FastCarMarket helps you research a used car before you buy it. Each model-year report combines public federal safety data with a plain-English buying guide. We focus on used performance and enthusiast cars, and we are adding more models over time.
Where the data comes from
Recalls, owner complaints and 5-star crash ratings come from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the US government agency responsible for vehicle safety. We pull that data directly from NHTSA's public databases and refresh it every week. Each report shows the date the data was last checked.
- Recalls are safety defects that the manufacturer or NHTSA has identified, along with the risk and the fix. Repairs for safety recalls are free at a dealer.
- Owner complaints are reports drivers file with NHTSA. They are not verified, but patterns across many complaints often point to real problems.
- Crash ratings come from NHTSA's New Car Assessment Program and apply to the version NHTSA tested.
How the buying guides are written
The written guides use that data to explain what tends to go wrong with a model year and what to check on a test drive. We don't publish a model year until its guide is written, and we don't invent repair costs, prices or failure rates.
What we can't tell you
Model-year data covers every car of that year. It can't tell you whether one specific car was in an accident or had its recalls repaired. For that, check the car's 17-character VIN at NHTSA's free recall lookup and consider a vehicle history report and an inspection by an independent mechanic.
FastCarMarket is independent and not affiliated with NHTSA or any automaker.
Accuracy and corrections
We do not publish a claim we could not verify. Recall, complaint and crash-rating figures come straight from NHTSA and show the date they were checked. Everything else is as accurate as we were able to locate when the page was written, and each page shows its date. We do not publish prices, repair costs, failure rates or performance figures unless we can source and date them.
Trims, options and recalls vary by car, and a guide cannot tell you the condition of one specific vehicle. If we learn that something on a page is wrong, we correct it and update the page's date.