Are recalls free, and do they expire?

When a manufacturer (or NHTSA) determines that a vehicle has a safety-related defect or does not comply with a federal motor vehicle safety standard, the manufacturer must notify owners and remedy the problem without charge when the vehicle is presented. It chooses how: repair the vehicle, replace it with an identical or reasonably equivalent vehicle, or refund the purchase price less a reasonable allowance for depreciation. Almost all recalls are repairs.

Free means the remedy itself: the parts, the labor and the inspection the campaign calls for. The work is done by franchised dealers of the brand, and the manufacturer pays them for it. You do not need to have bought the car from that dealer, to be the first owner, or to have a warranty in force.

What free does not automatically cover: unrelated repairs the dealer recommends, wear items, or damage the defect may have caused before the repair. Some manufacturers add extras such as loaners, towing or mobile service for particular campaigns; those are policies, not federal requirements, so ask. Our guide on what to do if your car has an open recall covers the booking.

For cars, trucks, SUVs and vans, there is no federal deadline for bringing the vehicle in after a recall is announced. A 2012 car recalled in 2020 can be brought in today; the open recall stays on the VIN until it is fixed. NHTSA encourages owners to check twice a year, because new campaigns are added all the time; our latest recalls page lists every campaign filed in the last 60 days.

Two things do expire:

• Tires. A recalled tire must be presented within 180 days of the owner notice, or of the later notice that replacements are available if they were not at first.
• Voluntary programs. Customer satisfaction programs, warranty extensions and goodwill campaigns have their own end dates and mileage caps.

Search tools have limits too. NHTSA’s VIN search shows safety recalls left unrepaired on that vehicle from the past 15 calendar years, using data supplied by the manufacturer. Some manufacturers’ own lookups go back further or less far; each brand page under build sheet by brand links the official lookup and notes its coverage.

The free-remedy duty does not apply if the vehicle was bought by its first purchaser more than 15 calendar years before the recall notice. Congress raised that limit from 10 to 15 years in 2015 (FAST Act). The clock runs from the first retail sale to the recall notice, not to the day you bring the car in.

Example: a car first sold in 2009 that is recalled this year falls outside the federal duty. The same car recalled in 2021, when it was 12 years old, is inside it, and still is today, because the notice came within 15 years.

Outside the 15 years, ask anyway. Manufacturers sometimes write older model years into a campaign on purpose, and some remedy older vehicles voluntarily. The age rule for reimbursing repairs you paid for before a recall is shorter: 10 years (see recall reimbursement).

Not every letter from a manufacturer is a safety recall. Technical service bulletins tell dealers how to fix a known problem and are only free under warranty or by goodwill. Customer satisfaction programs and warranty extensions are voluntary and time-limited. Emissions recalls run under EPA rules rather than NHTSA’s. The differences, and how to find each by VIN, are in recall vs. TSB vs. service campaign.

To see every NHTSA safety recall for your model year, enter your VIN above or browse recalls by make.