Friday, January 27, 2006
Volvo recalls 42,000 trucks
All Volvo trucks are made at the company's 3,200-employee plant in Dublin.
The latest from The Ticker blog
Volvo Trucks North America is recalling approximately 42,000 trucks made at its Dublin plant after cracked or broken pipes resulted in heat damage and two confirmed instances of fire.
The voluntary safety recall, announced Thursday, affects Volvo VN and VHD model trucks manufactured between November 2002 and January of this year and equipped with the Volvo D12D engine.
"In November 2002, we started producing engines that have cooled EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) systems, which is an emissions control device and was new technology for engines at this time," Volvo Trucks spokesman Jim McNamara said, noting that the systems were added to comply with federal emissions standards.
The company has learned that there is the potential for the pipes that connect the EGR valve to the cooler to crack or break.
If these pipes fail and are not repaired, a truck's air cleaner and inner fender may be subjected to hot exhaust gases, which could lead to a fire.
Volvo has had reports of a number of the highway and vocational vehicles suffering heat damage to the inner fender or air cleaner as a result of these failures. There also have been two confirmed instances of a fire caused by these conditions. No one has been injured.
The truck manufacturer will address the problem by inspecting the pipes, replacing any defective parts and installing protective heat shields on all of the trucks.
These repairs will be made by Volvo's dealer organization and by warranty-certified fleets. Total repair time is expected to be about an hour.
Volvo Trucks is in the process of sending letters to all affected truck owners detailing the situation and instructing them on what precautions can be taken until a repair is made, as well as how and when to obtain the repair from their Volvo Trucks dealer.
It is unclear what percentage of trucks built between November 2002 and January is being recalled, but McNamara said Volvo Trucks had sold 60,480 trucks in the U.S. between 2003 and 2005.
Currently, 60 percent of Volvo's trucks are built with the D12D engine, McNamara said.
All Volvo trucks are made at the company's 3,200-employee plant in Dublin, but the engines, including the D12D, are assembled elsewhere.
McNamara said the D12D engine will be replaced beginning in 2007 with a new family of engines.
In the meantime, truck production in Dublin will continue.
"The New River Valley is now receiving engines with the heat shield installed so production is not affected there," McNamara said.
"They've also received additional heat shields for trucks that have been built but not shipped."
