THE RANKING
The worst model years anywhere in this dataset
Ranked by ratio to each nameplate's own median, so the list is not simply the best-sellers in order.
Every year below is scored against its own nameplate’s median, so a best-seller is not flagged merely for selling in volume. A ratio of 2× means owners filed twice as many complaints as they did in a typical year of that same model — which is a far harder thing to do than simply outselling a rival.
Model years from the last three are excluded here. They always look clean, because owners have had less time to file anything — ranking them against settled years would flatter them for nothing more than being new.
What owners report most, across 423,551 complaints
Aggregated over 60 nameplates and 835model years. NHTSA files each complaint under the system the owner blames, so this is where owners believe the fault sat — not a confirmed failure count.
Split by body type, counting only categories with at least four nameplates on the site — one wagon is an anecdote rather than a category:
Read that as exposure rather than quality. Trucks and full-size sedans sell in enormous numbers and stay on the road for decades, which produces more filings per nameplate regardless of how well they were built.
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Decoded from official manufacturer and NHTSA records
METHODOLOGY
How these numbers are calculated
Every figure comes from NHTSA’s public complaint and recall database, pulled per model year and deduplicated on the ODI complaint number. That last step matters more than it sounds: NHTSA lists some vehicles under several body-style names that return the same records, and adding those totals together inflates a nameplate by several hundred percent.
Two corrections are then applied. Older model years have had more time to accumulate complaints, so each year is compared against its own nameplate’s median rather than against other models. And the newest three model years are marked provisional instead of praised, because a short record is not the same as a clean one.
LIMITATIONS
What this cannot tell you
Complaints are unverified owner reports. Nobody inspects the car before the filing is accepted, and people who have a problem file far more readily than people who do not — so these counts measure reported trouble, not failure rates.
None of it describes the specific car in front of you. A flagged year with complete service records is often a better buy than a clean year that was neglected, and a recall applies to a production range rather than a whole model year. For one vehicle, the answer comes from its VIN and the record checks— not from a table.
Where this information comes from
- NHTSA — datasets and APIsThe 423,551 consumer filings behind every table on this page
- NHTSA — recalls by vehicleThe recall counts on each nameplate page, free to search by VIN
- NMVTIS — national title recordTitle history for an individual car, which no model-year table can cover
- NICB VINCheckFree theft and total-loss screen for a specific VIN
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Model years describe a population — check the car
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Decoded from official manufacturer and NHTSA records