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POST
Summarize what owners have reported to the US safety regulator about a vehicle by make, model and model year: how many complaints there are, how many involved a crash, a fire, injuries or deaths, which components are reported most, and the newest complaints with their dates, components and the owner’s own words. Use it to check a used vehicle before a purchase, a loan, a claim or a fleet decision. Covers vehicles sold in the United States. Complaints are reports by owners, not findings by the regulator. A complaint does not show that the vehicle has a defect, and a model with few complaints is not proven free of one. To see the safety recalls instead, use Vehicle Recalls. total is 0 when the model has no complaints.

Authentication

Requires x402 payment in the payment-signature header.

Request Body

string
required
The vehicle make, for example Honda. 2 to 40 characters. Letters, digits, spaces and hyphens only.
string
required
The vehicle model, for example CR-V. 1 to 60 characters. Letters, digits, spaces, periods and hyphens only.
integer
required
The model year, from 1950 to next year. At least 1950. Model year cannot be later than next year.
integer
The most complaints to return, newest first. Default 10. From 1 to 25. Defaults to 10.

Response (200 OK)

Top-level envelope: success (boolean) and data (object). All fields below are nested under data.
string
Durable job ID for audit and lookup
string
Job status: completed
string
Always vehicle_complaints
object
The answer, described under Result below
object
Where the answer came from and when
string
The public body the data comes from. Always US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
string
public when the data comes from a public body, commercial otherwise
string
When the lookup was made, as an ISO 8601 UTC time
string
When the source says the fact was last updated, or null when the source gives no date

Result

Nested under data.result.
string
Make.
string
Model.
number
Model year.
number
How many complaints were filed for the model, including any beyond limit.
number
How many of all the complaints say a crash was involved.
number
How many of all the complaints say a fire was involved.
number
The injuries reported across all the complaints.
number
The deaths reported across all the complaints.
object[]
The five components named most often, across all the complaints.
string
The vehicle component named in the complaints.
number
How many of all the complaints name it.
object[]
The newest complaints, up to limit.
number
The agency complaint number. null when the source gives no value.
string
The date the complaint was filed, YYYY-MM-DD. null when the source gives no value.
string
The date of the incident the owner describes, YYYY-MM-DD. null when the source gives no value.
string[]
The components the owner names.
boolean
True when the owner reports a crash.
boolean
True when the owner reports a fire.
number
Injuries.
number
Deaths.
string
The owner’s account, cut to 500 characters. null when the source gives no value.
Price: $0.005 per lookup. See Pricing for every tool.

Notes

  • Results return inline. The finished job stays available at /v1/requests/{request_id}