We Hold Complaint Data on 2,604 Models. Crash Tests on 311.
A specification page looks complete because the blanks are quietly dropped. We went the other way and counted the blanks: which facts exist for how many models, and which model years are simply dark.
Cars Were 3.5 Years Old When Owners Complained. Now It's 6.4.
The regulator's complaint database is usually read as a reliability record. Read it by the age of the car instead and it turns into a record of who owns cars, for how long, and when they decide something is worth reporting.
There Are 20 McLarens for Sale in America. There Are 71,161 Fords.
A used market is supposed to be a mirror of what people bought. Sort 413,888 listings by badge and the mirror turns out to have some very thin spots — and a spelling problem nobody talks about.
Owners Report Steering Faults in 118 Days. Wiring Takes 165.
Every complaint carries two dates: when it happened and when somebody told the regulator. The gap between them varies by what broke — and it varies in exactly the wrong direction.
People Asked for a Ford Window Sticker 970 Times. It Exists Zero Times.
The original Monroney label is the one document that proves how a car left the factory. Whether you can get it has nothing to do with the car and everything to do with the badge on it.
502 Used Cars Are Genuinely New. Another 664 Just Say So.
Craigslist lets the seller choose the condition from a dropdown. Nobody checks it against the odometer. We did, across every listing we hold, and the word "new" turns out to mean almost nothing.
A Prius With 2,819 Complaints Sells Above Its Class. A Mirage With Five Sells Far Below It.
Owner complaints move used prices in the direction you'd expect, until you reach the cars people have already made up their minds about.
We Said Four-Wheel Drive Costs 61% More. Compared Properly, It's 6%.
Our earlier figure compared pickups with saloons and called it a drivetrain premium. Here is the same question answered on the same car with one axle different.
The Market Pays 15% for the Fifth Safety Star. Three Quarters of Cars Already Have It.
Used listings with a five-star rating sell for a quarter more than four-star ones. Control for what's actually being compared and the premium halves — but it doesn't disappear.
Four in Ten Five-Star Cars Only Got Four Stars for the Crash You're Most Likely to Have
The five-star badge is on 65% of rated listings. On nearly four in ten of them, the score that matters most in a real collision is a four.
When a Model Year Goes Wrong, Owners Don't Cut the Price. They All Sell at Once.
A bad year for a model has to show up somewhere. It doesn't show up in the asking price — it shows up in how many of them are for sale at the same time.
Mercedes Buyers Check the VIN Eight Times More Often Than the Market Average. Chrysler Buyers Check Half as Often.
We can compare how often a brand gets checked against how often it's actually for sale. The gap doesn't track risk at all — it tracks how much the mistake would cost.