Methodology

Sources and refreshes

Complaints, recall campaigns, investigations, and NCAP crash-test ratings come from NHTSA. Fuel-economy estimates come from the EPA. A scheduled ingestion run replaces each successful model-year snapshot and publishes nothing when any requested source reports a failure.

Complaint comparisons

TireKick counts NHTSA owner reports for a model year. The complaint-volume comparison ranks that count against vehicles from the same model year and EPA-derived body-style group, with explicit overrides for unambiguous coupes, hatchbacks, and wagons, when at least five peers have fetched complaint data. Fewer reports produce a higher percentile. Lists place model years with fewer than ten reports behind better-supported results.

Counts are not adjusted for sales, vehicle population, age, or miles driven. A popular car can collect more reports because more examples exist. Zero reports can also mean low volume or incomplete matching; it is not a clean bill of health.

Recalls and investigations

Recall totals count NHTSA campaigns associated with a model year. They do not say whether a specific VIN is included or whether its repair remains incomplete. Investigations are agency reviews, not findings that a defect exists.

Crash tests and fuel economy

Crash scores are NHTSA NCAP ratings and may not exist for every trim or year. Displayed model- year MPG is the median EPA combined estimate across available trims; trim tables show the source estimates directly. These are laboratory estimates, not measured owner mileage.

Corrections

Agency naming differs across datasets, so TireKick maintains explicit make and model aliases. A bad mapping can create missing or misplaced records. Verify important facts at NHTSA and fueleconomy.gov, and report suspected mapping errors to the site operator.