Indian Chieftain, model year 2019. Filed by Indian Motorcycle Company and reported to NHTSA on 29 August 2019. 3,594 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Indian Motorcycle Company (Indian) is recalling certain 2019 Chieftain motorcycles. The tail lights may be too bright, exceeding the maximum light output allowed. As such, these vehicles fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) number 108, "Lamps, Reflective Devices, and …
Is your vehicle included? Check with your VIN at NHTSA, or ask a dealer. This page is an independent copy of the notice, kept so you can see what changed after it was published. It is not the authority, and the authority’s own text is the one to act on.
Indian's own number for this recall: I-19-04. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 19V638 is the number NHTSA gave the same campaign, and the number this page is filed under. They are one recall, written two ways.
What owners ask about this recall
- Which vehicles does recall 19V638 cover?
- Indian Chieftain, model year 2019.
- What is wrong with them?
- Indian Motorcycle Company (Indian) is recalling certain 2019 Chieftain motorcycles. The tail lights may be too bright, exceeding the maximum light output allowed.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- Due to increased brightness, other drivers may have difficulties discerning the brake light from the tail light, and thus may be unaware that the motorcycle is braking, thereby increasing the risk of a crash.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Indian will notify owners, and dealers will update the engine control module software to correct the rear tail light's intensity, free of charge. The recall began September 18, 2019. Owners may contact Indian customer service at 1-877-204-3697. Indian's number for this recall is I-19-04.
- What should I do now?
- Check your own vehicle by its VIN with NHTSA, which is the record to act on. Indian calls this recall I-19-04, which is the number on the owner letter and the dealer paperwork.
Answered from the register this site holds. NHTSA is the record to act on.
What the authority says can happen if this is not fixed: “Due to increased brightness, other drivers may have difficulties discerning the brake light from the tail light, and thus may be unaware that the motorcycle is braking, thereby increasing the risk of a crash.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 19V638 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Indian Motorcycle Company |
| System at fault | Exterior Lighting:Tail Lights |
| Reported to NHTSA | 29 August 2019 |
| Model years | 2019-2019 |
| Vehicles named | INDIAN CHIEFTAIN |
What the notice says today
The consequence
Due to increased brightness, other drivers may have difficulties discerning the brake light from the tail light, and thus may be unaware that the motorcycle is braking, thereby increasing the risk of a crash.
The remedy
Indian will notify owners, and dealers will update the engine control module software to correct the rear tail light's intensity, free of charge. The recall began September 18, 2019. Owners may contact Indian customer service at 1-877-204-3697. Indian's number for this recall is I-19-04.
What it said before
This campaign is in the register but not yet in the dated wording archive, so we cannot yet say whether its text has moved. It enters the archive on the next pass.
This is one of 663 notices in the record whose component field names exterior lighting. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 43 days.
Last checked . No change has been recorded in the wording.
The models named here, across their whole recall history
How to cite this record
Quoting the wording on this page means quoting a version, so the date belongs in the citation:
CarsMultiverse, recall 19V638, wording as read on 16 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/19v638/
The cross-border matches used on this site are deposited as a citable dataset: doi:10.5281/zenodo.22087136. The recall wording itself is published by the national authority named above and is theirs, not ours.
The recall record and its wording are published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and are US Government public domain. The dated archive, the comparison and any before-and-after above are CarsMultiverse. How fresh every engine behind this page is, is public on the status page. To check a specific vehicle, use NHTSA’s own VIN lookup.
Other Indian notices we hold
- 25V108: 2025 Challenger Dark Horse, Pursuit Limited, Roadmaster Elite and Springfield Dark Horse motorcycles
- 24V970: 2025 Scout and Scout Sixty motorcycles
- 24V860: 2022 FTR 1200 R Carbon, FTR 1200, FTR 1200 S and FTR 1200 Rally motorcycles
- 24V550: 2024 Chieftain, Challenger, Pursuit, Roadmaster, and Springfield motorcycles
- 23V582: 2023 Challenger, Pursuit Dark Horse Icon w/Premium Package, Pursuit Dark Horse w/Premium Package, and Pursuit Limited w/Premium Package motorcycles
- 23V293: 2022 Indian Chief Bobber, Indian Chief Dark Horse, and Indian Chief Bobber Dark Horse motorcycles
- 22V957: 2022 Chief, Chief Bobber, Chief Bobber Darkhorse, Chief Darkhorse, Super Chief, and Super Chief Limited motorcycles
- 22V636: 2019-2020 and 2022 FTR 1200, 2019-2020 FTR 1200 S, and 2020 FTR 1200 Rally motorcycles
All 20 Indian campaigns we hold · Every manufacturer in the record
The fingerprint of this notice
We take a SHA-256 of each of the three blocks of text the authority publishes and keep the first eight characters. As we last read campaign 19V638 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
bc4b6ae9 - Consequence
e5b3d783 - Remedy
9102f4ec
We first read this notice on 21 August 2026. It has not moved since. If it ever does, these characters will not match, and the change will be dated here.
The wording we hold for 19V638 · how the whole register is watched
This notice names one vehicle among several registers that have written about it. Every notice this site holds for the Indian Chieftain, in all seven, is kept on that vehicle's own page, with the newest in each.
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