Recall data, carefully counted
Vehicle recall statistics
An automated view of official NHTSA bulk recall records. We separate records, unique campaigns, model years, and vehicle combinations so the numbers say what they actually measure.
Data updated · Last checked
Campaign report year
Unique campaigns reported to NHTSA
Vehicle model year
Model-level records by represented year
Critical instructions
Campaigns carrying urgent safety flags
Flags are counted once per unique NHTSA campaign.
unique campaigns with at least one Do Not Drive flag
unique campaigns with at least one Park Outside flag
A model-level flag may not apply to every VIN. Confirm urgent instructions with NHTSA or the manufacturer.
NHTSA component taxonomy
Frequently represented components
Record frequency describes the dataset, not the probability that a component will fail.
Make-level history
Makes with the most records in this dataset
Raw totals are strongly affected by product range, years represented, and sales volume. They do not measure reliability.
Methodology
Definitions before conclusions
Recall record
A model-level row in NHTSA's bulk recall archives. A campaign may create several rows when it covers multiple components, model years, makes, or models.
Unique campaign
A distinct NHTSA campaign number. Campaign totals deduplicate repeated model-level rows.
Vehicle combination
One year, make, and model combination represented in the source data. This is not a count of registered or affected physical vehicles.
Why we do not publish reliability rankings
The bulk recall dataset does not provide a complete denominator for vehicles sold or currently registered. It also does not normalize exposure time, mileage, repair completion, or campaign severity. Comparing raw totals as though they were failure rates would be misleading.
Source and refresh
Statistics are rebuilt automatically from NHTSA's pre-2010 and post-2010 bulk recall archives whenever the daily data pipeline runs. Read the full source and coverage notes.