Mercury Sable vs Toyota Prius

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 Sable	Toyota Prius
Complaints on file	7,190	15,583
Model years covered	1984–2009	2000–2026
Worst model year	2000	2010
Best model year	2005	2025
Crashes reported	406	1,469
Fires reported	252	101
Injuries reported	264	602
Deaths reported	5	18
Most complained-about part	Engine & Cooling	Brakes
Share of complaints involving harm	12.9%	14.1%

Mercury Sable by year

1 55 105 189 300 220 346 517 981 534 485 391 326 243 302 578 528 541 251 75 112 2 81 27

84 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 08 09

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

What breaks

Engine & Cooling 1,423 19.8%

Suspension 988 13.7%

Transmission & Drivetrain 844 11.7%

Acceleration & Cruise Control 520 7.2%

Brakes 499 6.9%

Electrical System 472 6.6%

Body & Structure 341 4.7%

Steering 337 4.7%

Toyota Prius by year

4 215 201 123 737 1,298 1,690 2,451 1,894 644 3,482 664 544 544 281 215 215 127 46 53 23 11 31 26 31 28 5

00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

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

What breaks

Brakes 4,567 29.3%

Lights 3,536 22.7%

Electrical System 1,607 10.3%

Acceleration & Cruise Control 1,048 6.7%

Engine & Cooling 784 5.0%

Other & Unspecified 557 3.6%

Airbags 436 2.8%

Body & Structure 430 2.8%