Frequently asked questions

Safety recalls for vehicles, tires, equipment, and child seats, NHTSA investigations that can lead to a recall, and consumer complaints filed directly with NHTSA. Coverage currently starts from 2016 onward.

All recall and investigation data comes from public, government sources — primarily the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). CarsApp is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NHTSA.

Recall status and remedies can change after our data is last synced. For VIN-specific, up-to-the-minute results, always confirm with your vehicle's VIN on the manufacturer's website before relying on this site for a safety decision.

The Recent Recalls list shows the 25 most recent recalls and refreshes twice a week, every Tuesday and Friday.

Use Search to find recalls or investigations by keyword, manufacturer, or make/model. If you already know a recall or investigation ID, go straight to it at /recall/[id] or /investigation/[id]. You can also browse by manufacturer or by vehicle make from their respective listing pages, or use Vehicles by manufacturer to drill down from a manufacturer to a make, model, and model year and see the recalls and investigations linked to it.

Yes. Complaints filed directly with NHTSA are searchable as a third tab inside Advanced Search, alongside Recalls and Investigations. Complaints is a Pro-tier feature: signed-out visitors get a limited number of free searches per day (shared with Recalls/Investigations search), and free signed-in accounts see a link to join the Pro waitlist instead of results.

Signed-in users' Quick Search supports combining keywords: put a phrase in "quotes" to match those exact words in that order, and use AND / OR (capital letters) to combine terms — e.g. Rivian AND defogger or "software update" AND Rivian. Separate words with no AND/OR between them are combined with AND automatically.

The Stats page (“Safety Pulse”) covers recalls and investigations over the last 1–3 years, including how many investigations are currently open, how long investigations typically take to close, and which manufacturers have the most recalls. A dedicated manufacturer breakdown digs deeper into that last metric.

Some recalls originate from an NHTSA investigation. When NHTSA's data directly ties an investigation to the recall campaign it led to, we surface that connection on both the recall page and the investigation page so you can see the full history. Not every recall has a linked investigation, and not every investigation results in a recall.

To keep pages fast and easy to scan, a few areas of the site only show a limited number of results rather than the full history — for example, manufacturer pages show their most recent items rather than every recall or investigation on record.

Account features — Advanced Search, Bookmarks, Saved Searches, and more — are currently in beta testing, so sign-up is invite-only. If you'd like to participate, add your email to the waitlist and we'll send you an invitation code as spots open up.