WhichTrim Vehicle Records

npx add-mcp 'https://whichtrim.com/portal/mcp'

whichtrim-mcp

An MCP server for U.S. vehicle records. Ask your assistant about a car and it gets the federal record, not a guess:

• NHTSA recalls, with park-outside and do-not-drive advisories and completion rates
• owner complaints, and the mileage at which owners reported problems
• open defect investigations
• manufacturer service bulletins, campaigns and warranty extensions, looked up by the number on the letter
• diagnostic trouble codes, and which vehicles' records actually name them
• EPA fuel economy, NCAP crash ratings, VIN decoding and trim-level prices where a press kit is on file

It covers every model year from 2016 on, plus recall campaigns going back further. The data is public: it comes from NHTSA, EPA and manufacturer press kits. It is republished at whichtrim.com and is free to use, with no key and no sign-up.

Two ways to connect

Remote (recommended). If your client supports remote MCP servers, point it at the URL. Nothing needs to be installed.

https://whichtrim.com/portal/mcp

Local (stdio). Some clients only launch local servers. For those, this package is a small bridge that has no dependencies: it forwards each JSON-RPC message to the URL above and passes the reply back. It requires Node 18 or later.

npx -y github:BabbagesCabbages/whichtrim-mcp

Client setup

Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "whichtrim": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "github:BabbagesCabbages/whichtrim-mcp"] }
  }
}

In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop you can instead add a custom connector: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, then paste the URL.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http whichtrim https://whichtrim.com/portal/mcp

Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json)

{ "mcpServers": { "whichtrim": { "url": "https://whichtrim.com/portal/mcp" } } }

VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json)

{ "servers": { "whichtrim": { "type": "http", "url": "https://whichtrim.com/portal/mcp" } } }

Gemini CLI

gemini extensions install https://github.com/BabbagesCabbages/whichtrim-mcp

Windsurf, Cline, Goose, Zed and other stdio-only clients: use the command npx with the arguments -y github:BabbagesCabbages/whichtrim-mcp.

Tools

Tool	What it answers
search_vehicles	Find model years by make, model and/or year. Returns the vehicle id the other tools take, plus each match's grade and recall count.
get_vehicle	The full record for one model year: fuel economy, recalls, complaint counts and failure mileage, crash ratings, investigations, bulletins and trouble codes.
check_recalls	Every recall campaign for one model year, with advisories and completion rates. It says plainly that a recall applies to a build range, so only a VIN check can confirm that one specific car is affected.
decode_vin	Decodes a 17-character VIN against NHTSA's vPIC database and joins it to the record for that model year.
lookup_trouble_code	What a code such as P0420 means, and which model years' bulletins and complaints name it.
lookup_bulletin	A service bulletin or campaign by its printed number (e.g. 26-01-068H, 9D6, N262570770), with links to NHTSA's PDF where one exists.
compare_vehicles	Two model years side by side: economy or range, grade, recalls, complaints, crash rating and starting price.

All seven tools are read-only.

Try it

• "Has the 2021 Kia Telluride had any do-not-drive recalls?"
• "What is GM bulletin N262570770 about, and which trucks does it cover?"
• "Which cars' owners complain about P0420, and at what mileage?"
• "Decode this VIN and tell me what's open on that model year: "
• "Compare a 2024 RAV4 Hybrid with a 2024 CR-V Hybrid on reliability and running costs."

Privacy

The bridge stores nothing and sends no telemetry. Each request goes only to whichtrim.com, which logs the tool name and response time and not your conversation. See the privacy page.

Also

• REST API, bulk data and the OpenAPI description: https://whichtrim.com/developers/
• Official MCP Registry entry: com.whichtrim/vehicle-records
• The datasets are CC BY 4.0 on Zenodo, Kaggle and Hugging Face. Links are at https://whichtrim.com/coverage/.

MIT licensed. The data comes from U.S. federal agencies and manufacturers and is not legal or mechanical advice. For a specific vehicle, check its VIN at nhtsa.gov/recalls.