Home › Guides
Guides
How to use owner-complaint data when you are buying a used car: what a history report misses, how to read the numbers, and what to ask the seller.
Trusted nameplates with a bad model year
Civic, Outback, Forester, Sienna. Names people buy without a second look. Each has model years where owner complaints about the engine or transmission run at two to four times the nameplate's own normal.
CVT transmissions and which years to avoid
Continuously variable transmissions are in most small cars sold since 2012. Some years are fine and some are not. Here is what the owner-complaint data says, model by model.
How to read NHTSA complaints before buying a used car
Owner complaints are public, free and the best early warning there is for engine and transmission trouble. Here is how to read them without being misled by the raw count.
Questions to ask a seller about the transmission
The questions that get a straight answer about a used car's transmission, what the answers mean, and a test-drive script for the problems owners actually report.
What a Carfax report does not tell you about the engine and transmission
A vehicle history report is about one car's paperwork. Whether that model year has a transmission problem is a different question, and the report never asks it.
Used car model years with the worst engine and transmission complaint rates
The model years where owner complaints to NHTSA concentrate most heavily on the engine and transmission, ranked by share, from the cars we track. Refreshed with the data.
Check the actual car, free.Paste the VIN. One report is free, no card, and it shows the complaint pattern for that year, make and model.
Check a VIN