repair the recall but t... Read more
Incident date: Feb 10, 2025
The gas tank fell onto the road while driving to pick up my daughter from the bus. I immediately pulled over due to the sound. I then saw the front of the gas tank on the ground , half a mile down the road I was traveling there are alot of pit holes and that could of ended in a fire or worse with my tank dragging the ground. I have taken it to the dealership that would help repair the recall but t... Read more
Incident date: May 22, 2025
The contact owns a 2018 Kia Optima. The contact stated while driving 70 MPH, the vehicle failed to accelerate as intended while depressing the accelerator pedal. The contact turned off the cruise control; however, the failure persisted, and the vehicle stalled. The contact stated that the check oil warning light was illuminated. The contact was able to coast to the side of the road. The vehicle fa... Read more
Incident date: May 22, 2025
My steering wheel and front wheels shake uncontrollably make it dangerous to drive . A complete rack and pinion needed to be replace . The atlas only has 85000 miles . This happened at as slow as 10 miles an hour. Making the vehicle very unstable
BMW
I4 EDRIVE40
(2025) - ELECTRICAL SYSTEM
May 22, 2025
Incident date: May 1, 2025
The engine started to shake violently while traveling down the interstate, my speeds reduced against my will. My safety and the safety of others was jeopardized while I'm traveling down an interstate with a minimum speed of 70 mph and my truck speed reduced to 35 mph or less. After an inspection from the dealership, I assumed the responsibility of having the engine rebuilt that cost me thousands o... Read more
BMW
I4 EDRIVE40
(2025) - POWER TRAIN
May 22, 2025
Incident date: May 1, 2025
The engine started to shake violently while traveling down the interstate, my speeds reduced against my will. My safety and the safety of others was jeopardized while I'm traveling down an interstate with a minimum speed of 70 mph and my truck speed reduced to 35 mph or less. After an inspection from the dealership, I assumed the responsibility of having the engine rebuilt that cost me thousands o... Read more
BMW
I4 EDRIVE40
(2025) - ELECTRICAL SYSTEM
May 22, 2025
Incident date: May 1, 2025
Leaving for work this morning and reversed out of parking spot, tried to pull out onto a busy road and almost died. The car just kinda rolled forward a bit and would not accelerate or do anything! The ignition switch was blinking. I could not reverse or go forward or put it in park, the gear shifter lights were all blinking as well. I couldn’t shut the car off to restart it. I could not change... Read more
Incident date: May 12, 2025
Engine Light came on, performance rough at various speeds / conditions, and smelled like burning and strong urea smell. GM Maintenance identified a failed DEF injector / replaced
Incident date: May 12, 2025
Various vehicle systems fail to operate. Power steering may not work, parts of the powertrain may fail to operate. The vehicle has a code B273C-00 which Stellantis says their engineers are aware of but have no fix nor any timeline for a fix. This can rendee the vehicle inoperable or dangerous to drive as there is no knowing which vehicle systems will fail. This is an ongoing problem, not a one... Read more
Incident date: May 5, 2025
I recently paid 2100 for my engine to be repaired because it was burning too much gas now. It never had a check engine light on now it won’t go off. My car smells like gas and stalls a lot.
Incident date: May 22, 2025
Check engine light came on 5/22/25 sitting idle when I went on lunch at 1:00 pm. I left work and came home at 5:00 pm and made it home safely not sure what the failure is yet I will call the dealer in the morning. Car only has 28,000 miles on it and should not already be having engine issues. Also has dramatic drop in gas mileage.
Incident date: May 22, 2025
The contact owns a 2013 Mercedes-Benz C300. The contact stated that upon starting the vehicle, there was an abnormal rattling sound coming from the engine compartment. There were no warning lights illuminated. The vehicle was taken to a local dealer where it was diagnosed, and the contact was informed that the timing chain tensioners were faulty and needed to be replaced. The vehicle was not repai... Read more
Incident date: Jan 1, 2025
I received an NHTSA recall notice V06/NHTSA 19V-021 on or about April 2023, I brought this vehicle to Stat Line Jeep Dodge RAM located in Somerset, MA early April to fix the vehicle pursuant to the recall notice for a Drag Link problem/defect. Upon arrival the service department stated they had not received a welding machine necessary to fix the problem and to call for another appointment, On o... Read more
Incident date: May 10, 2025
The contact owns a 2025 Ford Maverick. The contact stated that while approaching a stop sign at 5 MPH, the contact attempted to depress the brake pedal; however, the vehicle continued to surge forward, causing to the contact’s vehicle to crash into the vehicle that was stopped ahead. The front bumper had struck the rear bumper of the vehicle ahead. No property damage was reported, and the vehicl... Read more
Crash
Incident date: May 8, 2025
The contact owns a Cybex Safety Seat, Model Type: Eternis S, Model Number: 518002873, and was Manufactured on February 28, 2021. The contact stated that while attempting to secure the child into the car seat, one of the two shoulder harnesses connected to the rear of the car seat detached, and the child could no longer be secured in the car seat. The cause of the failure was not determined. The ma... Read more
Incident date: Oct 1, 2024
While operating the vehicle, it will turn off randomly when coming to a stop. It happens at street lights, stop signs or slow moving traffic. This happens even while manually turning off the auto-stop feature. This is dangerous because in order to turn it on again, the car requires you to be at a complete stop with the vehicle in park. This can lead to an accident on the highway while in slow ... Read more
Incident date: Oct 1, 2024
While operating the vehicle, it will turn off randomly when coming to a stop. It happens at street lights, stop signs or slow moving traffic. This happens even while manually turning off the auto-stop feature. This is dangerous because in order to turn it on again, the car requires you to be at a complete stop with the vehicle in park. This can lead to an accident on the highway while in slow ... Read more
Incident date: Sep 15, 2024
The contact owns a 2021 Chevrolet Suburban. The contact stated that while his wife was driving at undisclosed speeds, there was an abnormally loud banging sound coming from the engine compartment. The contact stated that the failure was related to NHTSA Campaign Number: 25V274000 (Engine and Engine Cooling). There were no warning lights illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer where ... Read more
Incident date: Sep 15, 2024
unknown jerkiness or lurching, especially when driving at lower speeds, especially if you’re used to driving a regular automatic with a heavy foot. Slow to downshift Jerkiness or lurching when accelerating from a stop Shifts to higher gears too early
Incident date: Feb 14, 2024
8 speed automatic transmission started whining at 45k miles (purchased new), has been inspected, dealer confirmed transmission is bad and part is on back order (date keeps moving out),
Incident date: Feb 14, 2024
Rear window is leaking top coners from seal or plastic creating black mold inside of truck
Incident date: Feb 14, 2024
Description of the Problem: On May 19, 2025, the steering wheel intermediate shaft or column of my 2020 Toyota Camry LE Hybrid began to malfunction. The steering became unexpectedly hard and stuck, significantly affecting my ability to safely control the vehicle. This problem occurs intermittently but poses a serious safety risk as it can happen while the vehicle is in motion, especially during t... Read more
Incident date: Apr 29, 2025
On a rainy day, the power tailgate began to malfunction. First it would open part of the way, beep, and then close, then when trying again it would go move back and forth on its own, and then close. Trying it again later, however, it completely stopped working to the point where we had to manually force it to open and close, only the latch would work. The heads-up display showed power tailgate err... Read more
Incident date: Feb 6, 2025
The contact owns a 2017 Ford Explorer. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 24V031000 (STRUCTURE); however, the part to do the recall repair was unavailable. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the issue. The contact had not experienced a failure. VIN tool confirms parts n... Read more
Incident date: Feb 6, 2025
I have taken my car to the dealership of three separate occasions with respect to the Automatic High Beam Option which at best works inconsistently on the back rural roads where I live. They adjusted this option on two occasions, and the service advisor took my vehicle home - driving it at night. In his words, he indicated, "Given the technology within this vehicle, we did the best we could." I ... Read more
Incident date: May 20, 2025
There has been a long standing recall on the pillars for over a year, however ford continuously does not have the parts in stock. I have been awaiting repair for over a year with no date in sight.
Incident date: May 20, 2025
My electrical system failed. While on park I was unable to shut of the vehicle using the engine start stop button. After waiting for the vehicle to automatically turn off. The vehicle started trying to restart itself. The negative battery post had to be removed for the vehicle to stop. The entire safety system failed and all warning lights are still displayed on the dash. The backup camera and rad... Read more
Incident date: Jul 15, 2024
Cam phasers - this is a known issue on the 3.5L ecoboost motors, yet Ford will not stand behind their product. They have paid for some people to have it repaired, and not others. This is about a $4,000 fix at the dealership, again for an issue they knew about years ago. They tried to claim changing the timing with the ECM module would stop it from happening, but as I discovered this weekend it did... Read more
Incident date: Apr 20, 2025
The contact owns a 2024 Ford Bronco. The contact stated that after purchasing the vehicle, it was discovered that the rear trim cover did not sit flush with the soft top roof installed, making the roof unsecure. The manufacturer and local dealer was notified of the failure, but no assistance was offered. The contact was made aware of the NHTSA ID Number: 11001584 (Structure) and related the failu... Read more
Incident date: May 20, 2025
I was driving and while trying to put on brakes and stop I couldn't . I noticed that the Antilock Braking System light came on along with other lights. I almost hit a car because I could not stop. I was very frantic and scared. I could have hurt someone including myself. I am still shaken by this. I called roadside service and they towed it to Suntrup Buick in St. Peters Mo. After the car was deli... Read more
Incident date: May 20, 2025
I was driving and while trying to put on brakes and stop I couldn't . I noticed that the Antilock Braking System light came on along with other lights. I almost hit a car because I could not stop. I was very frantic and scared. I could have hurt someone including myself. I am still shaken by this. I called roadside service and they towed it to Suntrup Buick in St. Peters Mo. After the car was deli... Read more
Incident date: Aug 13, 2024
Vehicle experienced sudden loss of power while driving when cylinder 3 completely failed (0 PSI compression). Metal particles found in oil and excessive oil consumption (1 pint/100 miles). KIA dealer diagnosed as piston rings but ignored metal in oil that suggests bearing failure covered under recall campaign. Refused proper diagnostic testing. Vehicle now unsafe to drive with failed cylinder that... Read more
Incident date: Aug 13, 2024
Vehicle experienced sudden loss of power while driving when cylinder 3 completely failed (0 PSI compression). Metal particles found in oil and excessive oil consumption (1 pint/100 miles). KIA dealer diagnosed as piston rings but ignored metal in oil that suggests bearing failure covered under recall campaign. Refused proper diagnostic testing. Vehicle now unsafe to drive with failed cylinder that... Read more
Incident date: Mar 20, 2025
The contact owns a 2018 Ford Focus. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, the vehicle stalled with the check engine warning light illuminated. The vehicle was able to restart; however, the failure reoccurred. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, where it was diagnosed with transmission failure. The contact was informed that the transmission needed to be replaced. The vehic... Read more
Incident date: Mar 10, 2025
Parking, brake, and abs alert lights constantly alert on the dash. When reaching approximately 50mph the steering wheel and vehicle begin to shake and wobble excessively, and the vehicle moves side to side in the road requiring an almost complete stop to control the vehicle. The brake pedals go almost to floor of vehicle taking longer to stop and at times require pumping. ABS module code #C2200 ... Read more
Incident date: Mar 1, 2025
Parking, brake, and abs alert lights constantly alert on the dash. When reaching approximately 50mph the steering wheel and vehicle begin to shake and wobble excessively, and the vehicle moves side to side in the road requiring an almost complete stop to control the vehicle. The brake pedals go almost to floor of vehicle taking longer to stop and at times require pumping. ABS module code #C2200 ... Read more
Incident date: Mar 1, 2025
Parking, brake, and abs alert lights constantly alert on the dash. When reaching approximately 50mph the steering wheel and vehicle begin to shake and wobble excessively, and the vehicle moves side to side in the road requiring an almost complete stop to control the vehicle. The brake pedals go almost to floor of vehicle taking longer to stop and at times require pumping. ABS module code #C2200 ... Read more
Incident date: May 20, 2025
The contact owns a 2015 Kia Optima. The contact stated while driving approximately 65 MPH, the check engine warning light illuminated. The contact stated that the vehicle started to lose motive power. The contact pulled off the roadway and heard an abnormal grinding sound coming from underneath the vehicle. The contact turned off the vehicle and the vehicle was unable to be restarted. The contact ... Read more
Incident date: May 20, 2025
My car has started braking when objects arnt there almost causing a crash Mazda denies this
Incident date: Apr 15, 2024
Recall for A-pillar applique trim clip attachment. I have called local dealership and was told that it would be well over a year before they could get the parts to get it fixed however when I'm driving I can hear the piece flapping against my car in the wind. I even called Ford themselves and asked and they said we aren't making the pieces for the recall right now and dont know when we are going t... Read more
Incident date: Jul 1, 2024
Vehicle is remotely being hacked into by [XXX] and buddy's, there are many people connected just do your job and ypu find all the evidence for which you need INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)