How WhipWorthy works
What the federal government has on file for a used car, and how that year stacks up against the other years of the same model. Check a car, compare a few or read the car loan guide. Or see every tool and what each one answers.
Where the numbers come from
The car data comes from two federal agencies. Owner complaints, recalls and crash ratings come from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, through its public datasets and APIs (opens in a new tab). Fuel economy comes from the EPA at fueleconomy.gov (opens in a new tab).
We do not change the numbers. We sort each owner complaint into the parts of the car a buyer would recognize, such as the engine or the brakes, using the part names NHTSA files it under. Each block on a car page says where its numbers came from, with a link to check them. The verdict is our own math from those numbers, done the way the rules below say.
| What | From | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Owner complaints, sorted by part of the car | NHTSA | Daily |
| Recalls | NHTSA | Daily |
| Crash ratings | NHTSA | Weekly |
| Fuel economy | EPA | Weekly |
| Lists of years, makes and models | NHTSA | Weekly |
That is how often we ask the agencies for fresh numbers. They update their own records on their own schedule, so something new on their side can take a little while to show up here.
How a year gets its verdict
- Worthy
- Maybe
- Pass
Count the complaints
We count the owner complaints filed with NHTSA for every model year of the model, back to 1995, and note the month each was filed. A year with no complaints is left out of every comparison, because a year the model was not sold and a year nobody filed anything look the same in the data.
Set aside the newest years
The newest 2 model years are not judged. Right now that is 2026 to 2027. Those cars have not been on the road long enough for owners to file much, so a low count means little yet.
Find a typical year
Older years have had longer to collect complaints, so every year is counted to the same age: the complaints filed in the same number of months, counted from January of the year before the model year, when its cars go on sale, up to 8 years. Then we take the middle count, the median, of the 8 nearest years old enough to compare, none more than 8 years away, leaving out the year being judged. With fewer than 3 of those, we use every other year of the model. One very bad year barely moves a median, where it would drag an average up. If the typical year has fewer than 5 complaints we use 5, so a handful of complaints cannot swing the math. A model needs at least 3 years old enough to judge, or there is nothing to compare against.
Compare the year with it
We divide the year’s complaints by the typical year’s. That says how many times a typical year it is. Then we check the rules below in order, Pass first. The first rule a year meets is its verdict. A first or last year on file with under 30 percent of the complaints of the years next to it was most likely a short sales year, and is not judged.
The rules
Each rule needs a minimum number of complaints as well as a multiple, so a model with few complaints in every year is not tipped into Maybe or Pass by a small number. Too many to be chance means that if the year were typical, a count this high would come up by luck less than 1 in 100 times for Pass, or 5 in 100 for Maybe. A year above the Maybe multiple that falls short of this is Not judged, not Worthy.
The math with round numbers
An example to show the arithmetic, not a real car.
Say a typical year of a model has 40 owner complaints. Checked in this order, a year with:
- 100 or moreis Pass.
- 60 or moreis Maybe.
- 52 or moreis Maybe when 50 percent or more of its complaints are about costly parts.
- 5 to 59is Worthy, or 5 to 47 when most are about costly parts.
- 48 to 51is Not judged when most are about costly parts: above typical, but too few to tell from chance.
- Under 5is Not judged.
The high mileage verdict
Every year page shows a second verdict under the first: the same math, counting only owner complaints that give a mileage of 100,000 or more. It answers the question a buyer of an older car has: once these cars got old, did this year hold up as well as the model’s other years?
Only years at least 9 years older than the newest on sale are judged or compared. Right now that is 2018 and older. Newer cars have not had time to reach the mark. Every year is counted to the same age, up to 12 years, so an older year gets no head start from having had more time to pass it.
Many owners never write the miles, so these counts run much lower than all complaints, and the rules are scaled down to match: Pass at 2.5 times a typical older year with at least 10 complaints, Maybe at 1.5 times with at least 6, or at 1.2 times with at least 10 when 50 percent or more are about costly parts, each also too many to be chance. A typical older year is never counted as fewer than 3, and a year with fewer than 3 is not judged.
A verdict is about a model year, not the car in front of you. Read what the data cannot tell you before you lean on it.
Education, not financial or mechanical advice. Have any used car checked by a mechanic you trust before you buy.
How sure is the verdict?
- High
- At least 50 owner complaints, against a typical year of at least 20, worked out from at least 6 nearby years. At least 4 years of complaints to go on, clear of the Maybe and Pass lines by more than 15 percent, and an answer from NHTSA for every year. A Maybe or Pass must also be far past what chance could do.
- Medium
- Judged, but something keeps it short of High, such as being close to a line, a young year, a typical year from few or far away years, a modest count, or a gap in NHTSA’s answers. The line under the label names the main one.
- Low
- Fewer than 15 owner complaints, a typical year from only 2 other years, or under 2 years of complaints. There is too little behind the verdict to lean on it much.
Why these lines: complaints come in at random, so a count swings by luck. Luck alone moves a count of 15 by about one part in 4, and a count of 50 by about one part in 7. A typical year taken from the middle of 6 or more years shrugs off one odd year. And some problems only show up as cars age, so a young year can still move.
The label never changes the verdict. Low does not mean the car is bad, and High does not mean the car in front of you is fine. It only says how much the numbers behind the verdict can carry. It is shown for the year verdict; the high mileage verdict counts far fewer complaints, so give it more room.
What the data cannot tell you
Complaints are unverified
An owner complaint is what an owner told NHTSA, in their own words. Nobody checks each one before it is counted. Read a few on the car’s page and judge them for yourself.
Counts are not adjusted for sales
A car that sells in big numbers collects more complaints than a rare one, however well it is built. That is why we only ever compare a year with the other years of the same model, and the verdict never compares one model with another. Sales still rise and fall from year to year within a model, and the count moves with them.
New cars have not had time
The newest 2 model years are too new to judge, so we do not. Older cars keep collecting complaints for years, so a raw count makes a newer year look far better than it is. The verdict counts every year to the same age instead, but the complaint counts and bars on each page are totals, so a newer year’s will be lower.
One bad option can drive a whole year
If one engine or transmission had a problem, that year’s count goes up for every version of the car, including the ones without it. Look at which parts the complaints are about, and which engine the car you are looking at has.
Recalls are by VIN
A recall listed for a model year may not cover every car built that year, and many recalled cars have already been fixed. Check the car’s own VIN with NHTSA’s recall lookup (opens in a new tab).
The car matters more than its year
A well kept car from a year marked Pass can serve you better than a neglected one from a year marked Worthy. Ask for the service records, check for open recalls, and have a mechanic you trust look it over before you buy.
How we make money
Free verdicts for good, plans for the deeper checks, and no dealer money.
The verdicts are free, and they stay free. The deeper checks come with a plan.
- Free
Every verdict, on every car, for good.
- Car Hunt Pass
A Car Hunt Pass is a one time payment of $15 for 30 days, a launch price, and it never renews.
- Pro
Pro is a subscription at $49 a year, a launch price, and it renews until you cancel.
That money pays for the site. There are no ads.
Our promise
Two things we will never do: take money from dealers, or sell your name.
An account holds only your email address, your plan and what you keep in My Garage: your cars, your notes on them and their service log. A verdict reads the same whoever is selling the car.