2005 Blue Bird Wanderlodge recalls and problems

As detailed in the opening resume for this investigation dated November 16, 2015, Blue Bird Corporation (BBC) conducted recall 07V-586 with two subsequent amendments to address overloaded front axles and tires on the subject vehicles.Following the remedy installations, NHTSA received nine petitions and seven consumer complaints (many from the same owners who had filed petitions) alleging the remedial actions taken by BBC were inadequate.At the time, NHTSA was aware of two consumer complaints and three crashes of vehicles that received the 07V-586 recall remedy.One of the complaints was similar to the petitions in that it focused on utility loss and not safety issues.The second complaint (received May 2014) described a crash that occurred in May 2013 that was also identified in media reports. The second and third crashes occurred in August 2013 and January 2015. All three crashes allegedly resulted from failure of one of the front tires.During this investigation, NHTSA requested information from BBC including details about the three referenced crashes and if they were aware of any additional failures.BBC responded that they were not aware of any other failures and had only received crash information on one of the incidents from sources other than NHTSA.In order to understand why the tires failed prior to or during each of the three crashes, NHTSA attempted to collect as much information about each incident as possible.This included insurance documents, photographs, police acci…

On December 11, 2007, Blue Bird Corporation (BBC) submitted an uninfluenced recall 07V-586 to the agency.This recall described a defect on fifty eight 2005?2007 Model Year (MY) Wanderlodge Recreational Vehicles (RV) where the curb weight of the front axle could exceed the axle?s 16,000 pound rating. To address the issue, BBC replaced the tie rods on the vehicle to a more robust version increasing the rating of the front axle to 17,000 pounds.In addition, BBC relocated a generator rearward from the front of the vehicle and provided updated storage bay weight limit placards forinstallation in each of the vehicles three storage bays.On March 11, 2008, BBC submitted an amendment to the 07V-586 recall.In this amendment, BBC added three more remedial actions to the original recall.In addition to the original recall remedies, BBC would replace the front tires (with the same model tires) perform a front end alignment, and add new tire data placards instructing operators to maintain the vehicle tire pressure at 130 psi (the maximum tire pressure for that model tire).Following receipt of a consumer complaint (10226544) alleging that some of the vehicles subject to recall 07V-586 had front axle curb weights in excess of 17,000 pounds and that operators did not have a reasonable way to maintain tire pressures at 130 psi (as required by recall 07V-586), NHTSA opened Recall Query RQ08-004.The recall query was(Continued on page 2)