---
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)**.