Daihatsu owners have filed 10 complaints with NHTSA across 2 models. On average the car was 5.29 years old when the problem happened, and 57.1% of reports fall inside the first three years — while the factory warranty was still running.
What breaks on Daihatsu
The systems Daihatsu owners report most, and how often each failure ended in a crash.
| System | Complaints | Share of Daihatsu | Ended in a crash |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seat Belts | 80% | 12.5% | |
| Engine And Engine Cooling | 20% | 0% |
When Daihatsu problems show up
| Measure | Value | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Average age at failure | 5.29 years | How old the car was when the problem happened |
| Reported inside 3 years | 57.1% | Share of complaints filed while the factory warranty was likely still running |
| Complaints describing a crash | 1 | Of 10 total |
| Complaints describing a fire | 0 | Of 10 total |
A low average age does not automatically mean a fragile car: a brand with a young fleet on the road will always skew early. Read it next to the share reported inside three years.
Which Daihatsu models draw the most complaints
Volume follows sales, so a bestseller will always top this list. The columns worth reading are age at failure and how many reports ended in a crash.
Daihatsu complaints by model year
A bad generation shows up here as a block of years, not as a single spike. Recent years look quiet simply because those cars are young and still under warranty.
| Model year | Complaints | Crashes | Fires |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 1 | — | |
| 1991 | — | — | |
| 1990 | — | — |
What Daihatsu owners report
Grouped by the system owners named. Open any row for the full reports, in their own words — one per model so the same fault does not repeat.
Seat Belts 8
Detailed owner reports aren't available for this category.
Engine And Engine Cooling 2 Read
The contact owns a 1992 daihatsu rocky. The contact stated that the radiator failed causing a strong odor to enter the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to an independent mechanic where the technician diagnosed that the fuel emissions kit needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired but the failure persisted. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was unknown. Updated 02/18/15*lj updated 4/4/2016*js updated 9/8/2017
Unverified owner reports filed with NHTSA. Percentages are shares of all 10 Daihatsu complaints.
Daihatsu against the rest
| Measure | Where Daihatsu sits | Out of |
|---|---|---|
| By complaint volume | #0 | 29 brands with 3,000+ complaints |
| By age at failure (later is better) | #0 | 29 brands |
| Complaints ending in a crash | 10% | across all 10 reports |
Ranking by volume says more about how many cars a brand sells than about how they hold up. Age at failure is the fairer of the two.
Compare Daihatsu with the rest
Daihatsu problems by model
2 Daihatsu models have owner complaints on file. Pick one for its worst years, failing systems and what owners actually wrote.
Owners reported these. Find out if yours is one of them.
- Complaints matched to the exact production run, not just the model
- What the car is worth given what tends to fail on it
- The original window sticker and factory options
- Full research report as a PDF for the pre-purchase inspection
- No ads, on every page
- No ads, no tracking — and much more
How we count
Every figure here comes from complaints owners filed with NHTSA — 1,100,006 of them, covering 1,982 models built between 1981 and 2026.
A complaint is an unverified report: someone wrote down what happened to their car. It is not a confirmed defect and not a recall. What makes the volume useful is the pattern — when thousands of owners of the same build describe the same failure, that is a signal no marketing brochure will give you.
Two things we do that the source does not. First, we compute the age of the car at the moment of failure from the incident date and the model year. Second, we group complaints by the first 11 characters of the VIN — the production series — so a bad plant run does not disappear into a model-wide average.
Frequently asked questions
How reliable is Daihatsu?
Owners have filed 10 complaints across 2 Daihatsu models. On its own that number reflects how many Daihatsu cars are on the road — compare the average age at failure (5.29 years) instead.
What breaks most often on a Daihatsu?
The most reported system is Seat Belts with 8 complaints.
Do Daihatsu problems show up under warranty?
57.1% of Daihatsu complaints describe something that happened in the first three years, while the factory warranty was likely still running.
Which Daihatsu model has the most complaints?
See the model list above — each card shows its complaint count, and the model page breaks it down by year and by system.