How to Check If Your Car Has an Open Recall

What a recall actually is

A safety recall is issued when a manufacturer or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) determines that a vehicle, or an item of motor vehicle equipment, creates an unreasonable safety risk or fails to meet a federal safety standard. When that happens, the manufacturer is required to notify registered owners and fix the problem at no cost.

Recalls aren't limited to brand-new vehicles — they can be issued years, even a decade or more, after a vehicle was originally built, as problems come to light over time.

Two different things people mean by "checking for recalls"

It's worth separating these, since they're not the same question:

"Does this year/make/model have any recalls?" — general information about a vehicle line.
"Does my specific vehicle have an open, unrepaired recall?" — VIN-specific, and only NHTSA or the manufacturer can authoritatively answer this, since it depends on whether that particular vehicle's recall has already been completed.

Our Recall Research tool covers the first question — general recalls for a given year, make and model. For the second, VIN-specific question, use NHTSA's own VIN lookup, which can confirm repair status for your exact vehicle.

How often to check

There's no fixed schedule, but checking periodically — for example, whenever you get an oil change or other routine service — is a reasonable habit, since new recalls can be issued at any time for a vehicle you've owned for years.

What a recall repair costs

Recall repairs are performed free of charge by an authorized dealer for that manufacturer, regardless of who currently owns the vehicle or whether it's still under warranty. The main exception is age: federal law generally doesn't require a free remedy for vehicles first sold more than 15 years before the recall was issued, so for an older vehicle, check what the recall notice or the manufacturer says. If a dealer tries to charge you for a confirmed open recall repair on a vehicle it applies to, that's worth pushing back on.