Mercury Marquis vs Subaru WRX

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	Mercury Marquis	Subaru WRX
Complaints on file	501	1,232
Model years covered	1977–2004	2002–2025
Worst model year	1997	2002
Best model year	2004	2024
Crashes reported	48	81
Fires reported	37	20
Injuries reported	43	43
Deaths reported	0	1
Most complained-about part	Engine & Cooling	Fuel & Propulsion
Share of complaints involving harm	25.5%	11.8%

Mercury Marquis by year

1 1 1 23 6 4 5 14 11 8 10 30 25 44 26 40 62 40 31 24 27 11 42 15

77 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04

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

What breaks

Engine & Cooling 67 13.4%

Brakes 65 13.0%

Electrical System 61 12.2%

Acceleration & Cruise Control 54 10.8%

Lights 42 8.4%

Steering 28 5.6%

Transmission & Drivetrain 25 5.0%

Suspension 25 5.0%

Subaru WRX by year

461 65 46 24 14 119 72 3 5 4 11 9 73 40 73 63 44 23 21 36 7 15 4

02 03 04 05 06 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

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

What breaks

Fuel & Propulsion 407 33.0%

Transmission & Drivetrain 179 14.5%

Brakes 158 12.8%

Engine & Cooling 132 10.7%

Electrical System 70 5.7%

Other & Unspecified 66 5.4%

Body & Structure 54 4.4%

Windows, Mirrors & Wipers 31 2.5%