This is a dated piece, and deliberately so: it is a walking tour of the federal defect docket exactly as the September 2026 file records it. The register lists 99 investigations as open. Twenty-eight of those date to the 1990s and are almost certainly paperwork nobody ever closed. Nine more are stragglers from 2000 to 2019. The remaining 62, opened this decade, are the live docket: the questions the government is formally asking about the cars on the road right now. Individual cases will close and convert to recalls after this snapshot, and the recall boards carry the current list; what follows is what the docket looked like, and what it says about this moment in cars.
How to read a case number
The prefix on each investigation tells you what kind of question is being asked. The live docket breaks down as 19 preliminary evaluations (PE, the first formal look), 18 engineering analyses (EA, the deep second stage that most recalls emerge from), 10 recall queries (RQ, which examine recalls themselves), 8 defect petitions (DP, opened when a member of the public formally demands an investigation), and 7 audit queries (AQ, which police the recall system's paperwork and players). That last pair is the part of the docket almost nobody knows exists, and it gets its own section below.
The biggest case is the sequel to the biggest recall in history
The largest open investigation by coverage is EA21002, opened in September 2021: it asks whether desiccated Takata-style air bag inflators, the ones containing a drying agent, which were the designated safe replacement for the exploding inflators behind history's biggest recall saga, can also rupture as they age. The case file spans 1,382 model-years of vehicles from 2001 to 2020 across dozens of brands, from Acura to Cadillac to BMW. Five years in, it remains open, which is itself informative: the question of whether millions of replacement inflators are aging safely is being answered slowly and carefully, in public view, one engineering analysis at a time.
The Tesla shelf
One manufacturer has an entire shelf of the docket. Five open cases concern Tesla's driver assistance stack: an engineering analysis into Full Self-Driving collisions in reduced visibility conditions, a preliminary evaluation into traffic violations committed while FSD is engaged, an audit query into whether the company's crash reporting complies with the agency's standing general order, a defect petition alleging sudden unintended acceleration, and, most notably, RQ24009, a recall query examining whether the remedy Tesla shipped for its December 2023 Autopilot recall actually fixed the problem. Software has given the agency a new kind of case: not does the part break, but does the system behave, and did the update really change it.
Recalls under the microscope
RQ24009 is not alone. EA26005, opened in August 2026, investigates General Motors full-size trucks and SUVs for engine failures occurring after the recall remedy was performed. This is the docket's quiet accountability layer: the agency circling back to ask whether the fix worked, and it means an owner who had a recall performed is not necessarily at the end of the story. The audit queries extend that policing outward: open cases examine Hertz renting vehicles with unrepaired recalls, a Ford dealer selling them, and a rental firm doing the same, enforcement of the rule that the industry, not just the car, has recall obligations.
What actually dominates: engines
For all the attention software gets, the live docket's most common theme is the oldest one in the file. Twelve open cases involve engine failure or loss of motive power, more than fire (eight) or driver assistance (eight). General Motors alone faces a trio: the post-remedy case above, a 2025 engineering analysis into engine failures on 2019-2024 trucks, and a new electronic brake module case. Honda and Acura face an engineering analysis covering 52 model-years of vehicles whose engines may not restart after the automatic start-stop system shuts them down at a light, a thoroughly modern failure: the fuel-saving feature works, the restart does not. Ford's newest engine case, opened in July 2026, concerns timing belt failure. The engine block remains the docket's center of gravity, even in 2026.
The strange and the specific
The docket's edges hold its most memorable cases. The oldest genuinely live investigation, from May 2021, concerns fuel sloshing out of Ferrari filler necks. Rivian's rear toe links, a suspension part, earned a preliminary evaluation in May 2026, followed two months later by a Tesla case about a different suspension link detaching, and a Land Rover case about steering knuckles fracturing. Toyota drew an investigation into road debris damaging heat exchangers, essentially a case about rocks. And the 2024 Ford Maverick hybrid picked up a defect petition over intermittent loss of braking. Among the stragglers, two stand out: an air bag inflator engineering analysis open since 2015, and a 2019 case into automatic emergency braking that activates falsely, the first generation of the software-behavior cases that now fill the docket.
What an open case means for you
An open investigation is the earliest public signal that a pattern is being taken seriously; the base rates from this register say roughly a third of investigations end in a recall, usually within a year of opening. Every case above already appears on the affected vehicles' pages, above the recall tables, and the monthly rebuild keeps the status current as cases close, convert, or expand. If one of these vehicles is yours, the page will show the investigation's outcome when it comes; if you are shopping for one, the open case belongs on your test-drive checklist today, not after the government finishes deciding.