Pontiac Firebird vs Saturn LS

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	Saturn LS
Complaints on file	802	1,885
Model years covered	1976–2002	2000–2004
Worst model year	1995	2001
Best model year	2001	2000
Crashes reported	86	49
Fires reported	53	49
Injuries reported	52	38
Deaths reported	5	5
Most complained-about part	Brakes	Engine & Cooling
Share of complaints involving harm	24.4%	7.5%

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%

Saturn LS by year

544 708 631 2

00 01 02 04

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

What breaks

Engine & Cooling 745 39.5%

Electrical System 258 13.7%

Lights 213 11.3%

Steering 86 4.6%

Transmission & Drivetrain 83 4.4%

Fuel & Propulsion 80 4.2%

Suspension 78 4.1%

Brakes 70 3.7%