Rosenbauer America has told fire departments to stop driving 10 of its fire engines after a weld inside a wheel rim cracked on one truck and let the wheel separate. The company filed NHTSA campaign 26V640000 on Oct. 2, covering eight 2024 Warrior engines and two Commander engines from model years 2024 and 2025.
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Ten is a small number for a federal recall, but each of these trucks belongs to a town, a district or a station that now has a hole in its apparatus roster.
Wheels failing at the weld
In its Part 573 safety recall report, Rosenbauer gives the defect as “Wheels failing due to insufficient weldment. Unable to withstand load requirements.” The root cause it files is blunter: “Weld holding rim together cracks and causes the wheel to separate, deflating tire.” NHTSA’s campaign record states the consequence in one line, “Wheel and/or tire failure increases the risk of a crash,” and Rosenbauer’s report places the risk on a front steer wheel, the one the driver steers with. The report adds that a crack may be visible from the inside of the wheel but is hard to see, which matters for a truck that is washed, inspected and parked far more often than it is driven.
The wheels are 22.5-inch steel wheels, 9 inches wide, with a 3.12-inch inset, supplied to Rosenbauer by Wheels Now Inc., a second-tier supplier listed in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Two part numbers are named, 8613845-001 and 8613845-003. Rosenbauer found the 10 trucks by matching those part numbers against its purchase orders, and it estimates that all 10 carry the defect, a 100 percent rate. The trucks, diesel-powered and classed as medium and heavy vehicles, were built between March 20, 2024 and Aug. 21, 2025, so the oldest has been in service for more than two years. The filing does not say how many wheels each truck carries.
One quirk of the public record is worth knowing for anyone counting. NHTSA’s campaign file for 26V640000 lists three model entries, the 2024 Warrior, the 2024 Commander and the 2025 Commander, and each entry repeats the same unit figure of 10. Added together the entries would suggest 30 trucks, but the Part 573 report is explicit that the whole population is 10: eight Warriors and two Commanders. The wheels component code is the same on all three, and the summary text is the same sentence, that a rim weld may crack, which can separate the wheel and deflate the tire.
A cracked wheel in September, a recall two weeks later
The chronology in the filing is short. On Sept. 18, 2026, a service ticket came in for a cracked wheel. Rosenbauer opened an investigation on Sept. 22, and by Sept. 24 it had found two trucks: one with total wheel failure and a tire blowout, and one with cracks but no blowout. All potentially affected trucks were identified on Sept. 25. An engineering meeting on Sept. 29 looked for an immediate solution, and the recall committee met on Oct. 2, affirmed the recall and announced it.
That is 14 days from the service ticket to the decision. The filing does not mention an injury or a crash, but it does describe a failure that happened on a real truck: a wheel that came apart on a vehicle built to run at speed to an emergency, and a second truck that had cracked without yet letting go.
No wheel, no engine company
The people who receive this recall are not consumers in the usual sense. The owner of a Rosenbauer Commander or Warrior is a fire department or a municipality, and NHTSA’s campaign record flags the engines as do-not-drive, telling owners to stop using them until the remedy is done. A department with one of the 10 has to cover that response some other way, with a reserve apparatus or a neighboring company. Rosenbauer’s plan in the filing was to contact customers by email and phone immediately, with dealers notified on Oct. 6 and 7.
The fix replaces the wheels, and the tires where affected, at no cost, including labor and shipping. The replacement wheels come from a different vendor, selected to match the load rating, the offset and the appearance of the originals, and Rosenbauer says it has removed the defective wheel from all production specifications. A general reimbursement plan is on file for any department that already paid for a repair. Departments can reach Rosenbauer customer service at 1-651-462-1000.
The calendar runs in phases. Rosenbauer planned interim owner notices for Oct. 8 to 12 and remedy notices for Oct. 19 to 23, and the NHTSA record shows the owner letter expected to be mailed on Oct. 19, 2026. VINs became searchable on NHTSA’s recall lookup from Oct. 14, and the NHTSA dataset row carries the same do-not-drive flag. The filing does not say how many of the 10 trucks have had their wheels replaced, and the NHTSA campaign page is where that progress would appear. For now, the instruction to the 10 owners has not changed: no driving until the new wheels are on.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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