Daimler Trucks North America is recalling 24 Freightliner Business Class M2 trucks under NHTSA recall 26V635 because underbody insulation can come into contact with hot exhaust components, which increases the risk of a fire. The affected trucks are model years 2025 to 2027 with one specific gasoline engine and insulation configuration. Daimler has told owners to stop driving them and to park them outside.
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The company’s own number for the campaign is F1041, and it estimates that all 24 vehicles carry the defect.
Recall 26V635 and the 24 trucks it covers
The campaign first surfaced in a trade-press list of NHTSA commercial-vehicle recalls for the week of October 12, which gave the 2025-2027 Business Class M2 and the unit count of 24. The full report to the agency, filed by Daimler as recall 26V635, supplies the rest: the manufacturer is Daimler Trucks North America, the estimated share of vehicles with the defect is 100 percent, and the report was submitted on October 1, 2026.
NHTSA also issued an acknowledgement document for the same campaign. A recall this small still follows the full federal process, with a defect chronology, a named remedy path and a schedule for telling dealers and owners, and the 24-truck count is low beside the other entries on the same weekly list, where a Chrysler Ram campaign for water entering a power steering harness covers 265,512 units. Size does not change the instruction owners of these particular trucks are given.
Insulation that can melt against an exhaust
The part at issue is thermal underbody insulation, part number 18-57906-002, which is fitted to keep exhaust heat away from the components around it. Tier 1 suppliers are the companies that sell parts directly to a vehicle maker, so the filing places both the in-house unit and 3M one step from the assembly line. Daimler says the insulation may have been incorrectly manufactured or applied, so that it can touch hot exhaust components. Contact could melt it and raise the risk of a thermal event. The filing lists the insulation’s Tier 1 suppliers as Daimler’s own TEC unit and 3M.
For an owner, the failure has two warning signs the report names: insulation that sags, and the smell of melting insulation. Those are physical cues a technician or driver can check, which makes an inspection by an authorized facility the sensible response even though the repair itself is not yet available. A fleet manager running an M2 as a work truck would be looking underneath the cab and along the exhaust routing, not at the engine bay alone.
How a July smoke report became a recall
Daimler’s chronology begins on July 27, 2026, when a driver delivering a new vehicle reported smoke under the hood, and the vehicle was damaged. In August a third-party investigator traced the problem to the underbody insulation, and Daimler then inspected other vehicles with the same engine. By September its analysis pointed to poor adhesion of the insulation during manufacturing, incorrect layer production by the supplier, or both.
Daimler decided on September 28 to conduct a recall and submitted the report on October 1. Apart from the July event, the company reports no related warranty claims, injuries or fatalities. The recall therefore rests on one reported incident and an engineering analysis of cause, not on a pattern of customer complaints, and Daimler has said the defect rate across the 24 trucks is estimated at 100 percent.
Park outside, then wait for a remedy
The consumer instruction in the report is blunt: owners should not drive the affected vehicles and should park them outside. That puts this campaign in a stricter class than recalls that allow continued use, and it means the 24 trucks are effectively idle until a repair exists. The remedy is still in development. Authorized Daimler service facilities will carry out the repair free of charge, and reimbursement details will be in the owner letter.
Production of this engine and vehicle configuration is on hold pending a revised design, so the fix is not a quick part swap. Dealers are due to be notified on October 21, 2026, the day after publication. No interim owner notification is planned, and the remedy owner notification is scheduled for November 30, 2026 in what the filing calls a phased recall.
Because the remedy owner letter is not due until November 30, owners and fleet managers who want to confirm a truck in the meantime can search NHTSA’s recall lookup. The Business Class M2 has carried other recalls, including an earlier parking brake campaign on 2025 models, but each campaign has its own number, population and remedy, and the 26V635 instruction applies only to the 24 trucks in this one.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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