Mcelrath Trailers Vx75 Xcel, model years 2013 to 2023. Filed by Gratimax, LLC and reported to NHTSA on 13 January 2023. 31 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Gratimax, LLC (Gratimax) is recalling certain 2013-2023 McElrath Trailers VX75 Xcel vacuum excavator trailers. The design of the rear impact guard resulted in the incorrect placement of the taillights. In addition, the guard may fail to prevent a vehicle from traveling under the trailer during a rear impact crash. As …
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.
Mcelrath Trailers's own number for this recall: 21434. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 23V008 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 23V008 cover?
- Mcelrath Trailers VX75 Xcel, model years 2013-2023.
- What is wrong with them?
- Gratimax, LLC (Gratimax) is recalling certain 2013-2023 McElrath Trailers VX75 Xcel vacuum excavator trailers. The design of the rear impact guard resulted in the incorrect placement of the taillights.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- Incorrect placement of the taillights may reduce the visibility of the trailer, increasing the risk of a crash. During a crash, a vehicle that travels under the rear of the trailer increases the risk of injury.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Dealers will reposition the taillights and modify the rear impact guard, free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed March 17, 2023. Owners may contact Gratimax customer service at 1-864-814-2220. Gratimax's number for this recall is 21434.
- What should I do now?
- Check your own vehicle by its VIN with NHTSA, which is the record to act on. Mcelrath Trailers calls this recall 21434, 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: “Incorrect placement of the taillights may reduce the visibility of the trailer, increasing the risk of a crash. During a crash, a vehicle that travels under the rear of the trailer increases the risk of injury.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 23V008 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Gratimax, LLC |
| System at fault | Exterior Lighting:Tail Lights |
| Reported to NHTSA | 13 January 2023 |
| Model years | 2013-2023 |
| Vehicles named | MCELRATH TRAILERS VX75 XCEL |
What the notice says today
The consequence
Incorrect placement of the taillights may reduce the visibility of the trailer, increasing the risk of a crash. During a crash, a vehicle that travels under the rear of the trailer increases the risk of injury.
The remedy
Dealers will reposition the taillights and modify the rear impact guard, free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed March 17, 2023. Owners may contact Gratimax customer service at 1-864-814-2220. Gratimax's number for this recall is 21434.
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.
How to cite this record
Quoting the wording on this page means quoting a version, so the date belongs in the citation:
CarsMultiverse, recall 23V008, wording as read on 16 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/23v008/
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.
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 23V008 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
7b4d1d3e - Consequence
0b447301 - Remedy
8c851856
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 23V008 · how the whole register is watched
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