Data sources & methodology

Our sources

• Vehicle specs — NHTSA vPIC "DecodeVinValues". Decodes a VIN into year, make, model, body, engine, drivetrain, plant country, and factory safety equipment.
• Recalls — NHTSA "recallsByVehicle". Open recalls for a make/model/year, including park-it (stop-driving) and park-outside (fire-risk) flags.
• Complaints — NHTSA "complaintsByVehicle". Owner-filed complaints, including crash, fire, injury, and death indicators.
• Crash-test ratings — NHTSA SafetyRatings (NCAP). Overall, frontal, side, and rollover star ratings.

Known limits (we'd rather you know them)

• No by-VIN recall feed. NHTSA has no public API that returns recalls for one exact VIN, so we decode the VIN and look up its make/model/year. For a VIN-specific open/closed status, confirm with the manufacturer.
• Ratings are configuration-specific. NHTSA rates particular body styles and drivetrains; a closely related variant may be rated when an exact match isn't.
• Data can lag or contain errors. Recalls are added over time, and source records can be incomplete. Always verify a safety-critical recall directly.
• No accident, title, or mileage data. That's paid NMVTIS data, which NHTSA's free APIs don't include and we don't have.

How we serve it

We cache NHTSA responses at the edge with long lifetimes (specs for weeks, recalls for about a day) so that real lookups are fast and we place minimal load on NHTSA's systems — staying well within their fair-use limits. We are not affiliated with NHTSA; this is an independent presentation of their open data.