US vehicle recalls and complaint patterns, explained

Data sources and methodology

This page explains which datasets Recall Explained uses, how we organize them to power the site, and what the main limitations are.

Core data sources

  • NHTSA vPIC vehicle catalog
    We use the public National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) vPIC API to build a canonical list of makes and models. This gives us a consistent vehicle catalog to anchor the programmatic pages.
  • NHTSA ODI recalls flat file
    Recall campaigns come from the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) recalls dataset. We extract the campaigns that relate to vehicles in the vPIC catalog and organize them by make, model, and model year.
  • NHTSA ODI complaints flat file
    Complaint counts come from the NHTSA ODI complaints dataset. We group complaints by make, model, and model year so that you can see patterns over time.

Data processing

The public site does not query NHTSA directly. Instead we process official NHTSA datasets into organized files that are used during the static site build process.

These processed datasets include:

  • A cleaned vehicle catalog with the makes and models we consider in scope.
  • Recall campaigns that match those models, including basic details and NHTSA campaign identifiers.
  • Complaint counts rolled up by make, model, and model year.
  • Year-by-year summaries that feed the tables and statistics on model pages.

Scope and limitations

  • United States only. The data is from US NHTSA. It does not cover recalls or complaints handled by other national regulators.
  • Historic and aggregated. We show past recall campaigns and complaint counts at model year level. We do not show live repair status for an individual vehicle.
  • Lag and occasional gaps. The flat files from NHTSA are periodically updated. There can be lag between a recall being announced and that recall appearing in our processed data. Some edge cases can also fall outside our matching rules.

For safety decisions about a specific vehicle you should always:

  • Use the official NHTSA VIN lookup, and
  • Speak to your dealer or manufacturer for the most current information.

The disclaimer page explains how you should and should not use this site in more detail.