What Car and Problems Is

An independent safety reference

Car and Problems is a reference site that aggregates publicly available vehicle safety data — recall campaigns, manufacturer communications, consumer complaints, and preliminary investigations — into a single searchable interface covering every model year sold in the U.S. since 1949. We do not sell cars, publish sponsored content, or partner with any manufacturer. Every data point on the site is derived from publicly available federal datasets and open API endpoints.

Where the data comes from

• Recalls: federal recall campaign files, pulled daily. Official documents, manufacturer remedy descriptions, affected vehicles, and any "park-it-now" advisories are preserved verbatim.
• Complaints: monthly bulk refresh plus a daily delta sync for 2023+. Each ODI number retains the owner's narrative unchanged; we only match the report to a year/make/model.
• Preliminary investigations: monthly files that track whether a safety concern was opened, expanded, or upgraded into a formal recall.
• Manufacturer communications (TSBs): five-year bulk chunks, refreshed monthly — data goes back to 1995.
• Vehicle catalog: a public monthly bulk dump used to map every VIN to its correct make/model/year.

Why this site exists

Federal vehicle safety data has been public for 70+ years, but it is spread across multiple sites and file formats that most car owners never touch. We consolidate those sources under one vehicle profile per year/make/model so you can see every recall, complaint, and investigation that ever touched your car — without needing to parse a ZIP file.

Editorial standards

1. Source-backed claims: every summary on this site links to the underlying official document. Anything we can't back with a primary source doesn't ship.
2. Generated-text transparency: some summaries are produced with large language models, and we say so explicitly when they are. Numbers (campaign numbers, affected counts, dates) are never taken from a model — only from the original document.
3. Corrections: if you find an error, write to us via the contact page. We review and publish corrections within 48 hours when warranted.
4. Advertising & independence: the site may display third-party ads (e.g. Google AdSense), but no manufacturer or retailer has any editorial influence over what we publish. Ads have zero bearing on editorial content.

Which vehicles are covered?

The catalog includes all passenger cars and light-duty vehicles sold in the U.S. from 1949 to present (sedans, coupes, crossovers, SUVs, pickups, vans, EVs, hybrids). Motorcycles and heavy commercial trucks fall under different categories and are currently covered only partially.

Is this site official?

No. Car and Problems is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any government agency or auto manufacturer. For legally authoritative statements about specific recall campaigns, always treat the manufacturer or the relevant regulatory authority as the primary source. Car and Problems is a search-and-compare layer on top of publicly available safety data.