Water in the strobe lights can raise the fire risk on 280 service trucks

Altec Industries is recalling about 280 service body vehicles from the 2021, 2022 and 2023 model years because water can leak into the strobe lights and short out their electronics. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration filed the problem as campaign 26V551, and the agency’s consequence wording is that the short circuit can increase the risk of a fire. Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed on October 23, 2026, three days after publication.

The tech news worth your time: 400,000+ professionals from Google, Apple and OpenAI read Techpresso, a daily email with the most interesting tech news and insights.

Subscribe to Techpresso →

We may earn a commission if you sign up.

The campaign is small by recall standards, a few hundred trucks, but it has a history. It expands an earlier Altec recall for the same kind of strobe-light water intrusion, and the paperwork behind it shows the manufacturer concluding that its first count of affected vehicles had been drawn too narrowly. Altec tracks the new campaign internally as CSN-3360.

Campaign 26V551 and the 280 Altec service bodies

NHTSA’s record for campaign 26V551 lists the manufacturer as Altec Industries, the model as Service Body and the component as emergency equipment, specifically siren, lighting and strobes. It covers model years 2021 through 2023 and puts the number of potentially affected units at about 280. The agency logged the report as received on August 27, 2026, and FleetOwner carried the filing in its September 9 roundup of commercial vehicle recalls.

Altec’s own Part 573 safety recall report, filed with NHTSA, gives the production window as May 3, 2021 through March 23, 2023 and estimates that all 280 vehicles carry the defect. The strobes came from the supplier TecNiq of Galesburg, Michigan, and the report lists six affected lamp part numbers, in amber, white, red and blue LED versions, all rated at 12 volts and 0.275 amps.

How water in a strobe becomes a fire risk

The defect is mechanical and simple. According to FleetOwner’s summary of the filing, “Water can leak into the strobe lights, which may cause an electrical short-circuit.” The Part 573 report is more specific: water gets into the sealed strobe light enclosure and shorts the internal electronics of the light, and that short “increases the risk of a thermal event and fire.” The report adds that a pre-operational inspection could reveal moisture in the housing.

The wording is a risk statement, not a report of fires. The chronology in the Part 573 filing records no fires and no injuries, and Altec says it has identified no additional warranty claims or field reports involving vehicles outside the original recall population. The danger is the combination of moisture and a powered light fixture, and the remedy goes after both halves of it: the water that is already inside and the fuse that stands between a short and the wiring.

The 23V357 recall that came first

The earlier campaign, NHTSA recall 23V357, was received on May 18, 2023, under Altec recall number CSN 3079. Its record describes the same hazard and covered certain 2021 to 2023 aerial devices, digger derricks, service bodies and cranes, with 5,431 potentially affected units listed. Owner letters for that campaign were expected in July 2023.

The 2026 chronology explains the gap. On May 29, 2026, Altec opened an investigation after its service staff found a unit with a strobe configuration outside the CSN-3079 population. On August 20 it closed that revision and opened a potential field action, and on August 21 it decided a new campaign was needed because additional units may have been built with the same strobe configuration. The Part 573 report says a redesigned strobe and a smaller fuse were introduced into production on March 23, 2023.

The inspection, the new fuse and the owner letters

The remedy mirrors the 2023 fix. Owners inspect the light for moisture and a circuit with a lower-amperage fuse is installed. In the report’s words, “The lights will be replaced if water is present in the light assembly, or the light is not working.” Replacement kits are free, and the report lists the remedy type as inspect, reimburse and replace, with Altec’s warranty policy covering both the repair and any reimbursement. Because Altec has no dealer network, it notifies owners by letter, with the first mailing expected on October 23.

Altec customer service takes recall calls at 1-877-462-5832, and owners who want to confirm whether a specific vehicle is included can search by campaign number or vehicle identification number on NHTSA’s recall lookup. The Part 573 filing describes the notification as phased, so some owners will hear after others, and the campaign number to quote is 26V551, with CSN-3360 as Altec’s reference. Because the report estimates that every one of the 280 vehicles has the defect, an owner who receives a letter should treat the inspection as a certainty of the process rather than a spot check, and the new fuse goes in whether or not moisture turns up.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

The tech news worth your time: Subscribe to Techpresso →

We may earn a commission if you sign up.