RV complaints by manufacturer

Methodology

Source. NHTSA’s consumer complaints flat files, the public download of every safety complaint NHTSA has received since 1995. We read 1,118,385 rows and keep complaints NHTSA received from January 1, 2016 onward — the same window as the recall ranking, measured by the date NHTSA received the complaint, not the RV’s model year.

Which makers. The complaints file has no “RV” field either, so scope comes from the recall ranking: a complaint counts when its manufacturer name matches one of the 87 RV makers identified there. 29 of those makers have no complaint on file in the window and are listed with a zero.

One complaint, counted once. NHTSA’s file repeats a complaint once for every component the owner named, so counting rows would overstate every maker. Rows are folded by NHTSA’s complaint number (ODI number) into 5,071 complaints.

Non-RV products. A few makers also build other vehicles under the same name — Forest River’s buses and cargo trailers, for instance. For those makers only, a complaint is dropped when its make and model name a non-RV product and nothing in the record says RV. That removed 10 complaints.

Fire, crash and injury. These are fields on NHTSA’s complaint form, answered by the owner: was there a fire, was there a crash, how many people were injured or killed. They are not our classification and not NHTSA’s finding. The injury column counts complaints reporting at least one injury or death, not people. Deaths are too few to rank: 3 complaints in the window report one, 4 deaths in all.

What this ranking cannot tell you

• Not adjusted for RVs on the road. No public source reports how many RVs each maker has sold, so complaints per RV cannot be calculated. Raw counts favor small builders.
• Unverified, and self-selected. Anyone can file a complaint and NHTSA publishes it without confirming it. Only owners who know NHTSA takes reports file one, so the counts reflect who knew to report as much as what went wrong.
• Filed against the RV, whatever failed. An owner names their RV’s make and model on the form. A complaint about a motorhome’s chassis or a trailer’s refrigerator can therefore land on the RV maker here, while the matching recall would be filed by the chassis or appliance maker and not appear in the recall ranking at all.
• Makers with no recalls are missing. Because scope comes from the recall ranking, a maker with complaints but no RV recall since 2016 is not listed.
• A snapshot, not a live feed. Data pulled November 2, 2026. NHTSA updates the file daily.

Last reviewed: September 2026