Key findings
- Maryland ranks first at 412.2 complaints per 100,000 residents, from 25,814 total complaints.
- North Dakota ranks last at 201.1, a 2.0x spread across the country.
- Population explains the raw totals, and nothing else. California falls to 24th, Texas to 35th and New York to 41st once you divide by residents.
- Small states dominate the top of the table. Delaware, Vermont and New Hampshire all rank in the top five despite modest raw counts.
- Engine is the most-complained-about system, at 140,926 complaints, 13.4% of the total.
- 21,693 complaints report a fire, concentrated per capita in District of Columbia and Delaware.
Why the obvious ranking is the wrong one
Rank American states by the raw number of vehicle complaints and you get a list of the most populous states. California leads with 119,898, then Texas at 86,520 and Florida at 81,985. That tells you where people live, not where cars are causing trouble.
Divide by population and the table turns over. Maryland moves to first. Virginia is second at 394.5. California, the raw leader, sits 24th. Texas, second by volume, falls to 35th.
Every state and DC is below, ranked by complaints per 100,000 residents. Find your own state's row.
| Rank | State | Complaints per 100k residents | Total complaints | Crash-involved per 100k | Fire complaints | Most-complained component |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maryland | 412.2 | 25,814 | 22.6 | 437 | Engine |
| 2 | Virginia | 394.5 | 34,756 | 18.9 | 610 | Engine |
| 3 | Delaware | 390.1 | 4,104 | 20.5 | 92 | Engine |
| 4 | Vermont | 388.9 | 2,522 | 16.5 | 51 | Electrical System |
| 5 | New Hampshire | 381.4 | 5,374 | 15.8 | 99 | Engine |
| 6 | West Virginia | 380.8 | 6,740 | 23.2 | 154 | Engine |
| 7 | Michigan | 372.7 | 37,796 | 16.7 | 768 | Engine |
| 8 | District of Columbia | 368.1 | 2,585 | 30.0 | 96 | Unknown Or Other |
| 9 | Georgia | 362.2 | 40,495 | 19.6 | 964 | Engine |
| 10 | Florida | 350.8 | 81,985 | 17.6 | 1,742 | Engine |
| 11 | Ohio | 348.3 | 41,389 | 15.0 | 792 | Engine |
| 12 | Maine | 347.5 | 4,882 | 11.3 | 113 | Engine |
| 13 | South Carolina | 338.6 | 18,549 | 18.3 | 361 | Engine |
| 14 | Connecticut | 335.6 | 12,332 | 14.9 | 247 | Engine |
| 15 | Alabama | 325.6 | 16,795 | 17.0 | 381 | Engine |
| 16 | North Carolina | 325.2 | 35,926 | 15.8 | 707 | Engine |
| 17 | Pennsylvania | 324.0 | 42,381 | 14.7 | 779 | Engine |
| 18 | New Jersey | 319.0 | 30,305 | 15.8 | 581 | Engine |
| 19 | Missouri | 318.2 | 19,874 | 16.2 | 478 | Engine |
| 20 | Tennessee | 316.8 | 22,894 | 14.3 | 513 | Engine |
| 21 | Kentucky | 316.1 | 14,504 | 13.8 | 314 | Engine |
| 22 | Massachusetts | 315.4 | 22,509 | 15.8 | 404 | Engine |
| 23 | Louisiana | 308.1 | 14,166 | 15.9 | 356 | Engine |
| 24 | California | 304.1 | 119,898 | 21.1 | 2,554 | Electrical System |
| 25 | Wisconsin | 300.6 | 17,918 | 10.9 | 331 | Engine |
| 26 | Rhode Island | 300.3 | 3,340 | 12.6 | 70 | Engine |
| 27 | Arizona | 298.8 | 22,659 | 14.2 | 414 | Electrical System |
| 28 | Colorado | 297.6 | 17,732 | 14.2 | 325 | Engine |
| 29 | Illinois | 296.9 | 37,734 | 14.2 | 838 | Engine |
| 30 | Nevada | 293.7 | 9,596 | 16.1 | 175 | Engine |
| 31 | Alaska | 291.6 | 2,158 | 11.6 | 49 | Electrical System |
| 32 | Arkansas | 290.2 | 8,963 | 17.1 | 221 | Engine |
| 33 | Indiana | 290.0 | 20,079 | 11.7 | 424 | Engine |
| 34 | Mississippi | 286.7 | 8,439 | 15.8 | 216 | Engine |
| 35 | Texas | 276.5 | 86,520 | 14.3 | 1,843 | Engine |
| 36 | Kansas | 274.2 | 8,144 | 11.3 | 176 | Engine |
| 37 | Washington | 273.0 | 21,723 | 13.8 | 471 | Electrical System |
| 38 | New Mexico | 270.3 | 5,759 | 14.7 | 106 | Engine |
| 39 | Oklahoma | 267.0 | 10,934 | 13.4 | 215 | Engine |
| 40 | Minnesota | 259.5 | 15,033 | 10.8 | 241 | Engine |
| 41 | New York | 255.9 | 50,837 | 13.7 | 981 | Electrical System |
| 42 | Oregon | 251.7 | 10,753 | 13.7 | 221 | Electrical System |
| 43 | Montana | 248.9 | 2,831 | 13.6 | 96 | Engine |
| 44 | Hawaii | 248.7 | 3,597 | 10.0 | 54 | Air Bags |
| 45 | Iowa | 240.3 | 7,789 | 9.9 | 153 | Engine |
| 46 | Nebraska | 234.9 | 4,710 | 10.3 | 85 | Engine |
| 47 | Wyoming | 225.0 | 1,322 | 10.4 | 37 | Electrical System |
| 48 | South Dakota | 224.0 | 2,071 | 9.3 | 51 | Engine |
| 49 | Idaho | 222.8 | 4,460 | 10.6 | 87 | Engine |
| 50 | Utah | 213.2 | 7,470 | 8.6 | 168 | Engine |
| 51 | North Dakota | 201.1 | 1,602 | 8.4 | 52 | Engine |
What owners actually complain about
| Component | Complaints | Share of all complaints |
|---|---|---|
| Engine | 140,926 | 13.4% |
| Electrical System | 133,325 | 12.7% |
| Power Train | 100,951 | 9.6% |
| Unknown Or Other | 96,878 | 9.2% |
| Air Bags | 95,948 | 9.1% |
| Steering | 74,441 | 7.1% |
Engine and Electrical System together account for 26.1% of everything filed. Note that roughly one complaint in eleven lands in NHTSA's "unknown or other" bucket, which limits how far the category breakdown can be pushed.
Vehicle fires
21,693 complaints since 2015 carry NHTSA's fire flag. Per resident:
| State | Fire complaints per million residents | Fire complaints |
|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | 136.7 | 96 |
| Delaware | 87.5 | 92 |
| West Virginia | 87.0 | 154 |
| Georgia | 86.2 | 964 |
| Montana | 84.4 | 96 |
| Maine | 80.4 | 113 |
| Vermont | 78.6 | 51 |
| Louisiana | 77.4 | 356 |
A fire flag records what the owner reported. It is not a confirmed cause, and it is not an investigation finding.
Methodology
Complaint records come from NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation database, published as a flat file at https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/ffdd/cmpl/FLAT_CMPL.zip and refreshed daily. This analysis used the file published 2026-07-25. Population figures are Census Bureau Vintage 2024 state estimates.
Of 2,228,766 records scanned, 1,052,748 met the inclusion criteria: product type V (vehicles), a valid US state or DC, and a filing date of 2015 or later. Tyre, equipment and child-seat complaints are excluded, as are records with no resolvable state.
We also excluded 14,750 records carrying test or sentinel identifiers, including manufacturer names containing "TEST" and model year 9999, and 13,317 duplicate submissions of otherwise identical complaints.
Stated limitations. Complaints are allegations, not verified defects; NHTSA does not confirm technical accuracy before publishing. Population is a proxy for vehicles on the road, and normalising by registered vehicles would be more precise. Reporting propensity varies between states for reasons this data cannot isolate, so part of the spread is behaviour rather than vehicle condition. Records are binned by the date NHTSA logged the complaint, which can lag the incident. Death and injury fields are user-entered and unreliable in aggregate; 27 implausible entries were suppressed and the remainder should be read as a floor.
Every figure here is reproducible from the source file, which is public and free.
What this means if you are buying used
A state ranking cannot tell you anything about the specific car in front of you. Complaints attach to a make, model and year, not to a VIN, so no report will tell you whether your exact vehicle was ever the subject of one.
What is worth checking on the individual car is its own record: prior accident and damage history, salvage or junk auction entries, odometer readings that do not run forward, and whether any recall is currently open against it. NHTSA's free VIN lookup at nhtsa.gov/recalls covers open recalls. A Zilocar VIN check adds the paid history layer on top of it: accidents, salvage records, odometer history and prior sales listings.
One honest caveat that applies to every VIN service including ours: none of them can confirm a recall was actually repaired. Only a franchise dealer can, using the VIN.
Get the data
The full ranking is free to download, use and republish with attribution and a link to this page: all 51 states as a CSV.
It carries every column behind the numbers above — rank, complaint count, the Census population used as the denominator, complaints per 100,000, fire-flagged complaints and fire rank, the reported-deaths floor, and the most-complained-about component in each state. The per-capita figure is the complaint count divided by that population column, so every rank can be recomputed from the file itself rather than taken on trust.
If you need a cut that is not in the file — a single state over time, a component breakdown, or a specific make and model within a state — email [email protected] with your deadline.
Zilocar is a US vehicle-history service. AutoIntel Systems LLC, Delaware.
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Sources
- NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation complaint flat file, accessed 2026-07-25, and the flat file record layout
- U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 state population estimates
- Our frozen dataset, all 51 states (CSV) — the exact snapshot these figures were computed from
Last verified: 2026-07-25
