Chevrolet Cobalt vs Ford Taurus

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 Cobalt	Ford Taurus
Complaints on file	10,115	23,971
Model years covered	1996–2017	1977–2019
Worst model year	2006	2000
Best model year	2010	2019
Crashes reported	885	1,482
Fires reported	101	685
Injuries reported	485	926
Deaths reported	69	38
Most complained-about part	Steering	Engine & Cooling
Share of complaints involving harm	15.2%	13.1%

Chevrolet Cobalt by year

1 1 2 2,231 3,056 2,004 1,104 916 795 2 1 1 1

96 00 02 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 16 17

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

What breaks

Steering 3,925 38.8%

Fuel & Propulsion 1,623 16.0%

Electrical System 1,491 14.7%

Airbags 615 6.1%

Engine & Cooling 476 4.7%

Transmission & Drivetrain 372 3.7%

Brakes 243 2.4%

Suspension 222 2.2%

Ford Taurus by year

2 2 1 4 2 150 355 462 762 542 946 1,009 2,206 1,284 1,597 1,132 1,003 680 1,100 1,497 1,264 1,759 1,524 482 1,005 415 196 240 77 280 251 100 755 296 353 103 53 65 17

77 81 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 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

Engine & Cooling 3,716 15.5%

Suspension 3,366 14.0%

Transmission & Drivetrain 3,035 12.7%

Acceleration & Cruise Control 2,128 8.9%

Electrical System 1,721 7.2%

Brakes 1,501 6.3%

Steering 1,445 6.0%

Body & Structure 1,087 4.5%