Free VIN check and lemon check for any used car — safety recalls, owner complaints, crash-test ratings and known bad years, in seconds, before you message the seller. Real government (NHTSA) records, not AI guesses.
Recalls · complaints · ratings · bad-year detector
The VIN is on the windshield corner, driver's door jamb, the title, or often right in the listing photos.
No account, no fees, no catch. Just type the car — or paste its VIN — and read the record before you fall for the photos.
Type the year, make and model, or paste the 17-character VIN straight from the listing.
We query the U.S. government's NHTSA databases for every recall, complaint and crash-test rating on file.
See the risk at a glance, spot the bad model years, and get a checklist of questions to ask the seller.
The seller shows you the good angles. We show you the record.
Every open recall on record for that exact year — and whether the fix is free at the dealer. Ask if it was done.
Real problems filed with NHTSA, grouped by part, so you can see if that year is known for transmission or engine trouble.
A chart comparing complaint volume across nearby model years. Sometimes the smart move is the same car, one year newer — see our most reliable used car years.
Official NHTSA overall, frontal, side and rollover star ratings — how it actually protects you in a wreck.
Paste a VIN and we identify the exact engine, horsepower and trim — straight from NHTSA's official decoder.
A ready-made checklist tailored to that car's complaint history. Copy it and paste it straight to the seller.
Add the free Chrome extension and Lemon Auto Check appears automatically on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, AutoTrader, Cars.com, CarGurus, eBay, Kijiji and OfferUp.
🍋 Add to Chrome — freeOn your phone? The tool above works great in any mobile browser — no install needed.
Everything used-car buyers ask before they run a check.
Enter the year, make and model — or paste the VIN — above. Lemon Auto Check instantly pulls every NHTSA safety recall, owner complaint and crash-test rating on record and flags the known bad model years, so you can spot a likely lemon before you buy. It's free, with no sign-up.
Open the VIN tab and paste the 17-character VIN. Lemon Auto Check decodes the exact year, make, model, engine and trim with NHTSA's official decoder, then looks up every open recall and owner complaint for that vehicle — free, in seconds.
All recall, complaint and crash-test data comes directly from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA.gov). VINs are decoded with NHTSA's official public decoder. Coverage is strongest for vehicles sold in North America.
A recall is a manufacturer or NHTSA notice about a safety defect affecting a whole class of vehicles — the fix is free at the dealer. A "lemon" is one specific car with a defect that couldn't be repaired. Lemon Auto Check shows the recall and complaint pattern for the model year so you can judge the risk on the exact car you're looking at.
Yes. The free Chrome extension shows the recall and complaint record automatically on popular marketplace and classifieds listings, or you can look up any vehicle manually from the toolbar popup at any time.