Manufacturer Communications Portal

Federal regulations mandate that vehicle and vehicle equipment manufacturers comply with Early Warning Reporting requirements. One of the EWR requirements is that all manufacturers of motor vehicles or motor vehicle equipment, including low volume and child restraints, submit to NHTSA copies of their manufacturer communications. Manufacturers should submit all notices, bulletins, and other communications including warranty and policy extensions and product improvement communication sent to dealers, distributors, owners, purchasers, lessors, or lessees regarding any defect, failure or malfunction beyond normal deterioration in use, failure of performance, flaw or other unintended deviation from design specifications whether it is safety-related or not.

Manufacturers should submit their communications no more than five business days after the end of the month during which they are issued. The manufacturer should maintain the communication number on the document and should not create a new number for NHTSA to allow for easier searching and identification of communications. Recall communications should not be submitted through the Manufacturer Communications Portal or by email. Recall communications should be submitted to the Recall Portal. 

To get access to the Manufacturer Communications Portal, please email our helpdesk at mc.helpdesk@dot.gov.

There are two ways manufacturers can submit their manufacturer communications.

Manufacturer Communications Portal

Using the Manufacturer Communications Portal is the easiest and best method to submit manufacturer communications. NHTSA encourages all manufacturers to submit their manufacturer communications using the MCP. The MCP is an online application that allows manufacturers to submit their communications. The MCP eliminates the need for manufacturers to build the required index file themselves, instead collecting the required information via an online form. As of December 2020, the MCP has two new features that allow companies to add a manufacturer communication while waiting for new products to be added, as well as to indicate there is nothing to report for that month. NHTSA encourages manufacturers to use the “nothing to report” option to indicate that the manufacturer has reviewed their records and does not have anything that requires reporting.

Email Submissions

Although NHTSA strongly recommends using the MCP for manufacturer communication submissions, manufacturers may also submit their manufacturer communications via email. To be accepted via email, all manufacturer communication submissions must include an index file. The index must identify the make, model, and model year for vehicles, and similar identifiers for child restraints/seats, equipment, and tires. This downloadable Manufacturer Communications Index Excel template should be used when submitting by email and is in addition to NHTSA Enforcement Guidance Bulletin 2016-01; Guidance on Submission and Treatment of Manufacturer Communications to Dealers, Owners, or Purchasers about a Defect or Noncompliance 81 Fed. Reg. 16, 270-16, 275 of March 25, 2016. 

The Manufacturer Communications Index template has seven fields and each field should contain the appropriate descriptive information related to each submitted communication. All rows associated with a communication should be sequential. 

No.: This field contains numerical digits and represents the sequential number of manufacturer communications being submitted. It should always start at 1 and continue sequentially, with the largest number equaling the total number of communications submitted with the index. 

MFR Communication ID: This field should be populated with the exact identifier the manufacturer uses to identify the document and the way it can be located by those searching for the document. For example: TSB2020-095. 

MFR Communication Date: This field should be in the format of MM/DD/YYYY and be the exact date the communication was disseminated by the manufacturer.

Make: This field should be the make for the product(s) involved in the communication. If there is no specific make or the communication is generic across different makes please use “NA.”

Model: This field should be the model for the product(s) involved in the communication. Please use “NA” if there is no specific model or the communication is generic across different models. 

Model Year: This field should be the model year for the product(s) involved in the communication. For non-vehicle products, the production year can be used. Use a separate row for each Make/Model/Model year combination. If the communication does not relate to a specific model year or years please use “NA.” 

Concise Summary: This field should capture in 2000 characters or less, a brief description of the communication’s most pertinent information, any related vehicle component information, and the general purpose for the communication. 

The index and communications should be submitted as individual, uncompressed email attachments. Zip attachments cannot be accepted. The total size of the email cannot be greater than 20 MB. Email the submission to tsb@dot.gov. The subject for the email should be “Manufacturer Non-Recall Communications and Index File from (Manufacturer Name).” The body of the email should identify the manufacturer name, index file name and size, and the communication file name and size.

Assistance in Reporting

Manufacturers with questions should contact our helpdesk at mc.helpdesk@dot.gov. There is an MCP user guide available to provide guidance and answers to frequently asked questions. 

Access to Publicly Available Manufacturer Communications 

NHTSA regularly publishes publicly accessible manufacturer communications it receives.

Support Documents

We have support documents available for setting up a manufacturer account, training materials, legal interpretations, and confidentiality requests.

Data Search

The EWR Search Engine will allow searches of current and past manufacturer EWR Data submitted to NHTSA for a specific manufacturer, report type, and reporting period.