What an RV Maker's Recall Count Tells You (and What It Can't)

The short answer

A high recall count tells you a company builds a lot of RVs and reports its defects. It does not tell you its RVs are worse. Forest River has filed more RV recalls than anyone since 2016, 451 of them. The top of the ranking reads like a list of the best-known names in the business and the bottom is small specialty builders, which is what you would expect if the count mostly tracks size. Nobody publishes how many RVs each company builds, so there is no honest way to turn a count into a rate. What a recall record is good for is narrower, and more useful: it shows you what has actually gone wrong on a maker’s RVs, and how serious it was.

What a recall is

NHTSA, the federal agency that regulates vehicle safety, describes a recall as what happens when a manufacturer or the agency decides a vehicle or piece of equipment creates an unreasonable safety risk or fails a minimum safety standard. The same page notes that most recalls are started voluntarily by the manufacturer, before NHTSA is involved at all.

Once a manufacturer decides a defect is safety related, it has five working days to file a report with NHTSA (49 CFR 573.6). That report must say what is wrong, what could happen, how many vehicles are involved, and how the company will fix it. Each report becomes one campaign with its own number, and those campaigns are what this site counts. Federal law then requires the manufacturer to fix the defect without charge, by repair, replacement or refund (49 U.S.C. 30120).

So a recall is not a penalty. It is a company putting a defect on the public record and committing to fix it for free. A maker with zero recalls has either built flawless RVs or has not reported its defects, and the count alone cannot tell you which.

Why the count misleads

One recall can cover a handful of RVs or most of a maker’s output

Across all 1,789 RV recalls on file since 2016, the typical one is small: the median covers 151 RVs, and 42% cover 100 or fewer. A few are enormous. The ten largest account for 54% of every RV recalled in the period. The biggest, Keystone RV’s campaign 17V755000 (fire extinguisher may be clogged or inoperable), covers 1,205,997 RVs by itself. A maker with three recalls can have recalled more RVs than a maker with thirty, which is why the ranking lets you sort by RVs affected as well as by count.

Some of an RV’s recalls are filed by somebody else

A motorhome is a house built on a truck. If the truck part is recalled, the recall is filed by the chassis maker, such as Ford or Freightliner, not by the company whose name is on the side. The same goes for many refrigerators, furnaces, axles and tires, which are usually recalled by their supplier as equipment. None of those appear in the RV builder’s count, even though the owner has to deal with them.

The name on the recall is the filer, not the badge

NHTSA records the company that filed. Brands owned by a larger builder are filed under that builder, so one company’s count can cover several brands, and companies with the same parent are still listed separately.

What a recall record is good for

• Seeing what kind of thing goes wrong. Of the 1,789 recalls on file, 615 name a fire risk, 939 a crash or loss of control, and 452 an injury risk such as carbon monoxide or electric shock. A maker’s own page shows which of those its recalls involve. Read the list for a maker you are considering, for example Forest River’s, and the pattern is usually obvious within a minute.
• Seeing whether recalled RVs actually get fixed. Makers report repair progress to NHTSA for six quarters after a recall opens (49 CFR 573.7). Among the 1,404 RV recalls old enough for that figure to have settled, the median repair rate is 67%, and 29% never reached half. On a used RV, assume a recall has not been done until someone shows you that it has.
• Knowing what to ask about a specific RV. A recall on file for a model and year is a question to put to the seller, with the campaign number in hand.

How to use the ranking without fooling yourself

Do not compare a large builder’s count with a small one’s. Compare the kinds of recalls instead: what failed, what could happen, how many RVs, and how many were repaired. Then check the specific model and year you care about, because a maker’s overall record says little about any one RV.

This guide is for informational purposes only. It is not legal, mechanical or purchasing advice, and it is not a safety rating of any RV or manufacturer. Recall and complaint counts are not adjusted for how many RVs a company builds, because no one publishes that figure. Confirm anything about a specific RV with its maker, a dealer or NHTSA before acting on it.

Last reviewed: September 2026 · Against 49 CFR 573.6 and 573.7, 49 U.S.C. 30120, NHTSA's recall process page, and the NHTSA recall snapshot this site is built on.