Volkswagen Golf vs Buick Lesabre

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	Volkswagen Golf	Buick Lesabre
Complaints on file	2,009	4,865
Model years covered	1985–2023	1971–2006
Worst model year	2015	2000
Best model year	2021	1996
Crashes reported	77	278
Fires reported	44	320
Injuries reported	74	213
Deaths reported	1	6
Most complained-about part	Engine & Cooling	Engine & Cooling
Share of complaints involving harm	9.8%	16.8%

Volkswagen Golf by year

15 20 4 9 41 10 11 6 11 57 84 4 7 28 76 118 152 98 32 33 27 16 2 1 5 97 151 68 67 14 185 115 145 38 88 8 12 132 22

85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

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

What breaks

Engine & Cooling 312 15.5%

Fuel & Propulsion 309 15.4%

Electrical System 212 10.6%

Airbags 195 9.7%

Transmission & Drivetrain 158 7.9%

Other & Unspecified 111 5.5%

Brakes 100 5.0%

Windows, Mirrors & Wipers 97 4.8%

Buick Lesabre by year

1 1 2 1 1 7 6 20 53 22 35 75 46 245 264 220 235 121 514 518 268 849 460 381 209 212 95 4

71 77 79 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06

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

What breaks

Engine & Cooling 848 17.4%

Windows, Mirrors & Wipers 590 12.1%

Electrical System 562 11.6%

Brakes 476 9.8%

Fuel & Propulsion 319 6.6%

Airbags 293 6.0%

Body & Structure 293 6.0%

Transmission & Drivetrain 267 5.5%