AutoUtility currently tracks 25 official NHTSA owner defect complaints for the 2018 Toyota Avalon. Air Bags & Restraints issues are the most frequently reported category, appearing in 6 complaints (24% of submitted records). Among these NHTSA complaint records, 7 filings cite a crash, 4 report one or more injuries.

Key Problem Findings
  • Total NHTSA Complaints: 25 reports
  • #1 Reported Problem Area: Air Bags & Restraints (6 reports • 24% of submitted complaints)
  • Secondary Problem Areas: Driver Assistance & Safety Tech (4), Steering System (4)
  • Crash-Citing Complaints: 7 filings
  • Fire-Citing Complaints: 0 filings
  • Complaints Reporting Injuries / Fatalities: 4 injury filings • 0 fatality filings
Reporting Methodology: Statistics describe unverified consumer submissions voluntarily filed with NHTSA. Complaint volume is not normalized for vehicle sales volume or miles driven. Multiple components can be cited within a single owner complaint submission.
Total Complaints
25
Submitted to NHTSA ODI
Crash-Citing Complaints
7
Filings citing a collision
Fire-Citing Complaints
0
Filings citing smoke or fire
Complaints Reporting Injuries
4
Filings citing one or more injuries
Complaints Reporting Fatalities
0
Consumer filings citing fatalities

Most Reported Problems for 2018 Toyota Avalon

Top automotive subsystem defect categories ranked by unique owner complaint volume in federal records

#1 Problem Area 24% of complaints

Air Bags & Restraints

6 owner complaints submitted to NHTSA ODI
⚠️ NHTSA Recall Context

NHTSA records list 1 official safety recall campaign for this model year involving the same broad component area:

*Component overlap means an official recall exists for the same broad vehicle system. It does not establish that an individual owner complaint was caused by, covered by, or resolved through that recall.
⚠️ 5 crash reports 🩹 4 injury report entries
#2 Problem Area 16% of complaints

Driver Assistance & Safety Tech

4 owner complaints submitted to NHTSA ODI
⚠️ 1 crash report
#3 Problem Area 16% of complaints

Steering System

4 owner complaints submitted to NHTSA ODI
⚠️ 2 crash reports 🩹 1 injury report entry
#4 Problem Area 12% of complaints

Fuel & Propulsion System

3 owner complaints submitted to NHTSA ODI
⚠️ NHTSA Recall Context

NHTSA records list 1 official safety recall campaign for this model year involving the same broad component area:

*Component overlap means an official recall exists for the same broad vehicle system. It does not establish that an individual owner complaint was caused by, covered by, or resolved through that recall.
✓ 0 crashes or fires cited
#5 Problem Area 8% of complaints

Electrical System

2 owner complaints submitted to NHTSA ODI
✓ 0 crashes or fires cited
Domain Share Note: Share percentage represents the proportion of unique complaint filings referencing each vehicle system. Because single complaints may cite multiple systems (such as engine and electrical simultaneously), domain percentages represent individual category incidence and may sum to over 100%.

Recent NHTSA Owner Reports for 2018 Toyota Avalon

Representative defect filings submitted by owners to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation

Air Bags & Restraints NHTSA ODI ID: #11701511
Crash Cited 1 Injury Entry Filed: 11/25/2025

"Involved in a 2 vehicle accident on October 26th. My car is totaled and so is the other car. No airbags deployed and my drivers side seat belt failed to lock in the accident. I was injured and taken by ambulance to hospital."

Incident Date: 10/26/2025 • Raw NHTSA Component: AIR BAGS,SEAT BELTS
Driver Assistance & Safety Tech NHTSA ODI ID: #11532109
Crash Cited Filed: 07/13/2023

"Date of safety issue: July 12, 2023 Location: Piper Glen Shopping Center, Rea Road, Charlotte NC (destination was Run For Your Life at 6416 Rea Road - within the shopping center). Time: Approximately sometime between 1:30 and 2:00 ET Police Report Complaint # - [XXX] On July 12, 2023 I entered a..."

Incident Date: 07/12/2023 • Raw NHTSA Component: VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL
Body & Structure NHTSA ODI ID: #11503063
Filed: 01/22/2023

"Hello, My name is [XXX]. I bought my car from Longo Toyota in El Monte about 15 months ago. The car was certified preowned and had a Carfax report with no accident reported history. That is exactly why I bought the car, because this was going to be my family car. So I bought it and have been..."

Incident Date: 01/19/2023 • Raw NHTSA Component: STRUCTURE
Air Bags & Restraints NHTSA ODI ID: #11497996
Crash Cited Filed: 12/19/2022

"Air Bag did not deploy during a major front end collision. Resulted in total loss of the vehicle."

Incident Date: 12/12/2022 • Raw NHTSA Component: AIR BAGS
Fuel & Propulsion System NHTSA ODI ID: #11495198
Filed: 11/28/2022

"Intermittently, unpredictably, for several seconds at a time, the engine almost quits, especially when accelerating So far, it has not happened in heavy traffic, but if it did, it would create a possibly major safety hazard. I have not taken it to a dealer yet. Just learned about the fuel pump..."

Incident Date: 11/28/2022 • Raw NHTSA Component: FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM
Consumer Narrative Notice: Excerpts are sanitized text descriptions submitted by vehicle owners to the federal ODI database. They reflect the reporting consumer's observations at the time of filing and have not been independently confirmed by vehicle manufacturers or government investigators.

Complaint History for Toyota Avalon

Reported defect complaint volume across sibling model years (2015–2022)

Model Year NHTSA Complaints Crash Reports Safety Recalls Detailed Report
2015 Toyota Avalon 53 8 2 View 2015 Problems →
2016 Toyota Avalon 25 2 4 View 2016 Problems →
2017 Toyota Avalon 14 2 2 View 2017 Problems →
2018 Toyota Avalon Current Page 25 7 2 Current
2019 Toyota Avalon 69 4 5 View 2019 Problems →
2020 Toyota Avalon 10 1 4 View 2020 Problems →
2021 Toyota Avalon 27 2 2 View 2021 Problems →
2022 Toyota Avalon 8 1 0 View 2022 Problems →
Comparative Disclaimer: Complaint totals are unadjusted historical counts and are not normalized for vehicles sold, active fleet size, or total road mileage. Newer model years naturally have had less calendar exposure time to accumulate owner filings.

Detailed NHTSA Component Breakdown for 2018 Toyota Avalon

Complete distribution of consumer defect reports across all 14 granular NHTSA system and subsystem classifications

Vehicle Component / System Total Complaints Crash Reports Fire Reports Reported Injury Entries Reported Fatality Entries
Other / Uncategorized NHTSA category: UNKNOWN OR OTHER 5 0 0 0 0
Air Bags NHTSA category: AIR BAGS 4 3 0 2 0
Fuel & Propulsion System NHTSA category: FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM 3 0 0 0 0
Steering NHTSA category: STEERING 2 0 0 0 0
Vehicle Speed Control NHTSA category: VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL 2 1 0 0 0
AIR BAGS,SEAT BELTS 1 1 0 1 0
Electrical System NHTSA category: ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 1 0 0 0 0
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,LANE DEPARTURE,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 1 0 0 0 0
EXTERIOR LIGHTING 1 0 0 0 0
Forward Collision Avoidance NHTSA category: FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 1 0 0 0 0
Service Brakes NHTSA category: SERVICE BRAKES 1 0 0 0 0
STEERING,AIR BAGS,SERVICE BRAKES 1 1 0 1 0
STEERING,POWER TRAIN,WHEELS 1 1 0 0 0
Structure & Body NHTSA category: STRUCTURE 1 0 0 0 0
Data Attribution & Reporting Methodology: Complaints are unverified voluntary submissions to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI). Because multiple vehicle components can be cited within a single owner complaint submission, component-level rollups may sum to more than the unique complaint count (25). Injury and fatality entries in the detailed table reflect raw values entered by reporting consumers across individual submissions; they are not deduplicated casualty statistics and may include duplicate or unverified entries. Complaint volume is not normalized for sales volume or vehicle mileage and does not represent an audited component failure rate.

Official NHTSA Defect Investigations (2)

2 CLOSED

Formal safety defect inquiries and engineering analyses opened by the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI)

Official Federal Inquiries: NHTSA opens a defect investigation when safety screening or consumer defect trends indicate a potential unreasonable safety risk. An open investigation is a formal inquiry and does not by itself confirm a defect or result in a mandatory recall.
CLOSED Defect Petition (DP) ODI Action #DP22005
Opened: 2023-01-27 • Closed: 2023-08-07

Pedestrian alert sounds

Affected Component: ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:PROPULSION SYSTEM

NHTSA received a petition on or about July 18, 2022, requesting that Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 141 be applied to all electric and hybrid vehicles operating in the United States. The petition can be reviewed at NHTSA.gov under ODI Number 11486072. FMVSS 141 establishes performance requirements for pedestrian alert sounds for motor vehicles. The standard applies to hybrid and electric vehicles that have a gross vehicle weight ra...

✓ Resulted in Safety Recall Campaign: 22V063000 Official NHTSA File →
CLOSED Engineering Analysis (EA) ODI Action #EA19001
Opened: 2019-04-19 • Closed: 2024-09-19

Electrical overstress

Affected Component: AIR BAGS: AIR BAG/RESTRAINT CONTROL MODULE

The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened this investigation to determine if the failure of airbags to deploy during severe crashes, in certain vehicles, was the result of a safety related defect.  During the investigation a complex failure was studied that can result in non-deployment of subject vehicle air bags and other restraint system devices in severe crash events. The subject vehicles may be equipped with an airbag control unit (AC...

✓ Resulted in Safety Recall Campaign: 20V024 Official NHTSA File →
Official US Government Data Provenance

The complaint records on this page are retrieved directly from the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) public database.

Local Production Store Compiled: August 2026 • Deterministic Audited Dataset • Zero Dynamic External API Runtime Latency.