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 35,035 complaints for SUBARU
Incident date: Jul 28, 2023
Abs/ traction control light comes on and off lose all cruise control. Get code c0020-1.
Incident date: Jul 25, 2023
The contact owns a 2014 Ram 1500. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, the vehicle inadvertently lost motive power, and the vehicle was coasted off the roadway. The vehicle failed to restart. The check engine warning light was illuminated. The vehicle was towed to the dealer, who related the failure to NHTSA Campaign Number: 23V411000 (Engine and Engine Cooling). The VIN ... Read more
Incident date: Nov 15, 2022
The contact's daughter owns a 2016 Ford Edge. The contact stated that while driving at various speeds, the engine overheated with the check engine warning light illuminated. Upon inspection, the contact discovered that the coolant reservoir was empty. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where the vehicle was diagnosed with a blown head gasket. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The vehi... Read more
Incident date: Jul 31, 2023
My vehicle was idling and came to a complete stop and stopped the engine and then an electrical malfunction message appeared and the car wouldn’t start back up. Various error messages started to appear on the drivers display (tpms, abs stabilization, lane assistance disabled)
Incident date: Jul 29, 2023
While coming to a stop or a complete stop vehicle shuts off. While driving it looses power wanting to shut off.
Incident date: Jun 1, 2023
My engine is making noise, I have to add oil everyday and there are no leaks under my car. The engine gets hot, i feel like it can catch fire.
Incident date: Jul 28, 2022
I was driving on the highway and my Jeep shook for a moment and then the D started blinking and there were 2 lights that came on. One was the battery light and the other one was the charging light. There was also an on screen message about a charging problem and to pull over safely. I was on the highway and this was very dangerous as the car was slowing down with cars behind me. I managed to pu... Read more
Incident date: Jul 28, 2022
my vehicle axel and suspension broke while driving vehicle hit driver side curb while in turning left lane at the intersection during the green light to avoid another vehicle driving unsafe. Hitting a curb should not have cause vehicle axel and suspension to collapse. This could have caused major accident because vehicle behind me could have ran into the rear end of my vehicle while in the turning... Read more
Crash
Incident date: Jul 28, 2023
My windshield cracked in March 2023 from a small stone on passenger side. In June 2023 I had the windshield replaced by Kia. 2 weeks later, windshield cracked from under the A post on the driver side. Kia dealership has said it was an outside source of impact, but it broke while driving, normal conditions and only vehicle on roadway. Kia is refusing to replace windshield again. 1st windshield... Read more
Incident date: Jul 28, 2023
Vehicle suddenly break hard without any reason at any speed when you activate the cruise control. Can cause a serious accident. I can experience this any time numerous times during my daily driving.
Incident date: Jul 28, 2023
Vehicle suddenly break hard without any reason at any speed when you activate the cruise control. Can cause a serious accident. I can experience this any time numerous times during my daily driving.
Incident date: Jul 29, 2023
I am having issues with crackling and popping noises in my stereo system. I know that this is a common issue. I understand that there may be a recall.
Incident date: Jul 24, 2023
First of all suspension has a noise when going over speed bumps or bumps on the road have taking it to dealer they say they cant find nothing. And the transmission has a pop noise from time to time they say at the dealer that is due to the DCT transmission but it hasn’t stop doing it plus a loud noise when you stop and go. They say there is no recall. Very disappointed with this tranny.
Incident date: Sep 7, 2022
During night driving, the instrument cluster does not dim, staying bright and I am unable to manually lower the brightness, this produces a glare around the car which makes it extremely difficult to drive at night, I have also had instances where the instrument cluster dims during the day for a brief period of time where I can hardly read my current speed, then it returns to being bright after a f... Read more
Incident date: Jul 28, 2023
Windshield wiper blade has failed. Previously repaired as part of recall on unsufficient torque on fastening nut. Prior repair has failed and now poses safety risk given low visibility
Incident date: Nov 1, 2022
The windshield wipers go wayyyyy to slow for heavy rain. I live in Florida so the rain is basically unpredictable. The wipers on the highest setting possible is medium to light speed to other cars. It is very dangerous in rain at all. I don’t feel safe driving in any kind of rain with how slow the wipers are because of the almost no visibility of the road. There are many others that I have reach... Read more
Incident date: Nov 1, 2022
Power steering locks up, power steering fluid not helping. Looks like oil mixed in with the coolant. Car smoking and overheating
Incident date: Nov 1, 2022
Power steering locks up, power steering fluid not helping. Looks like oil mixed in with the coolant. Car smoking and overheating
Incident date: Jul 26, 2023
Electrical Malfunction along w/Braking Systems. Electrical Malfunction, caused braking failure. Collision avoided by driver. Call not switched over due to being connected w/electrical circuit in braking system. This occurred within 30 days of buying vehicle. Emergency Brake, & Braking, not working causing vehicle to role backwards while parked in flat garage. Tailgate not closing properly. Causing... Read more
Incident date: Jul 20, 2023
I had a flat tire with my Ford Escape. The lug nut wrench Ford included with the vehicle would not fit the lug nuts. I understand there is a problem with the lug nuts swelling due to an extremely poor design. I can change a tire but because of the swelled lug nuts I had to hire a towing company. So these poorly designed lug nuts cost me several hundred dollars. They also pose a safety issue. ... Read more
Incident date: Jul 28, 2023
When vehicle would be in heat of over 80 degrees, car would start, I would start driving, then an alert saying “Check Starter System” would occur and all electrics would shut off. Couldn’t use turn signals or anything. Happened a few times and my car would sometimes even shut off completely if it occurred as I was stopped/at a red light. Took it to a mechanic that said it was the ignition sw... Read more
Incident date: Jul 6, 2023
I received a diagnosis from Honda Dealership today that my 2014 vehicle has a failed VSA Modulator which regulates brakes and all abs features. They stated it was only from wear and tear on my vehicle. I am only at 109,000 miles. They quoted me a price of $3000.00 to fix the problem and noted I could not pick up my car without signing a statement that I understood the problem and understood that m... Read more
Incident date: Jan 10, 2021
With about 4000 miles on the van, I was driving down the freeway at 75 mph when the vehicle turned off, the check engine light illuminated, and all forward motive power was lost. Once stopped and off the road, the car was completely shut off. After a few minutes of waiting, the van was able to restart and be driven. This same loss of power occurred multiple times more in an effort to get the van t... Read more
Incident date: Jul 26, 2023
I bought this 2014 kia sorento about 2 years ago from a small dealer. When I bought it there was minial peeling above my window on my hatch. When I bought my car it was already at 169,000. miles on it. In the last 6 months the paint has rapidly been peeling off on my doors and getting worse on the hatch. My car is currently at 205,866 miles. So in that time it started peeling off in 6 different ar... Read more
Incident date: Mar 15, 2022
Unknown - has not worked for during the time we’ve owned it.
Incident date: Jul 8, 2022
Accelerating from a stop, turning hard right, engine shut off without warning. Vehicle steering seemed unaffected, emergency brake engaged without warning, dash read “apply brake and push start button”- the standard start up message upon entering when parked and engine off. No other indicator lights. Vehicle restarted by applying break and pushing start button. Vehicle lurched mildly when star... Read more
Incident date: Jul 27, 2023
The car will completely shut off while in drive and while driving. Not the auto shut off feature as that is off at the time the car shuts off. This has happened multiple times and isn't safe. There is no indication as to when it will happen, but it will randomly shut off after a short drive or long drive. Once I turn the car back on there is nothing that displays on the dashboard to indicate what ... Read more
Incident date: Jul 1, 2023
The contact owns a 2016 Volkswagen Beetle. The contact received notification of the NHTSA Campaign Number: 22V945000 (Air Bags) however, parts to do the recall repair were not yet available. The dealer was contacted and confirmed that parts were not yet available. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. Additionally, the contact stat... Read more
Incident date: Jul 26, 2023
The steering has about an inch of slack before it engages, both right and left. It seems many other owners are having the same problem but the VIN isn't included in the steering recall.
Incident date: Jul 25, 2023
I experienced a sudden engine failure while driving my 2015 Toyota Highlander on Interstate 294 outside Chicago. I was driving about 75 mph in the far left lane. A warning message "Check AWD" came on the screen, followed by the Engine icon lighting up, then a "TRAC off" message appeared on the screen. I began to merge to the right across four lanes of traffic to get to the shoulder. As I was doing... Read more
Incident date: Jul 12, 2023
The contact owns a 2011 Ford Explorer. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, the steering wheel became firm and difficult to maneuver. Several unknown warning lights were illuminated. The dealer was not notified of the failure; however, the vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure, and the contact was provided a case number and ad... Read more
Incident date: Aug 19, 2022
When driving on the freeway The car all of the sudden stop indicating TRANSMISSION NOT IN PARK. It had a recall 22S43/NTHSA22V413 and suppose Ford fix it but its doing it again. On July 7, 2023 [XXX] told me to take it back but as of July 25, 2023 still have not been fixed. The past 3 days i been calling [XXX] but he does not answer my calls. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF I... Read more
Incident date: Oct 11, 2022
On July 20th, 2023, while driving home from work, my vehicle without warning made a sudden jerk and all the warning light s came on the dash board. The car had reduced power and acceleration and an automated voice from the dash board warned to pull over the car. I pulled over into a garage who performed a diagnostic. They stated the error codes indicated MPI failure (IMA power moter invertor). The... Read more
Incident date: Jul 19, 2023
In February, 2023 all of the warning lights came on my 2018 Honda CRV, including brake failure, lane departure and many more, making me afraid to drive the car. Dealer wants to replace fuel injectors, but none are available! I’m afraid my car is a danger to myself and others on the road, since all the warning lights continue to appear. HELP!!
Incident date: Jul 19, 2023
In February, 2023 all of the warning lights came on my 2018 Honda CRV, including brake failure, lane departure and many more, making me afraid to drive the car. Dealer wants to replace fuel injectors, but none are available! I’m afraid my car is a danger to myself and others on the road, since all the warning lights continue to appear. HELP!!
Incident date: Jul 19, 2023
In February, 2023 all of the warning lights came on my 2018 Honda CRV, including brake failure, lane departure and many more, making me afraid to drive the car. Dealer wants to replace fuel injectors, but none are available! I’m afraid my car is a danger to myself and others on the road, since all the warning lights continue to appear. HELP!!
Incident date: Jul 15, 2023
Car has a small capacitive touch button for horn instead of center-press. During emergency incidents, it is not possible to react quickly and hit the horn, which has led to several near-misses due to a delay in alerting other drivers with the horn while searching for the horn button, which moves as the wheel (yoke) turns.
Incident date: Jul 1, 2023
On July 7, 2023, my Aunt was in a car accident that caused severe injuries to her body, face, and head. Her car is totaled. She believes the car's Lane Keep or Lane Departure systems are the cause of the accident. She has asked me to assist with reporting the accident and wants an investigation done. She received an "Lane Departure" warning about 3 days prior to the accident and again on the m... Read more
Crash
1 injured
Incident date: Jul 1, 2023
My rear glass shattered today unexpectedly with only 4,400 miles. Obviously others have same issue and defective glass or window frame. I’m getting fixed and Maroone Honda where I bought blew me off. Not happy. [XXX] [XXX] INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)
Incident date: Jul 1, 2023
The Coolant flow control valve is malfunctioning. This was diagnosed by a Toyota dealer. My car is 3 years old and has 56k miles. Upon doing more research, a lot of people have complained that the same things are happening to their vehicles as well. To my understanding, this is not something typical for a car as young as mine.
Incident date: Jul 21, 2023
Rear passenger door will not open inside or out. Driver door takes multiple times to open from the outside.very concerned that in an accident someone will not be able to exit.
Incident date: Jul 21, 2023
It is my understanding that the PTU systems in Jeep Cherokee latitudes is an ongoing issue with them. If this fails I could lose power of my vehicle, which in my opinion is a safety issue. I found out today that mine is going bad and there isn’t a recall on the 2018 models. This could cost me thousands for an issue that Jeep should’ve fixed with past models that have had the same problems. I b... Read more
Incident date: Jul 21, 2023
2015 Ford Focus, 67,000 miles would jerk , shudder & shut off completely , it would not accelerate or reverse half of the time. Stops in the middle of no wear.. the engine light would come on for a few days then go off and come up again.. the music stopped working& the RPM’s would go pass the 6,7 or 8 at only 10-15 miles & jerk while goin forward .. a safety problem would pop up “ transmission... Read more
Incident date: Jul 24, 2023
Driver side door kept clicking when opening or closing. At one point while opening, hinge where it is riveted in broke off and door will not close properly.
Incident date: Jul 24, 2023
The contact owns a 2023 Ford F-150. The contact stated while driving 30-36 MPH, he noticed that a vehicle had stopped in the middle of the roadway. The contact depressed the brake pedal to avoid crashing into the other vehicle, but the brake pedal went down to the floorboard, and the vehicle failed to respond. There was no warning light illuminated. The contact swerved off the road and ended up in... Read more
Incident date: Jul 1, 2023
I get Reduced Engine Power and Service Stabilitrak messages. Engine Code P2138 is prevalent. The car will not accelerate, nor maintain highway speeds, forcing the driver to pull off the road and shut off the car. The warning message returns under normal driving conditions. This code points to several components [Accelerator Pedal Position (APP) Sensor, Throttle Body Assembly with Sensor, Manifold ... Read more
Incident date: Jul 1, 2023
I get Reduced Engine Power and Service Stabilitrak messages. Engine Code P2138 is prevalent. The car will not accelerate, nor maintain highway speeds, forcing the driver to pull off the road and shut off the car. The warning message returns under normal driving conditions. This code points to several components [Accelerator Pedal Position (APP) Sensor, Throttle Body Assembly with Sensor, Manifold ... Read more
Incident date: Jul 24, 2023
I have a similar complaint as NHTSA ID Number: 11210210. On several trips over the past few years, while traveling at speeds of 70 mph, my vehicle would have a loud bang and then start bucking and jerking when I briefly let off the accelerator. About 2 weeks ago, I was looking at my speedometer at the time when the bucking started happening. The EV light came on for a brief second and the needle ... Read more
Incident date: Jul 24, 2023
The van started shaking on a trip. Codes P0172 and P0175 have been on for nearly 2 months. Many parts have been replaced. Spark plugs, o2 sensor, fuel injectors, ignition coils, and battery. The mechanic replaced gaskets and fuel pump. Codes won't go away. The van randomly takes multiple time to start. It shudders and has acceleration issues when the fuel I low.
Incident date: Jul 21, 2023
Unintended car acceleration, with complete brake failure. No software warning icons in dash, no collision avoidance or ABS triggered even though car so equipped. Crashed into rear end of stationery vehicle,. [XXX] , MN police were called. Incident report # attached. (1st image) Western National Insurance Co. notified.Claim # attached (2nd image) Car will be inspected @ BMW dealership in Bloomin... Read more
Crash