Recall Register

Ford Pinto: recalls and complaints by model year

NHTSA lists 21 recall campaigns for the Ford Pinto, model years 1971 to 1980. NHTSA has 5 complaints on file for this model line. 8 of the 10 model years have a page on this register.

Complaint information entered into NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation vehicle owner's complaint database is used with other data sources to identify safety issues that warrant investigation and to determine if a safety-related defect trend exists.

NHTSA publishes these words. Source: NHTSA Datasets and APIs, section Complaints, read on . Complaint file through . Recall file through .

Model years

The number under each year is the number of recall campaigns.

  1. 19715
  2. 19723
  3. 19734
  4. 19742
  5. 19751
  6. 19766
  7. 19774
  8. 19782
  9. 19792
  10. 19800
Ford Pinto: recall campaigns and complaints for each model year, newest first
Model yearRecall campaignsComplaintsShare of the line averageUnits in the campaigns
1980 Ford Pinto NHTSA page02400%
1979 Ford Pinto200%83,450
1978 Ford Pinto21200%84,956
1977 Ford Pinto400%101,688
1976 Ford Pinto61200%2,478,737
1975 Ford Pinto NHTSA page100%1,400,000
1974 Ford Pinto200%1,460,000
1973 Ford Pinto400%1,411,449
1972 Ford Pinto31200%1,428,552
1971 Ford Pinto500%1,650,236

The share is the complaints of the model year divided by the average of the line for one model year. A campaign that names 3 model years is in the count of each of the 3.

A model year with fewer than 2 campaigns and fewer than 25 complaints has no page here. The link in its row opens its NHTSA page.

Recall campaign: One recall in the NHTSA recall file, with one campaign number. A campaign can name many makes, models and model years.

Complaint: A report about a possible safety problem that a person sends to NHTSA. This site shows the number of complaints and not their text.

Units: The number of vehicles or products that a recall can include. The manufacturer or the firm reports the number to the agency.

Components in the complaints

5 component mentions.

A complaint can name more than one component. Each component that a complaint names is one component mention. The figure per 1,000 component mentions shows how many of each 1,000 mentions name the component.

Ford Pinto: complaints by component, per 1,000 component mentions
ComponentPer 1,000Mentions
Seat Belts2001
Fuel System, Gasoline2001
Electrical System2001
Vehicle Speed Control2001
Tires2001

Counts by year

Recall campaigns that name the Ford Pinto, by the year NHTSA received the report.
Complaints about the Ford Pinto, by the year NHTSA received them. The largest year is 1996, with 2 complaints.

Other model lines of the make

Ford: all 201 model lines

Official channels

Cite this page

Recall Register. Ford Pinto: recalls and complaints by model year. https://recallregister.com/vehicle/ford/pinto/. Source: NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation, recall, complaint and investigation files. Data through .

Sources

Source
NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation
Licence
US government work, public domain
Recall file through
29 Sep 2026
Complaint file through
15 May 2019
Manufacturer in the recall file
FORD MOTOR COMPANY

The model name is the name in the NHTSA files. NHTSA keeps a variant of a model as a different line. How the register is made. Report an error.

Questions

Which Ford Pinto model years have the most recall campaigns?
1976 with 6, 1971 with 5, 1977 with 4. A campaign that names 3 model years is in the count of each of the 3.
Which Ford Pinto model year has the most complaints?
The 1980 model year, with 2 of the 5 complaints for the line. A newer model year has had less time to get complaints.
Which components do the complaints about the Ford Pinto name?
Seat Belts: 1 component mention. Fuel System, Gasoline: 1 component mention. Electrical System: 1 component mention.
How many NHTSA investigations name the Ford Pinto?
1 investigation names one or more model years of the line. The page of each model year lists its investigations.