By model year

Chevrolet Cavalier by model year: recalls, complaints, ratings

For the Chevrolet Cavalier, matched NHTSA complaint counts in this table run from 196 (2002) to 678 (2003). The complaint file is dated Oct 23, 2026. These are raw counts, not rates. A higher count can mean more vehicles were sold, and newer model years have had less time for complaints to be reported.

ABOUT THIS DATA

The table lists raw counts from NHTSA's files. A larger complaint count can mean more vehicles were sold, and newer model years have had less time for complaints to be reported. The counts are not divided by sales. This page does not rank one model year above another.

One row per model year. Complaint and recall figures are matched raw counts.

2000	2	315	25	8	3	Pre-2011	22–24
2001	1	243	23	8	2	Pre-2011	21–24
2002	0	196	24	4	0	Pre-2011	21–25
2003	1	678	31	6	4	Pre-2011	24–25
2004	1	330	17	6	0	Pre-2011	24–27
2005	0	287	7	0	0	Pre-2011	25–26

Star columns say "Pre-2011" for older model years because those ratings use a different NHTSA method. Overall stars for 2011 and newer are the matched Safety Ratings variants. A dash means no overall star was matched.