Across 1,100,006 complaints, the systems that fail most often are not the ones that hurt people most. Power train draws the most reports, but airbags end in a crash in 22% of cases and tyres kill more people per thousand complaints than anything else.
What breaks on cars
Every complaint names the system that failed. Sorted by volume — but the columns that matter are the last two: how often the failure ended in a crash, and how many people it killed per thousand reports.
| System | Complaints | Ended in a crash | Fires | Deaths | Deaths per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power Train | 3.3% | 498 | 169 | 1.86 | |
| Air Bags | 22% | 334 | 510 | 6.1 | |
| Electrical System | 0.9% | 7,197 | 82 | 1.06 | |
| Engine | 0.6% | 2,780 | 60 | 0.89 | |
| Steering | 3.7% | 368 | 108 | 1.7 | |
| Engine And Engine Cooling | 0.8% | 2,909 | 71 | 1.43 | |
| Unknown Or Other | 2.7% | 920 | 94 | 1.95 | |
| Structure | 1.4% | 148 | 58 | 1.33 | |
| Service Brakes, Hydraulic | 9.5% | 376 | 52 | 1.22 | |
| Suspension | 3.3% | 88 | 51 | 1.61 | |
| Service Brakes | 7.5% | 159 | 14 | 0.47 | |
| Vehicle Speed Control | 21.2% | 1,127 | 215 | 8.15 |
Tyres sit tenth by volume and first by deaths per thousand complaints — the count alone hides that completely.
At what age a car actually breaks
NHTSA does not publish mileage, but every complaint carries the date of the incident and the model year. The difference is the age of the car when it failed — and the curve is not the shape most people expect.
| Age at failure | Complaints | Relative to peak |
|---|---|---|
| 0 years old | 99,330 | |
| 1 year old | 89,737 | |
| 2 years old | 85,498 | |
| 3 years old | 100,351 | |
| 4 years old | 106,257 | |
| 5 years old | 107,102 | |
| 6 years old | 96,891 | |
| 7 years old | 82,146 | |
| 8 years old | 69,543 | |
| 9 years old | 54,451 | |
| 10 years old | 42,350 | |
| 11 years old | 31,576 | |
| 12 years old | 23,075 | |
| 13 years old | 16,451 | |
| 14 years old | 11,392 | |
| 15 years old | 7,972 |
The dip in years one and two is not reliability — it is the warranty. While the car is covered, owners go to the dealer, not to the regulator. Reports climb again once that runs out, peaking around year five.
Problems by brand
Complaint volume follows fleet size, so a big number here means a popular brand, not a bad one. The useful column is age at failure.
| Brand | Complaints | Avg age at failure | Ended in a crash | Deaths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ford | 5.69 yrs | 4.1% | 223 | |
| Chevrolet | 5.64 yrs | 5.0% | 169 | |
| Toyota | 5.64 yrs | 9.8% | 222 | |
| Honda | 5.23 yrs | 5.9% | 226 | |
| Jeep | 4.94 yrs | 4.1% | 44 | |
| Nissan | 5.35 yrs | 4.6% | 83 | |
| Dodge | 5.36 yrs | 5.2% | 61 | |
| Hyundai | 5.18 yrs | 5.1% | 41 | |
| Kia | 5.36 yrs | 5.0% | 75 | |
| Chrysler | 5.34 yrs | 4.3% | 29 | |
| Volkswagen | 4.23 yrs | 3.7% | 22 | |
| Gmc | 5.49 yrs | 4.0% | 27 | |
| Subaru | 3.88 yrs | 5.6% | 12 | |
| Ram | 4.79 yrs | 4.3% | 16 | |
| Mercedes-benz | 6.55 yrs | 4.0% | 25 | |
| Pontiac | 6.34 yrs | 5.1% | 39 | |
| Mazda | 5.33 yrs | 5.9% | 10 | |
| Bmw | 6.32 yrs | 4.1% | 7 | |
| Buick | 5.99 yrs | 4.6% | 5 | |
| Cadillac | 5.94 yrs | 6.5% | 40 | |
| Acura | 5.79 yrs | 4.3% | 6 | |
| Saturn | 6.24 yrs | 4.5% | 8 | |
| Audi | 5.30 yrs | 3.2% | 3 | |
| Lincoln | 6.35 yrs | 6.1% | 54 | |
| Tesla | 2.76 yrs | 10.7% | 32 | |
| Mitsubishi | 5.04 yrs | 10.7% | 21 | |
| Volvo | 6.42 yrs | 4.7% | 1 | |
| Infiniti | 6.50 yrs | 5.3% | 10 | |
| Mini | 6.85 yrs | 2.3% | 2 | |
| Suzuki | 4.23 yrs | 8.2% | 4 | |
| Scion | 5.31 yrs | 12.7% | 6 | |
| Land Rover | 5.44 yrs | 3.8% | 3 | |
| Saab | 6.80 yrs | 2.6% | 1 | |
| Jaguar | 5.48 yrs | 8.2% | 7 | |
| Porsche | 5.35 yrs | 3.8% | 2 | |
| Fiat | 4.43 yrs | 4.3% | 0 | |
| Isuzu | 6.82 yrs | 6.8% | 1 | |
| Fisker | 1.26 yrs | 1.4% | 0 | |
| Genesis | 2.44 yrs | 7.1% | 2 | |
| Daewoo | 3.20 yrs | 3.4% | 2 | |
| Polestar | 2.44 yrs | 1.3% | 0 | |
| Alfa Romeo | 4.63 yrs | 7.5% | 0 | |
| Rivian | 1.06 yrs | 11.6% | 0 | |
| Smart | 6.71 yrs | 4.4% | 1 | |
| Lexus | 6.55 yrs | 9.1% | 0 | |
| Maserati | 4.37 yrs | 11.3% | 0 | |
| Lotus | 4.77 yrs | 1.2% | 0 | |
| Lucid | 0.60 yrs | 20.6% | 0 | |
| Ferrari | 5.94 yrs | 9.1% | 0 | |
| Mclaren | 4.80 yrs | 0.0% | 0 | |
| Aston Martin | 3.92 yrs | 0.0% | 0 | |
| Lamborghini | 2.86 yrs | 0.0% | 0 | |
| Bentley | 6.50 yrs | 33.3% | 99 | |
| Rolls-royce | 5.50 yrs | 0.0% | 0 |
Owners reported these. Find out if yours is one of them.
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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.
Go deeper
Frequently asked questions
What breaks most often on cars?
By volume, Power Train — 91,008 complaints. But volume and danger are different things: airbags end in a crash in 22% of reports, and tyres cause more deaths per thousand complaints than any other system.
At what age do cars start having problems?
Complaints peak around the fifth year, not the first. The dip in years one and two is the warranty at work — while the car is covered, owners go to the dealer instead of the regulator.
Is a brand with more complaints worse?
Not by itself. Complaint volume tracks how many cars a brand has on the road. Age at failure and the share of reports ending in a crash say far more about the cars themselves.
Where does this data come from?
Owner complaints filed with NHTSA — 1,100,006 of them. They are unverified reports, published as filed.