15,000 RV Recalls Every Month. Why Isn't Anyone Talking About It?

Unknown Speaker (0:01): Welcome. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to the RV lifestyle podcast for Monday, our news edition. I'm Mike Wendland, and this is where we cut through the noise and bring you the RV and travel stories that actually matter this week. So welcome to June.

Unknown Speaker (0:16): Leave that. Summer travel season officially here now, and we've got a loaded show for you today. But before we get into the news, hey. I wanna just take a second to tell you about something that a lot of you may not know about. We publish a free daily newsletter every morning, 07:30AM.

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Mike Wendland (1:09): Alright. Let's get into it. Now every source for today's stories is linked in the show notes transcript that you'll find at rvpodcast.com, and that's true every single week for our news stories. Story number one. The May 26 RV recall list, nearly 15,000 RVs were affected.

Mike Wendland (1:29): Some of these are gonna make you a jaw drop. So I wanna start today with something that I think explains a lot about why RV sales are in the tank right now, and I mean that literally. Nearly 15,000 RVs recalled in a single month, May 2026. One month. 15,000 rigs with safety serious enough that the federal government required manufacturers to notify owners and fix them.

Mike Wendland (1:55): And when you look at some of these defects, what they actually are, the outrage is not that hard to find. We're not talking about obscure technical issues discovered after years of wear and tear. We're talking about a fuel tank punctured by a screw during manufacturing that could cause a fire. We're talking about a propane hose routed directly over an exhaust heat shield, again, during manufacturing, something that could ignite. We're talking about a water heater safety valve that prevents scalding burns that was simply never installed, not defective, just never there.

Mike Wendland (2:30): And people are spending a 100,000, 200,000, $300,000 on these rigs. So you wanna know why industry, why RV sales are down for you more than 17%? This is the big part why? When people do their research before they buy, and believe me, they do. They come to us and channels like ours every single day asking what they should know, and they find month after month of recall list that read like a quality control nightmare, and it shakes their confidence as it should.

Mike Wendland (3:01): Let me give you the specifics because some of these are genuinely hard to believe. Tiffin Motorhomes 2025 and 2026 g t one models, 2026 g h two and g h one, a screw punctured the fuel tank during manufacturing. Fuel leak, fire risk. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, their own guidance says to park outside and away from structures until that repair is done, not schedule a service call when you can, not keep an eye on it, park outside away from buildings. And the notification letters, they're not even going out until July 24, nearly two months.

Mike Wendland (3:41): If you own one of these, do not wait for a letter. Call Tiffin right now. Winnebago Solis motorhomes, twenty six and twenty seven models. A propane hose was routed over the exhaust heat shield during assembly. Heat damages the hose over time.

Mike Wendland (3:58): Damaged propane hose plus ignition source is a fire. Letters are going out July 3. Jayco, covering twenty twenty six Integra Condor and Granite Ridge motorhomes, the water heater mixing valve, the part that keeps the water from coming out of your tap at scalding temperatures was not installed. It's not a defective valve. It's a missing valve.

Mike Wendland (4:21): Nitza says to run cold water first until it's fixed. Letters went out May 1. Grand Design Lineage Motorhomes 2025 and '26 models have not one but two separate recalls this month. The driver and passenger seat bases may not have been properly tightened, meaning they can move during a crash. And separately, the rooftop solar panels may not be properly secured.

Mike Wendland (4:46): They could detach at highway speed. A solar panel coming off your roof at 65 miles an hour is not your problem alone. It's like a missile for everyone behind you. Road track van motorhomes across multiple model years, 2022 through 2026. The pop top latch can disengage while driving.

Mike Wendland (5:09): If the backup safety straps also fail, the pop top detaches from the vehicle entirely. Letters were mailed on May 20. Storyteller Overland 2023 models, improperly routed coolant lines can cause the engine to overheat and lose drive power while you're moving down the road. Forest River Primetime Crusader fifth wheels twenty twenty six models. The waste water tank vent pipe may have been installed so it vents inside the trailer instead of through the roof.

Mike Wendland (5:42): That is sewer gas pumping directly into the living space. And then there's the shock bolt parade, Alliance RV, Brinkley. Yes. Our own Brinkley model z is on the list. Amber RV, Forest River Riverstone, Cedar Creek, Arpide, Keystone Cougar, Alpine, Montana, Walkabout, and KZ Durango, all of them recall this month for shock bolts that were not properly tightened at the factory.

Mike Wendland (6:11): Loose shock hardware can detach at speed and become a road hazard for other vehicles. That is a lot of brands and a lot of units with the same basic problems. Somebody didn't tighten the bolts. Now, yes, I said Brinkley, our fifth wheel, the beauty. The 2025 and 2026 model z is on the list for those same shock bolts.

Mike Wendland (6:31): Notification letters, they're going out June 2. The fix is free. The dealer replaces the bolts, but it is a reminder that no manufacturer is immune here, and we will be scheduling that service for ours soon. Here's the thing I really want you to hear. You're not going to know about a recall affecting your rig until a letter shows up in your mailbox.

Mike Wendland (6:52): And as you just heard, some of those letters are not going out for weeks, months in some cases. Now you should not be waiting for a letter. Go to nhtsa.gov, NHTSA, nhtsa.gov right now. Look up the VIN number of your RV. The link's in the show notes below.

Mike Wendland (7:11): It's free. Takes thirty seconds, and it could save your life for somebody else's. Nhtsa.gov. Enter your VIN. Do it today.

Mike Wendland (7:20): And here's my bottom line. Recalls happen in every industry, and every repair on this list is being done free of charge. So credit where credit's due. But the volume and the nature of some of these defects, fuel tanks stabbed by screws, missing safety valves, propane hoses on exhaust pipes, these are not edge cases. These are factory floor failures.

Mike Wendland (7:40): And in an industry already fighting for consumer confidence, this is not a good look, which brings us directly to our next story. RV industry sales, rough overall, but motorhomes show a pulse. Okay. So we just covered 15,000 recalled RVs. Now let's look at the sales numbers because they tell a story that connects directly to everything we just talked about.

Mike Wendland (8:07): The RV Industry Association released its April 26 shipment report this past week, and the headline number is 29,209 total units shipped for the months. That sounds like a lot until you compare it to April of last year when manufacturers shipped just over 35,000 units. That's a drop of more than 17% year over year. And it's not just April. Through the first four months of twenty twenty six, the industry is running about 13 and a half percent behind last year's pace.

Mike Wendland (8:38): Nearly 18,000 fewer RVs shipped in the first four months of twenty six compared to the same stretch in '25. The pain is concentrated in towables, travel trailers, and fifth wheels, the segment that makes up the bulk of the market. Towable RVs came down more than 20% compared to April of last year. That is a significant number, and it reflects what a lot of dealers have been saying quietly for months. Buyers are cautious.

Mike Wendland (9:05): Interest rates are still not friendly, and tariff uncertainty has been hanging over the whole industry like a cloud. There was a big industry breakfast in Elkhart in May, and a lot of these dealers were really outspoken. They are starting to look at the manufacturers and saying, in effect, come on, you guys. Fix these things. Build them with some quality.

Mike Wendland (9:28): People are noticing. Look. I'm gonna just say this plainly. The industry has a huge image problem right now, and the recalls are a big part of it. But there is a genuine bright spot here, motorhomes, which have been down for a long time.

Mike Wendland (9:45): Class a, class b, class c combined finished April up 13% compared to the same month last year. Now this is the first real positive movement in the shipment data in a while. Motorhome buyers, tend to be older, more financially established, less sensitive to interest rate swings. And when that segment moves, it often signals that consumer confidence is beginning to stabilize. Another interesting area in those reports, park model RV shipments also jumped nearly 30% compared to last April.

Mike Wendland (10:17): Park models, if you don't know, it's kind of a niche category, but a 30% gain is hard to dismiss. The bottom line, rough waters industry wide with one real sign of life, park models, which are kinda like almost like single wide trailers, only they're more RV they have a more of an RV look and feel and use. You can haul them easier, and you certainly can a mobile home. And but they tend to stay in places longer, like a second home or a cabin at a RV resort or on somebody's property. So park models, they're doing well.

Mike Wendland (10:49): We'll keep watching. I had a quick break now from the news because heading into summer travel season, this feels like exactly the right time to mention something that Jennifer and I built specifically because we needed it ourselves. We have a whole suite of web apps over at rvlifestyle.com/apps, and I wanna be clear about what these are because they are not your typical App Store downloads. There's no subscriptions here. You buy them once, and they're yours, and you get free updates all the time.

Mike Wendland (11:19): No waiting for any updates. They're just delivered to you automatically. You buy once. These things work on any device you bring into the rig, phone, tablet, laptop, whatever you have, and you can put a little icon on your phone. So when you click that, it opens up immediately.

Mike Wendland (11:33): It's just like a an app, but it's not an App Store app. Here's what's in the collection. We do a trip planning dashboard, your command center for building out a route, tracking campgrounds, managing your whole trip in one place. The Budget Buddy tracks your travel expenses in real time so you're not doing math on a napkin at the end of a trip wondering where the money went. The departure day checklist walks you through every single step before you pull out of the site because that's exactly when things get forgotten.

Mike Wendland (12:02): We have a packing list app fully customizable by category so you're not starting from scratch every trip. And Camp Buddy handles setup and tear down at the campsite, detailed checklists, and then there's the road journal. It's a digital travel diary. We built all these because we couldn't find anything that did exactly what we wanted, and now we're sharing them with you. We built all these tools out of our fifteen years of real RV travel, and we know exactly where trips fall apart.

Mike Wendland (12:32): It's almost never on the highway. It's in the planning, the packing, the moment you pull out of the driveway and realize, oh, I left something behind. Prices start at, like, $9.95 for these things. Nothing requires a subscription. Just go check them out.

Mike Wendland (12:44): Rvlifestyle.com/apps. That's rvlifestyle.com/apps. Take a look. The link is in the show notes. Alright.

Mike Wendland (12:53): Story number three. I'm calling this the RV blunder of the year, and, this fits the theme of what's going on in the RV world right now. Though this one's not about manufacturing, it's more about bad owners, about what happens when somebody gets behind the wheel of a rig without the first idea of how it works. I'm thinking, by the way, let me just do a little quick little aside here, that we need to have the industry be much more aggressive with its dealers about training people when they get behind the wheel of these RVs. Not just your quick walk through and here's how everything works, but actually training them, telling telling them how to how to how to drive these things, telling them how to empty the tanks, and that's what this blunder of the year story is about.

Mike Wendland (13:38): And I know we're only in June, but this is pretty bad. I'm already calling it the blunder of the year. If something tops it before December, I genuinely don't wanna hear about it. But here's the story that's been reported, and I wanna be upfront with you. There are some real holes in this story.

Mike Wendland (13:53): But according to the Cowboy State Daily, which is a pretty cool publication out of Wyoming that covers the Mountain West, Somebody driving an RV pulled into the Maverick gas station in Montrose, Colorado earlier this week and emptied their black water tank, that's the toilet waste tank, directly into the station's underground diesel fuel supply. Not the dump station, the diesel tank. Now here's where I have to kinda pump the brakes on this story. It's gotten a lot of attention all around. Everybody's saying, oh, this really happened, but the story is not as airtight as it might seem.

Mike Wendland (14:27): The original sourcing traces back to a guy named Evan Peters, whoever he is, who posted about it on a Facebook group called the Montrose Message Board. He says a cashier at the station told him what happened. So being good reporters, Cowboy State Daily then called the station. They got one brief confirmation from somebody who answered the phone, and then the store was busy. She hung up, and every subsequent call after that went unanswered.

Mike Wendland (14:55): So what we do have confirmed is the station employee apparently told somebody that, yes, RV waste went into the diesel tank. What we don't have is a police report, a named suspect, any charges filed, any lawsuit, a video surveillance photo of the RV, a description of the rig, license plate, any follow-up statement from Maverick corporate on this. So I wanna be honest with you. That silence is a little odd. If this actually happened the way it's being described, you would expect some kind of official response.

Mike Wendland (15:26): A gas station contaminating its entire diesel supply? That's not a small incident. That's an environmental issue, a financial hit, and a liability question all rolled into one. The fact that the station stopped answering the phone and Maverick has said nothing publicly gives me pause. It could be could be that Maverick's bosses are saying, oh, man.

Mike Wendland (15:49): There's legal liability here. Don't say a word to the media. Of course, the people who really need to know about this are the people who got fuel there. And according to the reporting, whoever did this had to remove that manhole cover and pump their waste directly into the diesel tank, not the designated dump station, which was available right there on the property. I mean, the dump stations are clearly marked.

Mike Wendland (16:11): The signage is obvious. You would have to actively bypass the correct station and then figure out how to remove a separate access cover to get to the fuel inlet. If this happened, it was certainly somebody brand new to RVing, maybe a renter, maybe an international visitor unfamiliar with how American RVs work who simply had no idea what they were doing or where they were supposed to go. If true, and I wanna stress if, the cleanup is gonna be brutal. Every drop of diesel has to come out.

Mike Wendland (16:40): The tank has to be thoroughly cleaned. All the filters, pumps, hoses have to be serviced before it can be refilled and put back in service. And then for those people who filled up with diesel before this was caught, oh my goodness. Those tanks have to be emptied too. An unbelievable amount of hurt here if this happened.

Mike Wendland (16:59): And here's where this lands for me. True or not, it is a reminder of something that we say all the time in this broadcast. If you're new to RVing, if you just bought or rented your first rig, please know how everything works, especially your black water system before you even need to use it. Know where the dump stations are. Know what they look like.

Mike Wendland (17:19): Ask somebody at the campground. Watch a video. It's not complicated, but only if you have actually learned it first. We'll keep an eye on this one. And if charges are filed, if a photo surfaces, if Maverick says anything publicly, we'll update you.

Mike Wendland (17:32): But for now, this could be the RV blunder of the year if it happened. I'm reporting this with an asterisk. Story four, my last one. Good news. I gotta end on good news, and this is a good one.

Mike Wendland (17:46): Headline, Alliance RV is staying independent. So let's end this on something I think, a lot of you are going to genuinely appreciate because after everything we've covered today, a little good news is more than welcome. In an industry that keeps consolidating into fewer and fewer heads, this is truly a breath of fresh air. Thor Industries and Winnebago between them now own so many brands, it's almost impossible to keep track. And look.

Mike Wendland (18:13): Some of those are fine products, but there is something valuable about a manufacturer that is still run by the people who founded it, still connected to its customers, making decisions based on what RVers actually need rather than what moves a corporate quarterly earnings report. Alliance RV is one of those companies. Brothers Coley and Ryan Brady founded Alliance out of Elkhart, Indiana in January 2020, which is a pretty gutsy time to start a manufacturing company. That was during COVID, if you'll remember. Well, they build the Paradigm, the Avenue, the Valor, the Delta Lines, travel trailers, fifth wheels, toy haulers, and they've built a genuinely passionate owner following.

Mike Wendland (18:54): If you've spent any time in RV communities online, you know alliance owners are among the most loyal and vocal in the business. This past week, Collie and Ryan were standing on stage in front of about 800 alliance owners at their seventh annual owner rally at the Elkhart 4 H Fairgrounds in Goshen, Indiana. And somebody from the audience asked the question that everybody in the room wanted answered. Are you going to sell? And the answer was a flat and a confident no.

Mike Wendland (19:20): Coley told the crowd they have at least ten more years ahead of them. Ten plus years, his words. The crowd loved it. What makes this more than just a feel good moment is the context. That rally drew nearly 400 rigs close to 800 people.

Mike Wendland (19:34): Alliance has 1,100 employees. They just hit their thirty thousandth unit produced. And earlier this year, they acquired a b van manufacturer called Midwest Automotive Designs, which plans to now have an Alliance branded b van on the market this fall. In fact, I'll be reviewing one of them on Saturday's, YouTube video. This is not a company treading water and hoping for a buyout.

Mike Wendland (20:00): Alliance is a company growing on its own terms. Coley put it well when he described their core values. He's a customer obsessed, relentless improvement, devoted to relationship. Those are not the words of a conglomerate. Those are the words of founders who still show up to their own owner rally and take questions from the floor.

Mike Wendland (20:20): And in an industry that sometimes feels like it's swallowing itself whole, it is generally good to see a quality independent manufacturer planting a flag and saying we're not going anywhere. We're just gonna get better. Alright. That's gonna do it for this Monday news edition of the RV lifestyle podcast. Two things before you go.

Mike Wendland (20:41): First, go check your VIN number at n h t s a dot gov right now. In fact, don't wait for letters. Takes thirty seconds. It matters. Make that a monthly habit.

Mike Wendland (20:53): Put it down in one of our little apps. There's a little thing you gotta do every week. Make a checklist on it. Set have your phone send you a reminder. Just go check it.

Mike Wendland (21:02): Make sure your rig is not being recalled because it might take weeks or months for you to get the official letter. Make that a monthly habit. Those official recall letters, man, they take way too long. That's something else that's gotta change. Secondly, if you're not already getting our free daily newsletter, told you about that at the top of the program, please go sign up today.

Mike Wendland (21:21): Every morning, 7AM, news, tips, deals, inside information delivered straight to your inbox. Just the good stuff. Go to rvlifestyle.com/newsletter to sign up. Rvlifestyle.com/newsletter. If you don't like it, you can hit the unsubscribe button at the bottom of it, and you won't get any more of it.

Unknown Speaker (21:39): But give it a try. It's free. Takes you fifteen seconds to sign up. I think you're gonna like it. Alright.

Mike Wendland (21:45): Every source for everything we covered today, you can find the links in the show notes at rvpodcast.com. Please share this episode with a fellow RVer who needs to hear it, and subscribe if you've not already done so. New episodes of the podcast every Monday and Wednesday. Jennifer and I'll be back on Wednesday with stories from the road, and we've got a good one for you this Wednesday. Make sure you're here.

Mike Wendland (22:06): Till then, happy trails.