About RecallGazette

RecallGazette is an independent vehicle-intelligence site. We combine the major official U.S. federal databases — owner complaints, safety recalls, technical service bulletins, defect investigations, crash-test ratings, fuel economy and fatal-crash records — refresh them nightly, and organize everything around the vehicle you actually own or are about to buy: make, model and model year.

The goal is to answer practical questions fast: what goes wrong with this car, at what mileage, is it recalled, is the manufacturer aware (TSBs, investigations), and how does it compare to the alternatives.

Data sources

• NHTSA ODI complaints — The full federal owner-complaint database (over 1.5 million unique complaints). Powers problem counts, component breakdowns, symptom analysis, mileage statistics and owner-report excerpts on every vehicle page.
• NHTSA recall campaigns — Every vehicle safety recall filed since 2000: affected models, defect description, risk and remedy.
• NHTSA manufacturer communications (TSBs) — Technical service bulletins, warranty extensions and service campaigns manufacturers file with NHTSA — over 200,000 documents mapped to the vehicles they cover.
• NHTSA defect investigations (ODI) — Preliminary evaluations, engineering analyses, recall queries and defect petitions, linked to the vehicles and recalls they concern.
• NHTSA NCAP crash-test ratings — Federal 5-star safety ratings shown on model-year safety pages and in comparisons.
• EPA fuel-economy data — Official MPG figures, vehicle classes and engine configurations, used on vehicle pages, buying guides and comparisons.
• FARS fatal-crash census — The Fatality Analysis Reporting System — fatal-crash involvement counts shown on safety pages, clearly labeled as involvement, not fault.
• NHTSA vPIC — The federal VIN-decoding service behind our free VIN lookup.
• CPSC recall notices — U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recalls for consumer products (furniture, appliances, toys, tools), published since 2023.

Methodology

• Complaint counts are unique complaints. One NHTSA complaint can name several components; we count each complaint once (by its ODI number) so totals are not inflated.
• Symptoms come from keyword analysis of complaint narratives (stalling, no-start, hard shifting and so on). Classification is automatic and approximate — we say so wherever symptom counts appear.
• Mileage figures are medians of reported odometer readings in complaints that included one. They describe when owners reported problems, not when any particular vehicle will develop one.
• Raw counts are not adjusted for sales volume. A popular model accumulates more complaints simply because more are on the road — every ranking page carries that caveat.
• Suspicious records are quarantined. For example, bulletins whose stated issue date lies in the future fall back to the date NHTSA received the document.

What we are — and what we are not

We are not a government agency and are not affiliated with NHTSA, EPA or CPSC. Complaints are unverified consumer reports; recalls, TSBs and investigations are published by manufacturers and federal regulators. We republish and organize these records with source attribution, and every recall page links to the official notice — verify remedy details there before acting.

Corrections

Spotted an error? Email corrections@recallgazette.com and include the page URL. We review correction requests within 2–3 business days and log significant changes on the affected page.