Forest River Bus Collins School Bus, model year 2026. Filed by Forest River Bus, LLC and reported to NHTSA on 23 January 2026. 213 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Forest River Bus, LLC (Forest River Bus) is recalling certain 2026 Collins Bus school buses. The body panel joint adhesive may have been applied to the incorrect location, causing the panels to separate. As such these vehicle fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. …
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.
Forest River's own number for this recall: 551-2021. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 26V041 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 26V041 cover?
- Forest River Bus Collins School Bus, model year 2026.
- What is wrong with them?
- Forest River Bus, LLC (Forest River Bus) is recalling certain 2026 Collins Bus school buses. The body panel joint adhesive may have been applied to the incorrect location, causing the panels to separate.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- Separated body panels can reduce structural integrity, increasing the risk of injury in a crash.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Dealers will inspect and apply adhesive as necessary, free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed February 18, 2026. Owners may contact Forest River Bus customer service at 1-620-888-3310. Forest River Bus's number for this recall is 551-2021.
- What should I do now?
- Check your own vehicle by its VIN with NHTSA, which is the record to act on. Forest River calls this recall 551-2021, 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: “Separated body panels can reduce structural integrity, increasing the risk of injury in a crash.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 26V041 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Forest River Bus, LLC |
| System at fault | Structure:Body |
| Reported to NHTSA | 23 January 2026 |
| Model years | 2026-2026 |
| Vehicles named | FOREST RIVER BUS COLLINS SCHOOL BUS |
What the notice says today
The defect
Forest River Bus, LLC (Forest River Bus) is recalling certain 2026 Collins Bus school buses. The body panel joint adhesive may have been applied to the incorrect location, causing the panels to separate. As such these vehicle fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 221, "School Bus Body Joint Strength."
The consequence
Separated body panels can reduce structural integrity, increasing the risk of injury in a crash.
The remedy
Dealers will inspect and apply adhesive as necessary, free of charge. Owner notification letters were mailed February 18, 2026. Owners may contact Forest River Bus customer service at 1-620-888-3310. Forest River Bus's number for this recall is 551-2021.
What it said before
Nothing has changed while we have been watching. We last read the wording of this campaign on 17 September 2026, and it matched the copy we already held.
That copy hashes to d3bd6d36f31ca2f900687c91458decff…, so if it is ever edited the change is provable rather than a matter of memory.
This is one of 901 notices in the record whose component field names structure. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 42 days.
Last checked . No change has been recorded in the wording.
The same recall in other countries
This campaign carries a manufacturer code that also appears in another country’s register, which means the same defect was recalled there too.
- Canada: Transport Canada recall 2026028, recorded 23 January 2026 (within a week of the American filing)
Matched on 5512021, the manufacturer’s own number for this campaign, which is the only field the registers share. Exact match, nothing paired on brand and date. The two dates are adjacent instruments rather than the same one, so a difference of a day or two means nothing.
How often the two countries file on the same day · The European alerts
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 26V041, wording as read on 17 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/26v041/
The copy quoted above hashes to d3bd6d36f31ca2f900687c91458decff…. If the notice is reworded later, that fingerprint will not match, which is how a reader checks that the quotation was of the version we say it was.
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 Forest River notices we hold
- 26V586: 2027 Salem and Wildwood travel trailers
- 26V585: 2019-2022 Lone Star Vans built on Ram ProMaster chassis
- 26V563: 2027 Vibe recreational trailers
- 26V503: 2027 Leprechaun and Freelander recreational
- 26V477: 2026-2027 Pause travel trailers, and OG Luxury Coach recreational
- 26V476: 2027 Unmapped, Sabre, No Boundaries, Ibex, Surveyor, Sierra, and Sandpiper travel trailers
- 26V439: 2026-2027 Wildwood and Salem travel trailers
- 26V398: 2025-2026 NOBO, Ibex, and 2025-2027 RPOD recreational trailers
All 549 Forest River 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 26V041 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
5673d847 - Consequence
e42fcaaa - Remedy
c4ef0798
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 26V041 · how the whole register is watched
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Owners of these cars
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