Send a VIN and get the problems owners actually report for that exact vehicle — ranked, with the mileage they show up at, how serious they are, whether reports are rising, and what the manufacturer has done about it.
Every vehicle complaint filed with NHTSA since 2015, cleaned, read and grouped by the problem it describes.
For every make and model — each with a plain-English title, a stable id and the evidence behind it.
Matched against 0 manufacturer communications: service bulletins, software updates and warranty extensions.
Add a "known issues" section to every report: what owners of this exact vehicle report, what to inspect before buying, and whether the manufacturer has a fix or an extended warranty.
Category rates compared with same-year peers, typical failure mileage and severity — consistent numbers across every vehicle, ready for pricing and underwriting models.
Flag vehicles with well-known expensive problems at the right mileage, and point buyers to the manufacturer's remedy before it becomes a dispute.
Issues come back most-reported first, each with the same structured fields — so they drop straight into a report, a pricing model or a listing.
A title and short summary for every issue, written for people — "engine oil level rises and smells of fuel", not a component code.
Matched on the VIN's model line, body and engine, so each engine and trim gets its own picture.
vs_peers: how often this kind of problem is reported for the vehicle compared with every other car of the same model year.
The odometer range owners report the problem at — know what to watch for at 40,000 miles versus 90,000.
Reports involving crashes, fires, injuries and deaths, so safety issues stand out from annoyances.
Rising, steady or falling — spot problems gathering pace before they become recalls.
Warranty extension, fix available, under investigation or none — with the service bulletins and their NHTSA links.
The same taxonomy for every vehicle (transmission, oil consumption, phantom braking…), so issues compare across makes.
NHTSA complaint numbers behind every issue, and stable issue ids you can store and track week to week.
Each owner complaint is read by an AI language model and filed under one of 33 standard problem categories — whatever words the owner used.
Within each make, model and category, complaints describing the same failure are clustered into one named issue, and linked to the manufacturer bulletins that describe it.
New complaints and bulletins are added weekly. Issues keep their ids, and their counts, trend and manufacturer response update automatically.
A single authenticated POST
with a VIN, or a year, make and model. The same predictable JSON for every vehicle.
{
"success": true,
"data": {
"vehicle": {
"vin": "2HKRW2H86HH123456",
"year": 2017,
"make": "Honda",
"model": "CR-V",
"trim": "EX-L/EX-L Navi",
"engine": "1.5L 4-cyl gasoline"
},
"level": "trim",
"data_through": "2026-10-26",
"summary": {
"issues": 51,
"owner_reports": 460
},
"issues": [
{
"id": "honda-cr-v-engine-oil-2",
"title": "Engine oil diluted with gasoline, strong fuel smell",
"summary": "Owners report engine oil level rising above the full mark on the dipstick and a strong gasoline smell from the oil. This occurs shortly after oil changes, with the oil becoming thin and watery.",
"category": {
"id": "engine_oil",
"name": "Oil consumption, leaks or dilution",
"group": "powertrain"
},
"owner_reports": {
"this_vehicle": 80,
"model_year": 286,
"all_years": 655
},
"vs_peers": 5.59,
"typical_mileage": {
"from": 8000,
"median": 14350,
"to": 25562,
"sample_size": 66
},
"severity": {
"crashes": 0,
"fires": 1,
"injuries": 3,
"deaths": 0
},
"trend": {
"status": "steady",
"last_90_days": 0,
"prior_avg_90_days": 0
},
"manufacturer_response": {
"status": "fix_available",
"documents": [
{
"type": "dealer_message",
"id": "APP10222018901",
"date": "2018-10-22",
"title": "We've released a special Tech2Tech video Understanding Oil Dilution that you need to watch.",
"url": "https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/manufacturer-communications?nhtsaId=10147185"
},
{
"type": "owner_letter",
"id": "ONLA4B07112019",
"date": "2019-07-11",
"title": "Some 2017-18 CR-V vehicles equipped with the 1.5 liter turbocharged engine may experience driveability issues.",
"url": "https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/manufacturer-communications?nhtsaId=10163170"
},
{
"type": "service_bulletin",
"id": "amv181004",
"date": "2018-10-22",
"title": "Video message - It concerns the engine oil level reading above the full mark on the dipstick in 2017-18 CR-Vs with the 1.5-liter turbo engine.",
"url": "https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/manufacturer-communications?nhtsaId=10147182"
}
]
},
"related_issues": [
"honda-cr-v-fuel-system",
"honda-cr-v-emissions-exhaust-2",
"honda-cr-v-fire-smoke"
],
"evidence": {
"nhtsa_complaints": [
"11397121",
"11389548",
"11297258",
"11282545",
"11280440"
]
}
}
]
}
}
For any VIN — or year, make and model — the problems owners report for that vehicle, most reported first. Each issue has a plain-English title and summary, how many owners reported it for this trim, model year and all years, how its rate compares with other vehicles of the same year, the typical mileage it appears at, crashes, fires and injuries involved, whether reports are rising, and what the manufacturer has published: service bulletins, software updates and warranty extensions.
Every vehicle complaint owners have filed with the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) since 2015, plus the manufacturer communications manufacturers file with NHTSA. We group complaints that describe the same problem into named issues with AI language models, and link each issue to the bulletins that address it.
No. They are owner-reported problems — NHTSA does not verify complaints, and an issue is not a finding that a vehicle is defective. That is exactly what makes them useful: they surface what owners experience, often years before (or instead of) a recall. Present them to your users as "owners report".
A VIN is matched to complaints from vehicles with the same model line, body and engine (VIN positions 4–8) and model year, so a 1.5L turbo gets its own picture, not one blended with the 2.4L. When a trim has too few reports, the answer widens to the whole model year and the response says so.
Weekly. New complaints are added, issues are re-grouped and new manufacturer bulletins are linked automatically. Issue ids stay stable between updates, so you can store and track them.
Vehicle issue lookups are part of our Enterprise plans — free and unlimited once enabled. Contact us to add them to your account.
Source: NHTSA owner complaints and manufacturer communications. Peer comparisons use Washington State Department of Licensing registration data, available under the Open Database License.
Vehicle issues are included free and unlimited on Enterprise plans. Tell us what you're building and we'll enable it on your account.