NHTSA Vehicle Recall Campaigns with Completion Rates

Campaign data from 1966 onward details safety recalls for vehicles, tires, car seats, and equipment. The dataset includes recall characteristics like manufacturer, component, and corrective action, sourced from mandatory manufacturer reports to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Completion rates are reported from the first quarter of 2015.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in Recall Type (e.g., tires, vehicles) and Component failures over time using Report Received Date.
• Assess manufacturer compliance by comparing Completion Rate % across different Manufacturers.
• Identify high-impact recalls by filtering and ranking by Potentially Affected count.
• Examine safety consequences by linking Subject and Consequence Summary to specific Mfr Campaign Number.

Strengths

• Historical coverage spans from 1966, providing over 55 years of recall data.
• Includes multiple specific data fields per record, such as Manufacturer, Component, Corrective Action, and Completion Rate %.
• Data is sourced from a regulatory authority (NHTSA) via mandatory manufacturer reporting.

Limitations

• Completion Rate % data is only available from 2015 Q1 onward, limiting long-term performance analysis.
• The default public visualization shows only the top 12 manufacturers for the current year, requiring filters for full historical analysis.
• Sample data and total row count are unavailable, making initial assessment of dataset scale difficult.

Provenance

Source

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) database, via datahub.transportation.gov.

Collection Method

Mandatory manufacturer submissions of Defect and Noncompliance Reports under 49 CFR Part 573.

Time Range

1966 to present.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-04-03.

Geography

United States.