Recalls & Safety API
live from NHTSA, per vehicle.
One call returns live NHTSA recall campaigns and the NCAP crash-test rating — overall, front, side and rollover — for any vehicle, keyed to the same UUID as its specs and economy.
Free plan: 100 API calls/mo — no card.
Key endpoint
Recalls and NCAP ratings come back in a single JSON response, keyed to the vehicle UUID.
GET
/v1/cars/{uuid}/recalls
|
Live NHTSA recall campaigns plus the NCAP crash-test rating (overall, front, side, rollover) for the vehicle. |
GET
/v1/cars
|
List cars to find the UUID first — filter by make, model and year, then call the recalls endpoint. |
GET
/v1/cars/{uuid}
|
Single car by UUID — full specifications, addressed by the same identifier used for recalls. |
Base URL: https://api.vehdb.com/v1
Response fields
One call covers both recall campaigns and crash-safety ratings.
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
recall_count |
integer | Number of open NHTSA recall campaigns affecting the vehicle |
campaigns |
array | List of recall campaigns — campaign ID, component, and summary |
ncap.overall |
integer | NCAP overall crash-test rating (stars) |
ncap.front |
integer | NCAP frontal crash rating (stars) |
ncap.side |
integer | NCAP side crash rating (stars) |
ncap.rollover |
integer | NCAP rollover resistance rating (stars) |
Why safety data lives on the same UUID
Recalls move. Tying them to the spec record means one identifier answers "what is it" and "is it safe."
Live from NHTSA
Recall campaigns are fetched live at request time, not stored — a new campaign appears in your response the moment NHTSA issues it.
NCAP in the same call
Overall, front, side and rollover crash-test stars come back alongside the recall list, so one request covers recalls and safety together.
Keyed to the vehicle UUID
The recalls endpoint uses the same UUID as specs, EPA economy and tire fitment — store one identifier, answer every question.
See the Cars API, our data sources, and the solutions we power.
Example response
Recall campaigns and NCAP ratings in one JSON object, keyed to the vehicle UUID.
{
"uuid": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
"make": "Honda",
"model": "CR-V",
"year": 2023,
"recall_count": 2,
"campaigns": [
{
"campaign_id": "23V456000",
"component": "ELECTRICAL SYSTEM",
"summary": "Software may fail to detect a fault, disabling the rearview camera.",
"remedy": "Dealers will update the software, free of charge."
}
],
"ncap": {
"overall": 5,
"front": 4,
"side": 5,
"rollover": 4
}
}
Recall data is fetched live from NHTSA at request time and is not stored.
Recalls & Safety API FAQ
Common questions about VehDB's recall and safety API.
Also see the Cars and Fuel Economy APIs, the data sources, or the API overview.
Your AI agent's vehicle-data tools —
not glue code.
VehDB ships a native Model Context Protocol server. Claude, Cursor or any MCP client queries cars, recalls, fuel economy and tire fitment as first-class tools — no wrappers, no scraping, no glue code to maintain.
- Native MCP tools — search_vehicles, tire_sizes_for_vehicle, recalls, my_lists — callable by Claude, Cursor or any agent.
- OAuth2 for AI providers plus simple Bearer tokens. Same auth, same data as the REST API and workspace.
- No scraping, no function-calling boilerplate, no schema drift — the agent gets typed, documented tools.
{ "mcpServers": {
"vehdb": { "url": "https://mcp.vehdb.com/mcp" }
} }