About the data

What we load

• Owner complaints. NHTSA's public complaints file: 149,687 complaints about the models we rate, model years 2008 on. Each complaint carries the owner's description, the components involved, mileage when reported, and whether there was a crash, fire, injury or death. We never load the personal details in the file, such as names, dealer contacts or VINs.
• Recalls. Every NHTSA vehicle recall campaign for those model years, with NHTSA's summary of the defect, the risk and the fix.
• Service bulletins. The manufacturer communications automakers send NHTSA: repair instructions for dealers, warranty extensions and similar notices.
• U.S. sales. Annual sales by model, from each automaker's published sales reports, so a model year that sold twice as many cars isn't counted as twice as bad.

Which cars count as which model

NHTSA records the model name owners type in. We match those names to each model by hand, counting hybrid, plug-in and trim versions of the same nameplate (a CR-V Hybrid is a CR-V) but not different vehicles that share part of a name (a Rogue Sport isn't a Rogue). Any new name that looks like one of our models is held back until we've reviewed it.

How ratings and summaries are made

Verdicts are pure arithmetic on the complaint and sales data; How we rate shows every step. The short summaries of what owners describe are written with AI (Anthropic's Claude) from the complaints themselves, checked automatically before they're published: quotes must appear word for word in the complaint they cite, and the text can't state counts or mileages, which come from our own data.

How often it's updated

New complaints and recalls are loaded every morning and scores are recalculated; service bulletins weekly. Written summaries are refreshed monthly for any problem area whose complaints have grown by more than a fifth.

What we rate

Honda CR-V, Mazda CX-5, Toyota RAV4, Toyota Highlander, Toyota Camry, Honda Pilot, Chevrolet Equinox, Subaru Forester, Nissan Rogue, Ford Escape, Toyota Tacoma, Toyota 4Runner, Honda Civic, Ford Explorer, Subaru Outback, Subaru Crosstrek, Honda Accord, Acura MDX, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Chevrolet Trax.

Photos

Car photos come from Wikimedia Commons under public-domain or Creative Commons licenses. Each page credits the photographer and license next to the photo.

Who runs UsedScore

UsedScore is a service of Northwoods Ventures LLC. Questions or corrections: support@usedscore.com. See also our Privacy Policy.