Ford Probe vs Volkswagen Beetle

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	Ford Probe	Volkswagen Beetle
Complaints on file	1,483	3,621
Model years covered	1984–1999	1965–2019
Worst model year	1993	2000
Best model year	1996	2018
Crashes reported	99	173
Fires reported	49	160
Injuries reported	70	101
Deaths reported	3	4
Most complained-about part	Seat Belts	Transmission & Drivetrain
Share of complaints involving harm	14.9%	12.1%

Ford Probe by year

1 103 378 198 101 249 207 130 77 38 1

84 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 99

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

What breaks

Seat Belts 553 37.3%

Brakes 165 11.1%

Engine & Cooling 145 9.8%

Electrical System 128 8.6%

Transmission & Drivetrain 118 8.0%

Airbags 54 3.6%

Steering 50 3.4%

Windows, Mirrors & Wipers 49 3.3%

Volkswagen Beetle by year

5 1 1 1 4 289 280 373 291 231 405 469 330 161 79 109 39 42 88 125 71 108 63 19 21 16

65 69 70 73 74 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 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

Transmission & Drivetrain 616 17.0%

Airbags 546 15.1%

Electrical System 508 14.0%

Engine & Cooling 372 10.3%

Windows, Mirrors & Wipers 370 10.2%

Lights 205 5.7%

Body & Structure 166 4.6%

Brakes 134 3.7%