NHTSA Vehicle Recalls and Complaints Scraper

This NHTSA scraper looks up official vehicle safety recalls and owner complaints for any make, model and year. In recall mode you get the campaign number, the affected component, what the defect can cause, the manufacturer's remedy and, if you turn it on, how many vehicles are affected. In complaint mode you get every consumer complaint with crash, fire, injury and death flags, the VIN prefix and the owner's own description.

Insurers, dealers, used car buyers, fleet managers, lawyers and journalists use it to check a vehicle's safety history in bulk instead of searching one car at a time.

What can you do with this NHTSA scraper?

• Check recalls for a Honda Accord 2020
• Find every NHTSA recall campaign for a make and model
• See how many vehicles are affected by a recall
• Find owner complaints about a specific vehicle
• List complaints that involve a crash, fire, injury or death
• Find recalls that tell owners to park outside or stop driving
• See which recalls can be fixed with an over-the-air update
• Track recall activity for a fleet of vehicles
• Export NHTSA recall and complaint data to CSV or Excel

Two modes

Mode	What you get
Recalls	Official safety recall campaigns for the vehicle
Owner Complaints	Consumer complaints filed with NHTSA for the vehicle

What data can you extract from NHTSA?

Recall fields:

Field	What it holds
campaignNumber	NHTSA campaign ID, for example 20V771000
manufacturer	Company that issued the recall
component	The part or system with the problem
summary	What is wrong and which vehicles are covered
consequence	What could happen if it is not fixed
remedy	How the manufacturer will fix it
notes	Extra owner guidance and hotline numbers
reportReceivedDate	Date the recall was reported
parkIt, parkOutside	Whether owners are told to stop driving or park outside
overTheAirUpdate	Whether a software update fixes it
affectedUnits	Estimated vehicles affected (turn on the option below)
recordUrl	Link to the recall on nhtsa.gov

Complaint fields:

Field	What it holds
odiNumber	NHTSA complaint ID
crash, fire	Whether a crash or fire was reported
numberOfInjuries, numberOfDeaths	Reported harm
dateOfIncident, dateComplaintFiled	Key dates
vinPrefix	First characters of the VIN
components	Systems involved
summary	The owner's description
products	Vehicle year, make and model

How to scrape NHTSA recalls

1. Choose Recalls or Owner Complaints.
2. Enter the make, model and model year. All three are needed.
3. For recalls, switch on Fetch affected-units count if you want the number of vehicles affected.
4. Click Start and export the dataset as CSV, Excel or from the Apify console.

Input example

{
  "recordType": "recall",
  "make": "honda",
  "model": "accord",
  "modelYear": 2020,
  "fetchDetails": true,
  "maxItems": 20
}

Output example

{
  "recordType": "recall",
  "manufacturer": "Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)",
  "campaignNumber": "20V771000",
  "component": "ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:BODY CONTROL MODULE:SOFTWARE",
  "consequence": "Various system malfunctions such as inoperative windshield wipers, defroster, rearview camera, or exterior lighting can increase the risk of a crash.",
  "reportReceivedDate": "10/12/2020",
  "parkIt": false,
  "overTheAirUpdate": false,
  "affectedUnits": 737233,
  "recordUrl": "https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls?nhtsaId=20V771000"
}

How much does it cost to scrape NHTSA?

You pay per result: $20 per 1,000 results plus a tiny start fee. The free plan returns up to 10 results per run. The affected-units option makes one extra lookup per unique campaign, so it adds a little time but no extra cost per result.

Who uses vehicle safety data?

• Used car buyers and dealers check a car's recall history before a purchase.
• Insurers look for patterns of complaints on specific models.
• Fleet managers watch recalls across the vehicles they run.
• Lawyers and journalists research defect trends.

FAQ

Do I need an NHTSA account? No. The Actor works without any login.

Why do I need the make, model and year? NHTSA looks up recalls and complaints per vehicle, so all three are needed for each search. Run the Actor once per vehicle you care about.

Can I search by VIN? Not in this version. Search by make, model and year.

Are complaints verified? No. Complaints are reported by owners and are not checked by NHTSA before they are published.

Automate and connect

Schedule the Actor from the Apify console to refresh the data daily or weekly. Send finished datasets to Google Sheets, Zapier, Make or n8n, or trigger a webhook when a run ends, so your reports and alerts update without manual work.

Legal note

This Actor collects information that is publicly visible on the website. Check the source site's terms and your local rules before using the data.

Support

Missing a field or found a bug? Open an issue from the Actor page.