| ---
|
| license: cc-by-4.0
|
| language:
|
| - en
|
| pretty_name: "US Vehicle Reliability Scorecard (NHTSA, MY 2005-2025)"
|
| tags:
|
| - automotive
|
| - vehicles
|
| - nhtsa
|
| - vehicle-reliability
|
| - recalls
|
| - reliability-score
|
| - open-data
|
| - consumer-data
|
| size_categories:
|
| - 1K<n<10K
|
| configs:
|
| - config_name: default
|
| data_files:
|
| - split: train
|
| path: vehicle-reliability-scorecard.csv
|
| ---
|
|
|
| # Vehicle Reliability Scorecard
|
|
|
| One row per vehicle (year + make + model) with its ProblemsByVin reliability score, total NHTSA complaints, recalls, and defect investigations, plus the single component owners complain about most. The master index across the whole tracked fleet — the flat table to join every other dataset to.
|
|
|
| ## Columns
|
| | column | meaning |
|
| |---|---|
|
| | `year` | Model year |
|
| | `make` | Manufacturer |
|
| | `model` | Model |
|
| | `reliability_score` | 1.0 (worst) – 5.0 (best); shown on site as ×2 out of 10 |
|
| | `complaints` | Total NHTSA owner complaints |
|
| | `recalls` | Total NHTSA recalls |
|
| | `investigations` | NHTSA ODI defect investigations touching this vehicle |
|
| | `top_component` | Component category with the most complaints |
|
| | `top_component_complaints` | Complaints in that top component |
|
| | `worst_severity` | Highest cluster severity: critical \| severe \| moderate |
|
| | `alleged_deaths` | Complaints alleging a death (unverified) |
|
| | `alleged_fires` | Complaints alleging a fire (unverified) |
|
| | `url` | Vehicle page on ProblemsByVin |
|
|
|
| ## Source & methodology
|
| The reliability score is a TRANSPARENT heuristic on a 1.0 (worst) – 5.0 (best) scale (the site shows it ×2, out of 10). It starts at 5.0 and subtracts log10(complaints + 1) × 0.55, 0.30 per critical recall, and 0.10 per severe recall. It is a complaint-and-recall-VOLUME signal, NOT a per-capita failure rate: we do not yet have sales/registration denominators, so higher-volume models can score lower simply because more of them are on the road. "top_component" is the component category with the most complaints for that vehicle. Alleged death/fire counts are sums of unverified consumer allegations across the vehicle’s complaints. Motorcycles are excluded (this site is cars-only).
|
|
|
| Canonical version, full methodology, and the other datasets: **https://problemsbyvin.com/data/** .
|
|
|
| ## License
|
| CC BY 4.0 — free to use with attribution to **ProblemsByVin (https://problemsbyvin.com)**.
|
| |
