RV recalls by manufacturer

Methodology

Source. NHTSA Recalls Data on the U.S. Department of Transportation open-data portal — the complete federal recall table, published by NHTSA and free to download. We take every record with recall type “Vehicle” received by NHTSA from January 1, 2016 onward: 9,539 campaigns across all vehicle makers. The window is ten full calendar years plus the current one; older summaries are often too brief to classify reliably.

Which filers count as RV makers. The dataset has no “RV” field and no make or model columns — only the filing manufacturer and free text. A filer counts as an RV maker when at least 50% of its campaigns in the window name an RV product in their subject or defect summary. The split is wide in practice: nearly every RV builder is above 75%, while companies that supply motorhome chassis but do not build RVs — Ford, Daimler Trucks, Shyft Group — are under 30% and are left out. One maker, Storyteller Overland, is included by hand because its summaries name the van rather than calling it a motorhome. The exact pattern matched:

MOTOR ?HOME|TRAVEL TRAILER|FIFTH[- ]WHEEL|RECREATIONAL (VEHICLE|TRAILER)|TOY ?HAULER|CAMPER|CAMPING TRAILER|PARK MODEL|\bRVS?\b

Which of their campaigns count. Some RV makers also build other things under the same corporate name — Forest River files for its buses, cargo trailers and work trucks too. A campaign is dropped when the sentence naming the recalled product matches the pattern below and the record never mentions an RV anywhere. That removed 63 campaigns, leaving 1,789 from 87 makers.

\bBUS(ES)?\b|\bTRUCKS?\b|CARGO TRAILER|HORSE|LIVESTOCK|AMBULANCE|SHUTTLE|UTILITY TRAILER|DUMP|FLATBED|DELIVERY|LIMOUSINE|BOX VAN|SERVICE BOD|ROCKPORT

Fire, crash and injury. NHTSA’s own severity flags (“do not drive”, “park outside”) are set on fewer than 1% of RV campaigns, so they cannot rank anything. Instead each campaign is tagged from NHTSA’s consequence summary — the sentence describing what could happen if the defect is not fixed. A campaign can carry more than one tag, so the three columns can add up to more than the recall count. A handful of labelling campaigns name no hazard and carry none.

fire: \bFIRE|BURN
crash: CRASH|LOSS OF CONTROL|COLLISION
injury: INJUR|DEATH|FATAL|CARBON MONOXIDE|SHOCK|ELECTROCUT

RVs affected. The sum of NHTSA’s “potentially affected” figure across a maker’s campaigns. It is the maker’s own estimate of how many units could have the defect, and one RV covered by two recalls is counted twice. A single filing can dominate it: Keystone RV Company’s campaign 17V755000 (fire extinguisher may be clogged or inoperable) covers 1,205,997 RVs on its own.

What this ranking cannot tell you

• Not adjusted for sales. No public source reports how many RVs each maker builds, so recalls per RV built cannot be calculated. Raw counts favor small builders.
• Filers, not brands. Counts follow the company that filed with NHTSA. Brands filed under a parent (Coachmen under Forest River, Dutchmen under Keystone) are not broken out, and filers that share a parent company are not combined, because NHTSA does not combine them.
• Chassis and appliance recalls are missing. A recall on a motorhome’s Ford or Freightliner chassis is filed by the chassis maker. A recall on a refrigerator, furnace or axle is usually filed by its supplier as an equipment recall. Neither appears in the RV builder’s count here, even though the owner of the RV is affected.
• Keyword rules make mistakes. A small maker whose filings never use an RV term is missed, and an occasional non-RV campaign slips through. The rules are printed above so anyone can check them.
• A snapshot, not a live feed. Data pulled September 19, 2026.

Last reviewed: September 2026