Defect Investigation

What It Means

A defect investigation is a multi-stage inquiry conducted by NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation (ODI), which employs roughly 60 engineers and analysts and opens approximately 100 new screenings per year across passenger vehicles, motorcycles, heavy trucks, tires, child seats, and aftermarket equipment. Investigations progress through four increasingly formal stages. Stage one is an informal Defect Assessment (DA), where ODI engineers review incoming complaints and EWR data to decide whether deeper work is warranted. Stage two is the Preliminary Evaluation (PE), which takes on average 4 to 6 months and involves information requests to the manufacturer under 49 U.S.C. 30166. Stage three is the Engineering Analysis (EA), which takes on average 12 to 18 months, involves vehicle teardowns, component testing at NHTSA's Vehicle Research and Test Center in East Liberty, Ohio, and accident reconstruction. Stage four, rarely reached, is a formal Initial Decision of Defect followed by a public hearing, after which NHTSA can order a mandatory recall if the manufacturer refuses to issue a voluntary one. In practice, more than 90 percent of investigations either close with no defect found or end in a voluntary manufacturer recall before reaching the mandatory-order stage. Famous investigations include PE06-005 / EA07-010 (Toyota unintended acceleration, which led to the 2009-2010 recall of 9 million vehicles and a $1.2 billion fine under TREAD), PE14-016 (GM ignition switch, which led to multiple 2014 recalls covering 30 million vehicles and a $900 million fine), and EA15-001 through EA22-xxx (rolling Takata airbag investigations, which have now covered 67 million inflators). RecallCheck links to every open investigation affecting a vehicle on the vehicle page under "Active Investigations," pulled directly from the NHTSA ODI feed.

Defect Investigation is one of the NHTSA or vehicle-safety concepts that recurs across RecallIndex. The definition above is the technical answer; below is how the concept connects to the NHTSA data that drives every vehicle page on the site.

In the RecallIndex Safety Score, this concept feeds one of the four factor weights — recall severity (40 percent), complaint frequency (30 percent), crash and fire reports (20 percent), or trend direction (10 percent). The methodology page on the site walks through every input in detail.

Frequently Asked Questions