The 10 Worst Cars to Avoid in 2026

Every entry on this list pulls from real owner complaints filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. We aggregate complaints by make, model, and model year, throw out anything below 50 complaints to filter noise, then assign each remaining model year a Klunk Score from 0 to 100. The ten lowest scores make the list.

Two practical caveats worth flagging up front:

• Best-selling models accumulate more complaints than rare models even if they are equally reliable per capita. We do not normalize by sales volume in this report; cross-make comparisons should be read with that in mind.
• Newer model years have less time on the road and naturally fewer complaints. The list skews toward established model years for that reason.

For the full methodology, see the Klunk Score methodology page.