Mercury Marquis vs Volkswagen Routan

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	Volkswagen Routan
Complaints on file	501	1,249
Model years covered	1977–2004	2008–2014
Worst model year	1997	2009
Best model year	2004	2012
Crashes reported	48	23
Fires reported	37	16
Injuries reported	43	35
Deaths reported	0	0
Most complained-about part	Engine & Cooling	Electrical System
Share of complaints involving harm	25.5%	5.9%

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%

Volkswagen Routan by year

3 460 359 302 115 8 2

08 09 10 11 12 13 14

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

What breaks

Electrical System 456 36.5%

Engine & Cooling 207 16.6%

Brakes 106 8.5%

Steering 76 6.1%

Transmission & Drivetrain 70 5.6%

Fuel & Propulsion 61 4.9%

Other & Unspecified 57 4.6%

Stability & Traction Control 36 2.9%