Chevrolet C20 vs Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen

Both cars' complete complaint records, side by side.

Read the totals carefully. NHTSA publishes no sales figures, so the car that sold more collects more complaints regardless of quality. The rows worth weighing are the proportions — the share of complaints that involved harm, and which part dominates.

Measure	Chevrolet C20	Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen
Complaints on file	100	246
Model years covered	1970–1997	2013–2019
Worst model year	1995	2015
Best model year	1993	2019
Crashes reported	14	18
Fires reported	7	2
Injuries reported	7	16
Deaths reported	0	0
Most complained-about part	Brakes	Electrical System
Share of complaints involving harm	28%	14.6%

Chevrolet C20 by year

1 1 1 1 1 5 1 1 1 6 2 3 4 2 6 7 2 25 13 15 2

70 71 72 74 78 80 81 82 83 84 85 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 97

Complaints filed with NHTSA, by model year. Bar colour is the FaultScore grade: A B C D F ungraded

What breaks

Brakes 22 22.0%

Seat Belts 13 13.0%

Tires 9 9.0%

Transmission & Drivetrain 8 8.0%

Fuel & Propulsion 7 7.0%

Engine & Cooling 6 6.0%

Electrical System 6 6.0%

Body & Structure 5 5.0%

Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen by year

3 85 73 54 19 12

13 15 16 17 18 19

Complaints filed with NHTSA, by model year. Bar colour is the FaultScore grade: A B C D F ungraded

What breaks

Electrical System 37 15.0%

Airbags 37 15.0%

Other & Unspecified 32 13.0%

Engine & Cooling 27 11.0%

Suspension 27 11.0%

Fuel & Propulsion 23 9.3%

Transmission & Drivetrain 14 5.7%

Body & Structure 14 5.7%