As 2024 rounds the last few bends towards the finish line, it’s time to reflect on the year that was. We’ve seen scandals and controversy and, as always, a whole lot of recalls. That raises a question—which automaker has had the most recalls?
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is in charge of handling recalls in the automotive industry. The federal agency maintains a database of recalls and related statistics on its Datahub page. This makes it easy to see which automakers have issued the most recalls in any given time period.
Sadly, the ever-troubled Stellantis brands appear to be topping the charts here once again. NHTSA breaks down the results by the overarching automaker. On the chart below, Stellantis covers Jeep, Dodge, and Ram (plus Fiat products like Alfa and Fiat and Maserati). The company issued a full 72 recalls this calendar year to take the crown.
We’ve seen that Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, and Ram have all had issues in recent years. Jeep’s paint issues have been well-documented, never mind the disaster that is the Wrangler’s manual transmission. Brake issues on some Dodge models were concerning, too. Not every quality issue turns into a recall, but the Stellantis brands have all had plenty to pick from of late.
Stellantis was followed closely by the Ford Motor Company, which issued 62 recalls of its own in 2024. Some of these were minor, like 28,679 cars missing their airbag decals. Others were more serious, like 2,490 vehicles affected by a rapid oil leak.
Third place, with 59 recalls, went to Forest River, Inc., a company that produces recreational vehicles and commercial trucks. This will surprise no one who reads this website. BMW and General Motors rounded at the top five with 36 and 33 recalls respectively.
However, if you rank by the number of cars recalled, the list looks a little different. As covered by Carscoops, Tesla led the rankings in this regard (Honda and Ford were tops last year). Despite issuing just 15 recalls this year, they covered a total of 5,135,697 cars. Stellantis still came second, with 4,722,452 units affected, with Ford a close third at 4,370,701. Honda/Acura and General Motors came in fourth and fifth, with 3.8 million and 1.8 million recalled vehicles respectively.
These aren’t outright reliability studies or end-user surveys. We’re just looking at which automakers had the most post-production problems that had to be rectified to a degree where NHTSA was notified. In pure numbers, Honda’s quite high up the list, given its usual reputation for reliability. It might have had only 18 recalls, but 3.8 million is a lot of cars to sort out. Meanwhile, Toyota had 16 recalls, but they only covered 1.2 million cars in comparison.
It’s also worth noting that these days, a recall does not necessarily mean a major repair, or an in-person repair at all. For example, in Tesla’s case, a great many of those “recalled” units were fixed with simple over-the-air (OTA) updates. For now, NHTSA does not differentiate different “types” of recall, so even OTA repairs can still fall under the banner of an official recall.
It’s worth noting that this data is only complete as of the time of writing—December 23, 2024. There’s a small chance that a wildly impactful recall will be issued in the remaining eight days of the year, but don’t count on it. Most automakers have likely sent their engineering teams home for the holidays at this point.
Overall, recalls are no fun—for automakers and owners alike. Customers want cars they can rely on—cars that work out of the box. Automakers don’t want to see cars coming back to dealerships with problems, because diagnosis and repairs are expensive. Ultimately, it appears some brands are far better than others at avoiding the dreaded recall—something worth keeping in mind next time you’re shopping for a new car.
Image credits: NHTSA via screenshot
“Most automakers have likely sent their engineering teams home for the holidays at this point.”
Ha. That would have been nice.
I had my workload “re-prioritised” with a rush job yesterday, so my nice relaxed Christmas Eve is now going to a nightmare. I should probably get off the internet…
NHTSA needs to stop trying to make “air bags” as two words happen. It’s actually confusing; “airbag” as a safety device that explodes in your face on impact is ONE word, dammit, and “air bag” as two words should ONLY EVER be used to describe an air suspension component that fails to the tune of four figures.
Damn, back when Lido was in charge, Chrysler had the best safety-related recall record of any domestic automaker, how far things have fallen
Of course, that was a somewhat misleading statistic, but, hell, it sold a lot of Arieses and Reliants, so who cares?
“For now, NHTSA does not differentiate different “types” of recall, so even OTA repairs can still fall under the banner of an official recall.”
They really should make this distinction though.
Yeah, I deal with recall tracking for the work fleet, and for whatever issues we’ve had with Teslas, not a single one has had a recall elevate to where it had any impact on us. And then as alluded to, there are varying degrees of severity – reprogramming the rear view camera because it defaults to the wrong view is wildly different from potentially catching on fire or something. Also, one the public might not appreciate is potential downtime, some fixes take 6+ months to materialize.