2012 Forest River Forester problems

What is wrong

Forest River, Inc., (Forest River) is recalling certain model year 2010-2013 Sunseeker 2860, 3120, 3170, Forester 2861, 3121, 3171, and Lexington 283 Class C motorhomes, manufactured from August 18, 2009, through September 12, 2012. The liquid propane gas (LPG) fuel line that supplies fuel to appliances in the slide out, can become damaged.

Risk

A damaged LPG fuel line can lead to an explosion and/or fire, increasing the risk of injury or death.

Remedy

Forest River will notify owners, and dealers will repair the affected vehicles free of charge. The recall began on, or about October 23, 2012. Owners may contact Forest River at 1‑574‑206‑7600.

Recall number 12V458000 · Recall details

ODI opened RQ14-004 based on 3 Vehicle Owner Questionnaires (VOQs) which reported a condition similar to recall 13V‑554.This recall addressed insufficient clearance between the tire and trailer floor.The condition was due to a frame supplier change which resulted in reduced clearance between the top of the tire and the bottom of the wheel wellOf the three VOQs reported in the opening resume two were not included in recall 13V‑554 and one was.Both of the vehicles not included used a different frame than the recalled trailers.Upon thorough examination of the condition experienced by the owners it was found that neither unit exhibited insufficient tire clearance between the bottom of the floor and top of the tire.Forest River's initial Information Request Response (IRR) submission did not adequately address all the questions asked by ODI.Following a meetingwith Forest River personnel on March 20, 2015 an IRR was submitted on May 22, 2015, which satisfied ODI.This submission is included in the public repository.When asked how Forest River identified the recall population they used a production change to determine the start and end dates.On February 3, 2012 Forest River introduced a new frame.The engineering drawings used to launch this new frame failed to identify the frame rail height.Furthermore, Forest River failed to verify that the new frame rail height was the same as the one it replaced.This created a half inch reduction in clearance.This issue was not identified and remedied untilFebruary 4, 2013 which is the end of the recall population. A thorough review of the complaint and warranty informationreceived during this investigation was preformed.After removing claims that could be associated with recall 13V‑554 a defect trend was not identified on the remaining population.The only crash which also included an injurycould not be positively associated with the alleged defect. This investigation is closed.The closing of this investigation does not constitute a finding by the federal safety agency that no safety-related defect exists.The agency reserves the right to take further action if warranted by the circumstances.The ODI reports cited above can be reviewed at: http://www-odi.the federal safety agency.dot.gov/owners/Searchreference under the following complaint identification numbers: 10598458, 10598344, 10538519.

RQ14004