Pontiac Firebird vs Mitsubishi Outlander

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	Pontiac Firebird	Mitsubishi Outlander
Complaints on file	802	1,886
Model years covered	1976–2002	2003–2026
Worst model year	1995	2022
Best model year	2001	2006
Crashes reported	86	195
Fires reported	53	20
Injuries reported	52	106
Deaths reported	5	0
Most complained-about part	Brakes	Engine & Cooling
Share of complaints involving harm	24.4%	17%

Pontiac Firebird by year

1 1 3 2 2 5 6 20 22 27 11 10 23 10 29 33 18 72 112 50 59 91 76 35 36 48

76 77 78 79 80 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02

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

What breaks

Brakes 148 18.5%

Electrical System 86 10.7%

Fuel & Propulsion 70 8.7%

Seat Belts 68 8.5%

Engine & Cooling 67 8.4%

Transmission & Drivetrain 54 6.7%

Airbags 45 5.6%

Steering 39 4.9%

Mitsubishi Outlander by year

149 73 26 25 175 80 61 76 88 34 34 58 79 208 81 81 46 46 317 77 45 20 7

03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 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

Engine & Cooling 182 9.7%

Transmission & Drivetrain 181 9.6%

Suspension 173 9.2%

Electrical System 165 8.7%

Body & Structure 157 8.3%

Other & Unspecified 144 7.6%

Brakes 124 6.6%

Airbags 109 5.8%