Navistar recalling thousands of trucks for steering gear issue

June 24, 2022

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Tens of thousands of Navistar trucks are being recalled in the latest round of recalls dealing with R.H. Sheppard steering gears.

Specifically, Navistar is recalling nearly 34,000 HV, HX, Lonestar, LT, MV, RH and Workstar trucks.

All potentially affected vehicles are model year 2022-23 trucks. R.H. Sheppard anticipates only 1% of the more than 33,000 Navistar trucks have the defect.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the steering gears may have been assembled incorrectly, which can cause the gear to fracture. A fractured steering gear can cause a loss of steering control, increasing the risk of a crash.

Dealers will inspect the steering gear serial numbers, and replace the steering gears as necessary, free of charge. Navistar will send notification letters around Aug. 18

Truckers can direct questions to Navistar’s customer service at 800-448-7825 with recall number 22513. NHTSA’s number for this recall is 22V-428.

R.H. Sheppard recall

This recall is part of a larger recall by R.H. Sheppard, a Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems company.

So far, more than 6,000 Mack trucks, nearly 6,500 Daimler trucks and nearly 2,000 Volvo trucks have been recalled due to R.H. Sheppard’s recall issued in May. The nearly 48,000 trucks already recalled are just a portion of the safety recall.

Dozens of manufacturers of a variety of heavy-duty vehicles affecting truckers, emergency crews, farmers, militaries, construction workers and bus drivers purchased potentially affected steering gears, including these:

Daimler Trucks North America
Volvo Trucks North America
Kenworth Trucks
Peterbilt Motors
Navistar
Oshkosh Truck
Meritor
HME (fire trucks)
Kodiak America (snow removal equipment)
Link-Belt Construction Equipment (construction equipment)
Orange EV (terminal trucks)
Crane Carrier (construction/garbage truck chassis)
Supacat (military vehicles)
Autocar (vocational trucks)
Capacity of Texas (yard trucks)
AM General (Hummer/Humvees)
New Flyer of America (buses)
Global Environmental Products (street sweepers)
Grove (Manitowoc) Worldwide (cranes)
Mil-Stak (bale stackers)

As part of the recall, dealers will examine more than 105,000 vehicles for possible defects. Sheppard says only a small percentage of those vehicles contains the steering gears in question, and only a small percentage of that subset contains gears with the potential defect. NHTSA’s Part 573 Safety Recall Report corroborates this point, noting the total population and citing the estimated percentage with the defect as 1%.

The issue may be hard to detect. No audible or visual cues are present within trucks with faulty steering gears. Preceding the internal fracture, the steering may be perceived as strained by the driver, according to the safety recall report. LL