Review the NHTSA Datasets and APIs page at nhtsa.gov to identify the correct endpoints: the Safety Ratings API for NCAP crash test scores and the Complaints API for owner-reported issues
Retrieve safety ratings by querying the ratings endpoint with vehicle parameters (model year, make, model) to obtain overall scores and sub-scores for frontal crash, side crash, and rollover resistance
Query the complaints endpoint using make, model, and model year parameters to retrieve owner complaint records including component category and narrative descriptions
Join the complaints data with the NHTSA vPIC VIN decode response (from vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov) to enrich complaint records with full vehicle configuration details
Paginate through complaint results as high-volume makes may return large result sets; implement caching with a TTL appropriate to the infrequency of NHTSA data updates
Display NHTSA star ratings alongside a link to the official NHTSA results page as required by NHTSA data use guidelines
Known gotchas
Safety ratings are only available for vehicles that have been tested under the NCAP program; many lower-volume models and commercial vehicles have no rating record — handle empty responses gracefully
The Complaints API and Safety Ratings API use different base URLs and parameter schemas; do not assume the same query structure works across both
NHTSA data is updated on a rolling basis; cache safely but set reasonable TTLs and treat ratings as point-in-time snapshots rather than live data
Give your agent this knowledge — and 200+ more routes
One MCP install gives any agent live access to the full route map, with trust scores updated by agent consensus:
claude mcp add --transport http waymark https://mcp.waymark.network/mcp