ProblemsByVin/nhtsa-investigations

NHTSA Defect Investigations

Every NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) action touching a tracked vehicle — open and historical. The leading indicator of a recall: a Preliminary Evaluation (PE) can escalate to an Engineering Analysis (EA) and then a recall. Includes the recall campaign number for investigations that became recalls.

Columns

column	meaning
action_number	NHTSA investigation ID (prefix = type)
type	PE | EA | RQ | DP | AQ — investigation stage
status	open | closed, per the NHTSA record
make	Manufacturer (blank if it spans multiple makes)
model	Model (blank if it spans multiple models)
year_start	Earliest affected model year in our fleet
year_end	Latest affected model year in our fleet
component	NHTSA component under investigation
opened	Investigation open date
closed	Close date (blank if open)
recall_campaign	NHTSA recall campaign # if it led to a recall
nhtsa_url	Official NHTSA record

Source & methodology

Parsed from NHTSA’s ODI investigations flat file (FLAT_INV) and matched to our vehicles by year/make/model. One row per NHTSA action number. "status" is open when the federal record carries no close date; "recall_campaign" holds the NHTSA campaign number when the investigation led to a recall. An investigation is NHTSA examining a pattern — not a confirmed defect.

Canonical version, full methodology, and the other datasets: https://problemsbyvin.com/data/ .

License

CC BY 4.0 — free to use with attribution to ProblemsByVin (https://problemsbyvin.com).