NHTSA Vehicle Recalls & Complaints Scraper

Extract official safety recalls and consumer complaints from the US NHTSA database for any vehicle make, model and model year

2 datasets recalls and complaints

United States coverage

JSON / CSV / Excel output formats

What you get

Each record is one safety recall campaign or one consumer complaint pulled straight from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the US federal agency that tracks vehicle defects. Pick the recalls dataset for official manufacturer recall campaigns, or the complaints dataset for problems drivers reported to NHTSA. Provide any combination of makes, models and model years and the actor queries each combination and returns the matching records.

Recall fields:

• dataset: recalls for this record
• campaignNumber: the NHTSA recall campaign number, for example 20V771000
• make: vehicle make, for example HONDA
• model: vehicle model, for example ACCORD
• modelYear: vehicle model year
• component: the affected vehicle system, for example ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:BODY CONTROL MODULE:SOFTWARE
• summary: full description of the defect and which vehicles are involved
• consequence: what can go wrong and the safety risk it creates
• remedy: how the manufacturer will fix the issue and the owner contact details
• notes: additional notes, often the NHTSA safety hotline
• manufacturer: the manufacturer that filed the recall
• reportReceivedDate: date NHTSA received the recall report
• parkIt: true when owners are told to stop driving the vehicle immediately
• parkOutSide: true when owners are told to park away from buildings due to fire risk
• overTheAirUpdate: true when the fix is delivered as an over-the-air software update

Complaint fields:

• dataset: complaints for this record
• odiNumber: the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation complaint number
• make: vehicle make
• model: vehicle model
• modelYear: vehicle model year
• component: the system the complaint is about, for example STRUCTURE
• summary: the consumer's own description of the problem
• manufacturer: the manufacturer named in the complaint
• crash: true when the complaint involved a crash
• fire: true when the complaint involved a fire
• numberOfInjuries: number of injuries reported
• numberOfDeaths: number of deaths reported
• dateOfIncident: date the incident happened
• dateComplaintFiled: date the complaint was filed with NHTSA
• vin: the partial VIN the consumer supplied, when provided
• products: array of every vehicle or product named on the complaint, each with type, make, model, modelYear and manufacturer (multi-vehicle complaints list all of them, not just the first)
• observedAt: when this record was collected by the scraper

Who is it for

Use case	Who benefits
Monitor recalls across a fleet by make, model and year	Fleet managers and rental companies
Surface open safety recalls before listing a used vehicle	Dealers and used-car marketplaces
Track complaint trends and defect signals for specific models	Automotive analysts and journalists
Feed recall and complaint data into a consumer safety app	Auto-tech and insurance product teams
Research defect patterns for litigation or due diligence	Legal and research teams

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this cover every car brand sold in the United States?
Yes. NHTSA tracks recalls and complaints for vehicles sold in the US market, so any make and model with records in the federal database can be queried. Spell the make and model the way NHTSA does, for example Honda and Accord, and provide the model year.

What is the difference between the recalls and complaints datasets?
Recalls are official campaigns filed by manufacturers when a defect needs a fix, each with a campaign number, consequence and remedy. Complaints are problems individual drivers reported to NHTSA, each with the consumer's own description. Choose which one to pull with the Dataset option.

Can I pull several models or years at once?
Yes. Add multiple makes, models and model years and the actor runs every combination. For example two makes, one model and two years runs four queries and combines all matching records into one dataset.

Why are make, model and year all required?
The NHTSA recall and complaint endpoints return data per exact vehicle, so each query needs all three. If a combination has no records the actor simply moves on and reports nothing for it rather than failing.

What happens when a field has no value?
Fields that NHTSA does not provide for a record are returned as null and never invented. Recall-only fields are null on complaint records and complaint-only fields are null on recall records.

Example use cases

Ready-to-run example tasks, each preconfigured for a common scenario. Open one and press run, or use it as a template:

• Ford Explorer 2020 Safety Recalls: Get official NHTSA Ford Explorer 2020 safety recall campaigns with component, summary, consequence and remedy details.
• Ford F-150 2019 Safety Recalls: Get official NHTSA Ford F-150 2019 safety recall campaigns with component, summary, consequence and remedy details.
• Honda Accord 2018 Safety Recalls: Get official NHTSA Honda Accord 2018 safety recall campaigns with component, summary, consequence and remedy details.
• Honda Civic 2016 Safety Recalls: Get official NHTSA Honda Civic 2016 safety recall campaigns with component, summary, consequence and remedy details.
• Jeep Wrangler 2018 Safety Recalls: Get official NHTSA Jeep Wrangler 2018 safety recall campaigns with component, summary, consequence and remedy details.
• Nissan Altima 2019 Safety Recalls: Get official NHTSA Nissan Altima 2019 safety recall campaigns with component, summary, consequence and remedy details.
• Ram 1500 2019 Safety Recalls: Get official NHTSA Ram 1500 2019 safety recall campaigns with component, summary, consequence and remedy details.
• Subaru Outback 2020 Safety Recalls: Get official NHTSA Subaru Outback 2020 safety recall campaigns with component, summary, consequence and remedy details.
• Tesla Model 3 2021 Safety Recalls: Get official NHTSA Tesla Model 3 2021 safety recall campaigns with component, summary, consequence and remedy details.
• Toyota Camry 2020 Safety Recalls: Get official NHTSA Toyota Camry 2020 safety recall campaigns with component, summary, consequence and remedy details.

Export, API and AI agents (x402 + MCP)

Export the scraped data to JSON, CSV or Excel, pull it as a dataset through the Apify API, or wire it into your app with no code. This web scraper and data extractor also works for bulk data extraction and scheduled runs.

For AI agents: this Actor is available on x402, Apify's agentic payment standard built with Coinbase. An AI agent can discover, pay for and run it on its own with a funded wallet and a single HTTP request: no account, no subscription, no API key and no human in the loop. It also runs as an MCP tool inside Claude, Cursor and other AI clients out of the box. Learn more about x402 agentic payments on Apify.

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This actor is an independent tool and has no affiliation with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or the US Department of Transportation. It accesses only the recall and complaint data that NHTSA publishes as a public record. Use this data lawfully and responsibly and respect the NHTSA terms of use.