How we build our reports

Where the data comes from

• NHTSA (the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration): vehicle identity, recall campaigns for each model year, owner complaint records, and crash-test ratings. This is public government data.
• EPA / fueleconomy.gov: fuel-economy figures used in cost-to-own estimates.
• Cited industry references: original MSRP by trim, depreciation curves, and maintenance and repair cost estimates come from published industry sources. Each figure's source is linked on the report page where it appears. CarVitals is not affiliated with any of them.

How it is verified

Data is collected from the sources above, not from memory or from other summaries, and every stored figure keeps its citation. Inserts run through validation that rejects out-of-range and inconsistent values. After collection, sampled audits re-fetch the cited sources to re-verify stored figures, correct errors, and flag source drift. When a value can't be verified, we store nothing: a blank beats a guess.

How summaries are written

The verdicts and issue descriptions are synthesized from the records above with AI assistance, then constrained by the same rules as the data: they may only describe what the cited records support, in language like "patterns, not guarantees." CarVitals is built and maintained by one independent developer; there is no editorial staff, and we don't pretend otherwise. See About.

What we refuse to guess at

• No invented probabilities. NHTSA complaint data has no denominator, so we describe reporting patterns and show real complaint counts. We never state a failure probability.
• No VIN-level open-recall claims. Whether a specific car has an open recall depends on its VIN; we show the model year's recall campaigns and tell you the repair is free at franchised dealers.
• No market-price judgments. Original MSRP and depreciation context are labeled anchors, not a verdict on a listing's price.
• No filler. If a section has no verified data yet, it is left out rather than padded. Reports fill in as verification completes, and each page shows its last-updated date.