Scion XB

Which Scion XB years should you avoid?

Going by 1,048 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, the Scion XB years to avoid are 2008, 2006 and 2009.

• 2008339 complaints, 4.6× a typical XB year, most often about the airbags.
• 2006253 complaints, 3.4× a typical XB year, most often about the visibility.
• 20092.4× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (5 fires, 12 crashes, 1 death).

Better bets: among years old enough for a low count to mean something, the 2011 drew the fewest complaints without an unusual share of serious ones.

How this is worked out: each year is compared with a typical year of the same model, which takes most of the difference in sales out of it, and its share of serious failures is compared with every other car of the same model year, because older cars were complained about differently. A year needs 25 complaints to be judged at all. Complaints are unverified owner reports. Full method →