PulsCar analysis of NHTSA public data, September 2026 Topic: transmission slipping - owner complaints, recall campaigns and manufacturer communications License: CC BY 4.0 (attribution: "PulsCar analysis of NHTSA public data, September 2026") SOURCES - NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation flat file COMPLAINTS (FLAT_CMPL), field dictionary https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/ffdd/cmpl/CMPL.txt 777,040 owner complaints received 1 January 2015 - 8 September 2026. - NHTSA ODI flat file RECALLS (FLAT_RCL), dictionary https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/ffdd/rcl/RCL.txt - NHTSA ODI flat file MANUFACTURER COMMUNICATIONS (FLAT_TSBS), dictionary https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/ffdd/tsbs/TSBS.txt - Downloaded and indexed 17 September 2026; queries run 18 September 2026. QUERY - "a complaint that describes a transmission slipping" Step 1. Full-text search for (transmission OR transmissions OR CVT OR gearbox OR transaxle) AND (slipping OR slips OR slipped OR slip). -> 5,057 complaints. Step 2. Motorcycle and powersports makes removed. -> 5,043. Step 3. Slip-phrase test. The narrative must contain an explicit drivetrain slip phrase, not just the word "slip": "transmission slipping / slips / is slipping", "trans slipping", "slipping transmission", "gears slip", "gears are slipping", "clutch slip", "CVT slip", "slipping / slips / slipped out of gear", "slipping when accelerating", "feels like it is slipping", "like the transmission was slipping", "it slips", "started / began / kept slipping". -> 2,552. Step 4. Subject test. The narrative must also name the transmission, transaxle, CVT, gearbox, torque converter, valve body, a solenoid, shifting, the drivetrain or the powertrain. Every Step-3 survivor already did, so nothing was removed here; the step is kept because it defines the set. Step 5. Non-drivetrain slip guard. Where the only slip phrase is a generic one ("it slips") and the narrative also contains a tire, belt, ice, seat-belt or brake slip phrase, the complaint is dropped. Nothing in this file matched, which is itself worth recording - the generic phrases in Step 3 only appeared beside drivetrain language. -> 2,552 complaints, received 1 January 2015 to 8 September 2026. This is the published set. SAMPLE READING (required before publishing any keyword count) Thirty random matches were read in full. Twenty-eight described a transmission that slipped, flared, dropped to neutral or would not deliver power; two were complaints about something else - a battery/injector fault and a cooling failure - whose narrative mentioned slipping in passing. The observed false-positive rate is therefore about 7% in a sample of 30. The article describes these as "complaints whose narrative says the transmission was slipping", never as confirmed slip diagnoses and never as a failure rate. FIGURES QUOTED IN THE ARTICLE (published set, n = 2,552) Towed 2.23% (57) against a 5.11% baseline over all 777,040 complaints. Crash 1.88% (48) against 4.37%. Fire 0.27% (7) against 1.82%. 32 injuries, 0 deaths. Mileage: median 73,900; quartiles 30,000 and 110,000 (n = 1,357 with a usable odometer reading; miles <= 0 or >= 400,000 dropped). Baseline median 70,000. 382 of the 1,357 (28.1%) are at or under 36,000 miles and 567 (41.8%) at or under 60,000. What the narrative names as the repair (a complaint may name more than one, and most name none): transmission replaced or a new/reman unit fitted 236 (9.2%); fluid changed, flushed or topped up 85 (3.3%); software, reprogramming or a relearn 80 (3.1%); torque converter 77 (3.0%); TCM or control module 46 (1.8%); solenoid 39 (1.5%); valve body 30 (1.2%); rebuilt 28 (1.1%); clutch or clutch pack 27 (1.1%). This ratio is NOT a cause distribution and the article says so explicitly - people file federal safety complaints about expensive, unresolved failures, so the file over-represents replacement and under-represents anything a $200 service quietly fixed. Context words: names a recall, extended warranty, settlement or class action 635 (24.9%); describes slipping into neutral or losing power in traffic 489 (19.2%); says the repair did not fix it or the failure returned 160 (6.3%); shop could not duplicate or found no problem 61 (2.4%); told the condition is normal, characteristic or operating as designed 58 (2.3%). Owner-quoted dollar figures: every "$N" between $100 and $25,000 in a narrative was collected - 324 figures, median $3,496, quartiles $1,200 and $5,475, 63.9% at or above $2,500 and only 10.2% at or under $400. These are NOT prices. They are amounts owners typed into a safety complaint, which selects for the expensive end of the ladder. Make and model: Ford 903 (35.4% of the set), Nissan 366 (14.3%), Chevrolet 235 (9.2%), Jeep 166 (6.5%), Honda 132 (5.2%). Nameplates: Ford Focus 299 (median 42,000 miles, 44% of those with a reading at or under 36,000), Ford F-150 195 (median 103,150), Ford Escape 88, Jeep Cherokee 75 (median 24,000, 64% at or under 36,000), Nissan Sentra 69, Chevrolet Silverado 1500 68 (median 23,800, 56% at or under 36,000). QUERY - recall campaigns Rows in FLAT_RCL whose COMPONENT names a transmission or power train AND whose defect or consequence text names a loss of motive power, loss of propulsion, an unexpected shift to neutral, a loss of drive, slipping, or a transmission that fails to engage. Excluded: motorcycle, powersports and heavy-truck makes, and any campaign whose text is about rollaway, a parking pawl, a driveshaft or halfshaft, seat belts, air bags or brakes - those reach the same component field for different reasons. Counted DISTINCT on the campaign number. -> 57 campaigns, 2,095,745 potentially affected vehicles, of which 21 have a software, reprogramming or recalibration remedy (file slip-recall-campaigns.csv). QUERY - manufacturer communications Rows in FLAT_TSBS whose summary names a transmission, transaxle or CVT AND a slip, shudder, flare or neutral condition. Volkswagen's monthly "VIN4APIN" index documents removed. Counted DISTINCT on NHTSA_ID. -> 698 documents (file slip-bulletins-by-theme.csv). 308 (44.1%) describe slipping or a flare to neutral; 304 (43.6%) put software, a reprogram, a relearn or a calibration in the remedy; 197 (28.2%) describe a shudder; 96 (13.8%) name the fluid; 76 (10.9%) tell the technician the condition is normal or not to replace the unit; 70 (10.0%) name the torque converter; 36 name a solenoid; 19 name the valve body. LIMITATIONS - Complaints are self-reported, unverified, and are not a failure rate. There is no denominator - no public dataset gives vehicles on the road by model and transmission - so nothing here ranks reliability and no make is called better or worse than another. - The file is selected for expensive, unresolved and frightening failures. A driver whose flare disappeared after a $220 fluid service almost never files. This is why the repair counts above are published as "what owners who filed said was done", and why they are not used anywhere on the page as a cause distribution. - Only 1,357 of 2,552 complaints carry a usable odometer reading, so every mileage figure describes that subset. - Ford's share (35.4%) is dominated by the PowerShift dual-clutch Focus and Fiesta and by the F-150; that is a story about two specific platforms, not about the brand. - Bulletin theme counts are counts of what a one-paragraph summary says, not of what the full document instructs. The full PDFs are not in the flat file; the ones quoted in the article were opened individually. FILES slip-complaints-by-make.csv complaints, median failure mileage and tow share by make slip-top-models.csv nameplates with 5+ complaints, with the share under 36,000 miles slip-what-owners-say-was-done.csv repairs named in the narratives slip-symptom-and-context.csv context words and towed/crash/fire against baseline slip-owner-reported-amounts.csv owner-typed dollar figures, bucketed slip-recall-campaigns.csv 57 campaigns, with whether the remedy is software only slip-bulletins-by-theme.csv 698 slip/shudder/flare bulletins by theme and by make ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CASE SENSITIVITY — SECTION ADDED 19 SEPTEMBER 2026 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NHTSA stores complaint narratives in ALL CAPS for records filed through roughly 2020 and in mixed case for records filed from 2021 on. A case-SENSITIVE search of the narrative field loses about 92% of the complaints filed after 2020, so this is the single largest way an analysis of this database can go wrong while still looking finished. Every query behind this file is case-insensitive. SQLite's LIKE and its FTS5 full-text index both ignore case by default, and no query in this work uses GLOB or any case-sensitive comparison. This was not taken on trust. On 19 September 2026 every published folder was re-checked against the same database, comparing the figures here with what a case-sensitive query would have returned. The result: the complaint set published here (5,057) is LARGER than the absolute ceiling a case-sensitive search of the same terms could have returned (1,763 narratives). A case-sensitive query cannot produce a bigger set than itself, so the bug is ruled out for this folder by arithmetic, not by assurance.