Steering Gear Fasteners May Become Loose

Affected vehicles (1)

Component / system

Defect

Ferrara Fire Apparatus, Inc. (Ferrara) is recalling certain 2019-2020 Inferno vehicles. The steering gear mounting bolts may become loose and back out, resulting in difficulty steering.

Risk / consequence

Difficulty steering, or the inability to steer in both directions, can increase the risk of a crash.

Remedy

Ferrara will notify owners, and dealers will replace the steering gear mounting bolts and washers, free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed on April 23, 2021. Owners may contact Ferrara customer service at 1-800-443-9006.

Chronology of events

1. In an efort to inprove corrosion resistance, it was decided to switch types on a number of suspension components around November2019. The change went into production on 11/27/19 and the new paint was Tectyl 3335. Initial testing shoed that there could be a problem with the new paint flowing for an extended period of time after application and that bolted joints were a relatively short fastener was used without a locking feature were particularly susceptible to losing clamp load. Reyco Granning engineering detailed which components could and could not be painted with the new paint due to this concern. Unfortunately, a miscommunication occurred and the steering gear mount plates continued to be painted with the new paint. Around September 2020 the first reports of steering gears being loose started to come in from the end use customers. Testing was restarted immediately from a number of different avenues within Reyco Granning in order to determine the root cause of the failure. At the end of october 2020 it was determined that the root cause was the paint and how it continued to flow. painting of the steering gear mount plates was innediately changed to a paint with much thinner film thickness that would not have the same post cure flow conditions. Production of plates painted with the Tectyl 3335 paint ended on 10-28-2020. Further work continued over the next couple of months in order to determine the severity of the failure and possible remedies. Customer were notified at the beginning of the year in order to facilitate discussion and direction on remediation. At the end of January it was decided that this rose to the level of a Safety Recall and appropriate steps need to be taken.

Notification schedule

Dealer notification

MAR 09, 2021 - MAR 24, 2021

Owner notification

MAR 09, 2021 - MAR 24, 2021

Documents (13)