About YearToAvoid
Know the bad years before you buy.
Most used-car advice is either anecdotal (“my uncle’s 2014 was fine”) or locked behind subscriptions. Meanwhile the U.S. government publishes hundreds of thousands of owner complaints and every safety recall, for free, in machine-readable form. YearToAvoid turns that raw data into a simple question and answer: which model years of this car should I avoid, and which are the safest bets?
What we do
- Aggregate NHTSA complaints, crashes, fires, injuries, deaths and recalls per make, model and model year.
- Rank the years of each model against each other with a transparent Complaint Index.
- Show the most common problem areas and the recall list for every year.
- Add EPA fuel economy and NHTSA crash-test ratings so you can compare years on more than one axis.
Who runs it
YearToAvoid is an independent publication built and maintained by a small team of data engineers and automotive researchers. We are not affiliated with any manufacturer, dealer, NHTSA or EPA. YearToAvoid does not sell cars or warranties. We may receive compensation when readers follow clearly labeled partner links. Commercial relationships never influence our data, rankings or verdicts. See the editorial policy and affiliate disclosure.
Who is behind YearToAvoid
The site is edited by a named editor responsible for data accuracy, methodology changes and corrections; the editor profile (name, background and contact) is being finalized and will appear here.
Contact
Corrections, data questions and press inquiries: contact page.