About 1 in 5 Cars Has an Unfixed Recall. Here Is How to Check Yours

What Carfax found

Carfax checked nearly 438,000 registered taxi and rideshare vehicles in 16 U.S. cities, using registration lists it got from state and city officials through public-records requests and open-data portals. About 27% had at least one unfixed safety recall. Across all U.S. vehicles, Carfax puts the share at about 20%.

The gap between cities was large: 38.6% in New York City and 37.5% in Seattle, against 11% in Los Angeles and 9% in Boston.

How to check your car

1. Find your 17-character VIN. It is on the driver-side dashboard (look through the windshield), on the driver's door frame and on your registration and insurance card.
2. Enter it at nhtsa.gov/recalls, the federal vehicle-safety agency's free lookup. It lists open recalls on that exact car.
3. If a recall is open, call a dealer for that brand and book the repair. Recall repairs are free, no matter how old the car is or how many owners it has had.
4. Check again every few months. New recalls are filed every week – we publish the ones on popular models in Recalls.

Buying used? Check before you pay

An open recall does not stop a car from being sold. Run the VIN before you buy, and pair it with a pre-purchase inspection – a mobile mechanic can do one where the seller keeps the car.

What a mobile mechanic can and cannot do

Recall work is done only by the brand's dealers, for free. A mobile mechanic cannot do recall repairs, but can handle the rest of the car's maintenance and repairs where it is parked.