Small turbocharged engines: owner complaint patterns by model year

Cars sold only with a small turbo engine drew more engine and transmission complaints than non-turbo cars since 2010. The data, by brand and year.

By Eyal Malka · November 5, 2026 · Data: NHTSA, updated October 3, 2026 · How we score

Over the last fifteen years a large part of the mainstream market swapped a bigger non-turbo engine for a smaller turbocharged one: a 1.5-litre turbo in place of a 2.4, a three-cylinder in place of a four. For a used-car buyer the question is simple. Did the change cost anything in reliability, as owners report it?

NHTSA's owner-complaint records and the EPA's engine listings, put side by side, give an answer. Model years sold only with a small turbo engine drew a higher share of engine and transmission complaints than model years with no turbo at all, in every era we can measure. But the gap narrows, and the brand and model year matter more than the turbo itself.

How we sorted the cars

The EPA's database at fueleconomy.gov lists every engine certified for each model year, and marks turbocharged ones. For the mainstream cars, crossovers and minivans we track, we put each model year in one of three groups:

• Small turbo only: every engine the model year was sold with is a turbocharged three- or four-cylinder of 2.0 litres or less.
• No turbo: no engine it was sold with is turbocharged or supercharged.
• Mixed: a turbo engine was one option among others, or the turbo engine was larger. NHTSA files complaints under the model, not the engine, so these cannot be assigned to one side and are left out of the comparison.

Full hybrids with a power-split gearbox are left out. Only model years with at least 100 complaints are counted. The measure is the drivetrain share: the fraction of a model year's NHTSA complaints that concern the engine, transmission or fuel system. How to read these numbers. The script behind every figure on this page is tools/guide-stats.mjs.

The obvious caution: a turbo-only model year almost always also has a new engine, often a new transmission, and sometimes an entirely new car. The comparison below cannot separate the turbo from everything that changed with it. What it can tell you is how the cars that made the switch have done with owners.

The comparison

And by era:

The small-turbo cars are behind in every era. The early samples are small, a handful of model years mostly from Volkswagen, so the 2018 to 2023 row, where small turbos became common, is the more useful one. There the turbo-only model years still have a median 12 points higher than the non-turbo ones, and two in three of them score high against fewer than two in five of the non-turbo cars.

Brand by brand

Three manufacturers, Volkswagen, General Motors and Honda, account for 47 of the 48 small-turbo-only model years, and they tell three different stories.

Volkswagen

Volkswagen went to small turbos earliest and most completely: 18 turbo-only model years, a median of 53%, and 16 of the 18 at 40% or more. The Tiguan is the longest run, between 50% and 73% in every year from 2010 to 2013 and again in 2018, then dipping to 34% and 25% in 2019 and 2020 before climbing back to 51% and 53% in 2021 and 2022. The Jetta, Golf and the 2022 Taos sit in the same range.

Chevrolet and GMC

General Motors moved its high-volume crossovers and sedans to small turbos in the late 2010s. Across 16 Chevrolet turbo-only model years the median is 54%, and 15 score high. The Malibu is the clearest before-and-after: 25% to 40% in its non-turbo years of 2010 to 2012, then 58% to 66% in every turbo-only year from 2017 to 2020. The Equinox is less clean, because the non-turbo Equinox years before it were already high, but its turbo-only years from 2018 on run from 43% to 61%. The Cruze, Trax, Trailblazer and the GMC Terrain are all on the high side as well.

Honda

Honda is the counter-example. Its 9 turbo-only model years have a median of 25%, and only 2 score high: the first two years of the turbocharged Accord, 2018 at 44% and 2019 at 42%. After that the Accord falls every year, to 18% by 2022. The turbo-only CR-V runs 28%, 19%, 12% and 9% from 2020 to 2023, the last on 515 complaints, among the lowest of any compact SUV we track.

The Honda numbers are the best evidence on this page that the turbo is not, by itself, the problem. The first years of a new engine are where the risk sits, and a manufacturer can and does fix it.

Nissan

The 2023 Nissan Rogue, sold only with a 1.5-litre turbocharged three-cylinder according to the EPA listing, scores 67% on 728 complaints. The 2022, which offered the same engine, scores 79%, and the Engine category alone is 51% of its complaints. These are the same nameplate's best years only four model years earlier: the 2018 and 2019 Rogue were 17% and 19%. See CVT vs automatic for the Rogue's transmission years.

When the turbo was an option

Most of the cars in the "mixed" group offered a turbo engine as an upgrade or as one of two choices. The complaints cannot be split by engine from the categories alone, but the complaint text can be searched: NHTSA publishes the owner's description with every complaint, and some owners name the turbo.

These are floors, not rates. An owner who writes "the engine" without saying which one is not counted, and an owner with the non-turbo engine is not ruled out. Even so, the Ford Edge from 2016 to 2018 and the Ford Escape in 2017 and 2018 stand out: between 482 and 2,252 drivetrain complaints each, high drivetrain shares, and between 11% and 17% of those complaints naming a turbo or EcoBoost. On a model year like that, find out which engine the car has before anything else.

Buying a used car with a small turbo engine

1. Treat the first years of a new turbo engine as the risky ones. Honda's Accord and Nissan's Rogue both show that the first model years of a new engine can be much worse than the years that follow, or the years before. Check the year by VIN, and look at the years either side.
2. Ask about oil changes, and look for proof. The owner's manual for most turbocharged engines specifies the oil grade and interval; a turbocharger relies on that oil to stay cool and lubricated. Receipts matter more on a turbo engine than on almost any other.
3. Check the oil level. The oil consumption guide covers what to look for on the dipstick and the exhaust.
4. Know which engine you are looking at. On a model year with both turbo and non-turbo engines, the window sticker, the badge or the VIN decode will say which. The EPA listing at fueleconomy.gov shows what was offered that year.
5. Test-drive from cold, and read the fault codes. Warning lights, stalling and loss of power are the things owners describe most often in drivetrain complaints, in that order, across the model years we counted. The transmission check guide has the test-drive script.
6. Check for open recalls by VIN. How to check a VIN for open recalls.

Frequently asked questions

Are small turbo engines less reliable?

In NHTSA owner-complaint data, model years sold only with a small turbo engine have a higher median drivetrain complaint share than model years with no turbo: 51% against 40% across 2010 to 2023, and 45% against 33% for 2018 to 2023. Honda's recent turbo models are an exception, with a median of 25%.

Which turbocharged used cars have the fewest engine complaints?

Among model years sold only with a small turbo engine and at least 100 complaints, the 2023, 2022 and 2021 Honda CR-V, the 2022 and 2021 Honda Accord and the 2020 Volkswagen Tiguan have the lowest drivetrain shares, all 25% or under.

Is a turbo engine worse than a non-turbo engine on a used car?

On average in this data, yes, but the average hides a large spread. The model year matters more than the turbo: the first years of a new turbo engine have done worst, and several later years have done very well. Check the specific year by VIN.