Recalls, complaints and TSBs - how to read NHTSA safety data

When you look at official NHTSA safety data you will run into three types of signals over and over again: recalls, consumer complaints, and Technical Service Bulletins, usually shortened to TSBs.

They all talk about problems and safety, but they do not mean the same thing and they are not equally serious. If you treat every complaint as a crisis you will have a hard time buying or owning any car. If you ignore everything that is not a recall you can miss important patterns.

This guide explains what each signal is, how it is created in the real world, and how to read the patterns that show up on model pages without either overreacting or shrugging everything off.

If you want a deeper introduction to recalls themselves, including who decides on a recall and what happens when your car is recalled, you can start with the first guide in this series: What is a vehicle recall and what should I do about it?

The three main safety signals in NHTSA data

Recalls - coordinated safety repair campaigns

A recall is an organised repair campaign for a safety problem that affects a group of vehicles.

A few points to keep in mind:

• Recalls deal with safety defects or failures to meet safety standards, not normal wear and tear.
• They cover groups of vehicles that share a design or production problem, not one unlucky car.
• The manufacturer is responsible for designing a fix and carrying out the repair campaign.
• Repairs under an official safety recall are usually done at no cost to the owner.

The first guide goes into more detail about how recalls work in practice. Here, the important point is that recalls are formal safety actions with a defined remedy.

Owner complaints - self reported problems from the field

Owner complaints are first hand reports that drivers submit to NHTSA when they experience a problem or incident and want to tell the regulator about it.

Some characteristics:

• Complaints are self reported. They reflect what owners noticed and chose to describe.
• People are more likely to complain when they are scared, angry, or very inconvenienced.
• The level of complaints varies between brands and models for many reasons, including sales volume, owner expectations, and how easy it is to submit a complaint.
• Complaints can point to real safety issues, but they are not the same as an official finding that a defect exists.

NHTSA uses complaints as one of its main early warning signals. When enough similar complaints appear about the same kind of problem, the agency may open an investigation. That investigation can later lead to a recall, but not every cluster of complaints ends up there.

Technical Service Bulletins - service guidance for known issues

Technical Service Bulletins are notices that manufacturers send to dealers and service departments to explain known issues and how to handle them.

They are different from recalls in important ways:

• A TSB is usually about a known problem or annoyance, but not necessarily a confirmed safety defect.
• TSBs often cover diagnostic tips, improved parts, or updated repair procedures.
• They guide technicians on how to fix specific symptoms. They do not automatically require the manufacturer to repair every affected vehicle for free.
• Some TSBs are purely informational. Others are more serious in tone, but still stop short of being formal safety recalls.

In simple terms, recalls are public safety campaigns, complaints are what owners tell the regulator, and TSBs are service instructions inside the dealer network.

How these signals are created in the real world

Understanding where each signal comes from makes it easier to trust the right things and stay sensibly sceptical of the rest.

How recalls start

Recalls usually start on the manufacturer side:

• Engineers and quality teams see patterns in warranty claims, dealer reports, tests or field incidents.
• They diagnose a defect, define which vehicles are affected, and design a remedy.
• When they conclude that there is a safety defect or a failure to meet a standard, they are supposed to notify NHTSA and file a recall.

Sometimes NHTSA is the one pushing:

• Analysts see a pattern in owner complaints, crash reports, or other data.
• The agency opens an investigation and asks questions.
• If the investigation confirms an unreasonable safety risk, the manufacturer is pressured or required to recall the vehicles.

Either way, the end result is a formal recall campaign with a clearly identified defect, a list of affected vehicles, and an agreed remedy.

How complaints appear

Complaints start with individual owners:

• Something worrying happens: a loss of power on the highway, a steering issue, a strange noise that a dealer cannot fix, or a near miss.
• The owner files a complaint with NHTSA, usually through an online form.
• The complaint is stored with basic information about the vehicle, the problem category, and a free text description.

One complaint on its own is just a data point. A cluster of similar complaints about the same model and year can be a meaningful signal that something is wrong, especially if they talk about serious consequences like fires, loss of control, or airbag failures.

How TSBs are created

TSBs start inside the manufacturer and dealer network:

• Engineers or field technicians notice recurring problems that may not rise to the level of a safety defect, but still matter.
• The manufacturer publishes a bulletin to tell dealers how to recognise the issue and how to repair it.
• The bulletin may also specify which vehicles it applies to and what parts or software updates should be used.

TSBs are often highly technical. They are written for technicians, not for consumers or regulators. Some are closely related to later recalls, others remain separate service guidance.

How these signals appear in data and on these pages

NHTSA collects and publishes formal recall campaigns, owner complaints, and TSBs. Different tools and sites use different slices of that data.

For this project the focus is on two of the three signals:

• Official recall campaigns.
• Grouped complaint counts.

TSBs are important context, and they may be integrated later, but they are not part of the main model level views yet.

What the model pages actually show

On model pages you will typically see:

• Recall activity by year - counts of recall campaigns that affect each model year. These come from NHTSA recall data that has been cleaned and grouped so that multi year campaigns are counted consistently.
• Complaint activity by year - counts of consumer complaints for each model year. These are grouped from the large NHTSA complaint flat file into a simpler summary table.

The site does not:

• Estimate risk per vehicle or failure probabilities.
• Tell you that any specific car is safe or unsafe.
• Include TSB counts or details in the main charts yet.

Instead, the charts show how busy or quiet a model looks over time and encourage you to treat the patterns as a starting point for sensible questions.

Visual: quick comparison matrix

You can treat this matrix as a mental checklist when you see numbers on a page. Ask yourself: am I looking at safety campaigns, complaints from owners, or internal service guidance, and what does that mean for my decision?

How to read patterns without overreacting

Numbers are easier to work with when you have a few simple rules of thumb.

High recalls and high complaints

If a model year has several recalls and a high number of complaints:

• There has clearly been a lot of activity.
• Some issues may have been fixed by recalls, others may still show up as complaints.
• It is worth asking detailed questions when buying that year used and paying close attention during a test drive and inspection.

It does not automatically mean you should never buy that car, but it does mean you should go in with your eyes open.

Few recalls but many complaints

If a model year has few or no recalls but many complaints:

• Owners are reporting problems, but they have not led to many formal safety campaigns.
• Some of the issues may be annoying rather than dangerous, or they may be hard to classify as a clear defect.
• This pattern is a good reason to dig deeper into what people are complaining about and to bring those themes up with a mechanic or seller.

A quiet recall history is not always a clean bill of health if the complaint side is busy.

Several recalls that have been fixed

If a model year has several recalls, but the particular car you are looking at shows those recalls as completed:

• The model has had known issues, but the specific vehicle may have received the repairs.
• In some cases this can be a positive sign, because the problems were openly acknowledged.
• It is still wise to check that the repair paperwork exists and to ask whether there have been any related problems since.

Here, the distinction between raw counts and the actual status of an individual car matters.

Using this guide with other tools and checks

This guide is about reading patterns, not about checking the status of a particular car.

For specific vehicles you should still:

• Use the official NHTSA VIN lookup to see which safety recalls are open or completed.
• Use manufacturer tools and dealer systems to confirm recall status and service history.
• Combine what you see in recall and complaint patterns with a pre purchase inspection and a clear discussion of known issues.

A sensible flow looks like this:

1. Use model and year patterns on these pages to get a feel for how busy or quiet a car is.
2. Use official VIN tools to check the recall status of the specific vehicle in front of you.
3. Use a technician or inspection service to look at the car itself.
4. Use TSB information, where available, to ask focused questions about known issues and repairs.

There is also a companion guide that focuses on using recall and complaint history as part of a sane used car checklist: Using recall and complaint history when buying a used car.

Common questions about recalls, complaints and TSBs

Are complaints as important as recalls?

Complaints matter because they are often the first sign that owners are experiencing real problems. However, they are not the same as formal findings. A single complaint can be an outlier. A cluster of similar complaints is more meaningful.

Recalls sit on top of that process. They represent issues that have been investigated and confirmed as safety defects or compliance problems, with a defined remedy.

Do TSBs mean there is something wrong with my car?

A TSB usually means the manufacturer has seen a pattern and wants to make sure technicians handle it correctly. It does not automatically mean that every affected vehicle will fail or that work will be free.

If you see that a TSB exists for a symptom you are experiencing, it is a useful talking point with a dealer or mechanic. It is not in itself a recall or a guarantee.

Why are TSBs not shown in the same way as recalls and complaints here?

TSBs are numerous, detailed, and very technical. For a first version of a model level safety site they are more likely to confuse than to clarify if they are just listed without careful explanation.

The focus here is on two signals that are easier to summarise cleanly at model and year level: official recalls and owner complaints. TSBs remain part of the broader safety picture and may be integrated later in a way that adds clarity rather than noise.

What this guide is and is not

This guide is designed to help you think clearly about recall campaigns, owner complaints and TSBs when you look at safety data.

It is not:

• A substitute for official recall notices or VIN lookups.
• A way to judge the exact risk of driving any individual car.
• Legal advice, financial advice, or a guarantee about future repairs.

If you treat recall, complaint and TSB patterns as one input among several, and keep using official tools and professional inspections for specific vehicles, you will already be ahead of most buyers and owners.