When a vehicle lookup starts with a VIN, it's easy to assume every field in the result describes that individual vehicle. Recall campaigns need a more careful label. A campaign associated with the vehicle's year, make, and model doesn't tell you whether this particular vehicle needs the repair or has already had it.
The Vehicle API decodes the VIN into fields such as year, make, and model. On a paid plan, requesting deep=true adds recall campaigns under deep.recalls. The recall search uses that decoded year, make, and model. Its rows carry a campaign identifier, date, component, and summary. They describe campaigns returned for that combination, with no VIN-specific outstanding-repair determination.
That changes how the result should appear on a vehicle intake screen. "Recall campaigns for this model" describes the evidence. "This vehicle has open recalls" claims a repair status that the response doesn't provide. A campaign can be worth showing to the user without turning its presence into a verdict about their car.
The empty and unavailable states need just as much care. deep.recalls: [] means no campaigns were returned for the decoded combination. It doesn't establish that the vehicle is free of recalls or safe to drive. deep.recalls: null means recall data is unavailable, including when the lookup could not be completed or the required vehicle details weren't decoded. When Deep wasn't requested, its absence is simply a field the application did not ask for.
Treating all of those states as an empty list would make a failed lookup look reassuring. A recall section can say "No campaigns returned for this year, make, and model" for an empty array and "Recall information unavailable" for null. Neither needs a safety badge. Keep the campaign summary available when rows are present so the user can read what the campaign actually covers.
For a question about an outstanding repair on a specific vehicle, direct the user to a VIN-specific check. NHTSA's recall page distinguishes general year, make, and model results from a VIN search for unrepaired recalls. It also lists the VIN search's limits, including some recently announced recalls and recalls already repaired. The model-level campaign list is useful context. The user's next repair decision needs the check that addresses their actual VIN.