The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

Have a Safety Problem?

How to Report a Safety Issue to the NHTSA Regarding Recreational Vehicle (RV)

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
NHTSA states in writing that the RV industry is permitted to “self-certify and self-regulate” which means there are no federal safety regulations at all for the RV industry.

If you are experiencing serious safety concerns with your Grand Design RV, it is critical to report them to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) first, before filing a report with Grand Design RV or any RV manufacturer. These reports help trigger investigations, recalls, and legal accountability.

Common Safety Issues to Report

Include any of the following (and others you believe are safety-related):

• Excessive frame flex or failure (see Symptoms List)

• Doors/cargo doors opening during transport and/ or slide-outs opening during transport

• Fire hazard potentials (electrical in nature)

• Electrical issues that pose a fire risk

• CO2 poisoning (alarms not going off)

• Brake system failure

• Suspension breakage while traveling

• Broken axles

• Any other structural or mechanical defects that could cause injury or loss of control
  

Below is a clear, step‑by‑step explanation of how RV owners—specifically owners of towable RVs (travel trailers and fifth wheels)—can file a formal safety complaint with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), even though NHTSA does not maintain a traditional VIN database for towable RVs in the same way it does for passenger vehicles.

This explanation is grounded in NHTSA’s own guidance and Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) practices and reflects how complaints tied to recent RV investigations were actually submitted and processed. [nhtsa.gov], [rvadvocacy.com]

1. Why Towable RV Complaints Are Different

Towable RVs are regulated as trailers, not passenger vehicles. While they do have VINs, those VINs:

• Are not always searchable in NHTSA’s public VIN‑lookup tools

• Are not consistently indexed the same way cars and trucks are

• Often fail VIN auto‑recognition during complaint entry

This does NOT prevent NHTSA from accepting or acting on complaints.
NHTSA investigations into towable RVs—including recent frame‑flex cases—were triggered by owner complaints submitted without VIN validation. [camperid.com]

2. Where to File the Complaint (Official Portal)

All RV safety complaints—motorized or towable—are submitted through the same official portal:

👉 NHTSA “Report a Safety Problem” page
https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem [nhtsa.gov]

3. How to File a Complaint for a Towable RV (Step‑by‑Step)

Step 1: Choose the Correct Category

• Select “Vehicle”

• When prompted, identify the vehicle type as:

  • Trailer

  • Fifth Wheel

  • Towable RV (if manually entered)

If the system attempts to validate a VIN and fails, continue anyway.

Step 2: Enter Vehicle Information (Even If VIN Fails)

Provide:

• Year

• Make

• Model

• Manufacturer

• VIN (if available)

✅ Important:
If the VIN is rejected or not recognized:

• Proceed without stopping

• Enter “VIN not recognized – towable RV” in the description field

NHTSA investigators manually review these submissions. VIN validation is not required for ODI review.

Step 3: Describe the Safety Issue (This Is the Most Important Part)

NHTSA relies heavily on pattern recognition, so clarity matters.

Best practices:

• Start with the safety consequence, not the cosmetic issue
  Example:

  “Entry and cargo doors opening while traveling at highway speeds.”

• Clearly connect the defect to risk, such as:

  • Road debris

  • Loss of vehicle control

  • Injury risk

  • Structural instability

• Include:

  • Whether it happened while in motion

  • Whether items exited the RV

  • Any near‑misses or injuries

You are limited to 2,000 characters, so be concise but specific.

Step 4: Selecting the Affected Component (Critical Detail)

Towable RV issues often don’t fit cleanly into dropdown menus.

Recommended selection:

• Choose “Other / I’m Not Sure”

• Manually enter:

  “Frame and structural integrity – towable RV”

This language matches terminology used by NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation in recent RV probes.

Step 5: Submit and Save Your Confirmation

After submission:

• You will receive a confirmation email

• It includes a VOQ (Vehicle Owner Questionnaire) number

✅ Save this number.
It is proof your complaint is in the federal database.

Complaint data is:

• Publicly searchable (with personal info removed)

• Used to justify investigations, recalls, and enforcement actions [oemdtc.com]
  

4. What Happens After You File

According to NHTSA procedures:

• Complaints are reviewed by ODI analysts

• Similar complaints are grouped by make, model, and defect pattern

• If sufficient evidence exists, NHTSA may:

  • Open a Preliminary Evaluation (PE)

  • Issue information requests to manufacturers

  • Escalate to an Engineering Analysis

  • Require a recall

This is exactly how recent towable RV investigations were initiated. [camperid.com]

5. Key Takeaways for RV Owners

• ✅ Towable RVs can and should be reported to NHTSA

• ✅ VIN lookup failures do not invalidate complaints

• ✅ Clear safety descriptions matter more than VIN data

• ✅ Multiple similar complaints are what trigger action—not one report

If the issue can cause injury, loss of control, or road hazards, NHTSA wants the report.

What Happens Next?

Within 1–3 business days, you may be contacted by an NHTSA investigator (call or email). Be prepared to:

• Answer follow-up questions

• Provide additional documentation or media

• After filing NHTSA complaint, then and only then you report it to Grand Design RV

• Share your repair history and communications with Grand Design
  

NHTSA Contacts for RV Investigations

You may hear from one of the following investigators below:

Joshua Neff
Chief, Medium and Heavy-Duty Vehicle Defect Division
joshua.neff@Dot.gov

Jonathan Harrison
Safety Defects Specialist
Medium and Heavy-Duty Vehicles Division
jonathan.harrison@dot.gov
(202) 366-8833

Robert Nguyen
Medium and Heavy-Duty Vehicles Division
robert.nguyen@dot.gov
(214) 783-4471

Final Tips

• Keep a copy of your complaint and all related emails together (possibly in a email folder and cloud account for pictures and videos.

• If you don’t hear back within a week, follow up with the investigator.

• Be sure to email the NHTSA investigators when significant issues happen so they can update your complaint

• Encourage others with similar issues to file their own reports — volume matters.

NOTE:
1. Check your Spam folders for emails from NHTSA. Extremely important, please!

2. After going through these questions, some questions will be unique to your complaint so that they could vary.

3. If your RV company mobile tech or a dealership failed to perform all steps in your technical service bulletin, let NHTSA know why the tech failed to remove the phylon under the pin box and riser wall to do a thorough inspection of possible cracked/broken welds in the frame.

4. If you have an after-market pin box like the Gen-Y, make sure you let them know about the improvement in the ride since this upgrade and mention the Magnuson-Moss Act to them as the resource that protects you from warranty denial by RV assembly/manufacturing companies.



These may be questions that are asked of you by the NHTSA investigators. This is when you get the opportunity to explain everything that relates to your RV issues. Try to list outreach chronologically, and make sure it pertains to the RV only without getting into a long, drawn-out story. Try your best to keep emotion out of it and stick to the facts. This is when you have the opportunity to attach pictures and videos to this email request.
- Are you the original owner of this trailer?

- Has this trailer ever been in an accident or had its frame repaired/altered?

- What do you usually carry in this trailer?

- Has this trailer ever had water damage?

- Is the pin box currently on the trailer original from Grand Design? If not, what brand, model, and size is it? Who installed it?

- Have you been in contact with Grand Design in this matter

- How many times have your doors come open?

- Is there any other damage you’ve noticed in your trailer?

- Do you give this office permission to share your Vehicle Identification Number/VIN and Personal Identifying Information/PII with the manufacturer?
Yes, I 100% approve this.


Other Possible Questions:

- Is there damage to the frame at the pin box area? If so, can you share photos of that damage with this office? If so, please limit them to your Top 5 pictures for now.

- Have any doors opened in transit, such as cargo doors, entry/exit doors, or propane doors? If those doors opened, how many times did these doors open, and were any items lost to the roadway?

- Regarding the doors that have opened, do you have photos of them to share? We want to learn where they are on the trailer (driver’s side/passenger side? Towards the front, toward the rear?) and how the door itself operates (is the hinge to the front of the trailer, to the rear? Do the doors which might have opened lift because they are hinged at the top?). Please limit your photos to two for each door that has opened.

- If your trailer has had slideout troubles you feel are attributable to your frame concerns, please describe those slideout problems.

- If your trailer has had slideout troubles you feel are attributable to your frame concerns. Please tell us where the affected slideout is installed on your trailer.


Copy and paste these questions into a new email to whatever NHTSA investigator is assigned your case. if you never got these questions from NHTSA. Also, add plenty of pictures and videos to the email. Don't change these questions at all because they come from NHTSA, but feel free to add additional information to your responses. Please read through it thoroughly before sending it.