Defect: Kaufman Trailers of NC, Inc. and Kaufman Trailers of NE, Inc. (Kaufman) is recalling certain model year 2011 flatbed trailers equipped with 10,000 lb. electrically-braked, oil bath axles. The wheel end caps on the oil bath axles can leak due to a cracked cap or a damaged O-ring.
Consequence: The oil may leak out of the wheel end caps and if the condition is not corrected, the loss of oil could result in unexpected wheel bearing failure which may increase the risk of a crash.
Remedy: Kaufman will notify owners and will replace the affected wheel end caps and o-rings free of charge. The recall began on September 14, 2012. Owners may contact Kaufman Trailers at 1-866-444-8971.
Do not drive: No. Park outside: No.
Investigations
1 investigations; 0 open.
PE12014
Opened: 2012-06-14. Closed: 2012-10-11.
Wheel-End Failures
On June 14, 2012 the Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened a Preliminary Evaluation (PE12-014) to assess the risks associated with wheel-end failures causing wheel separation on certain Model Year (MY) 2011 Kaufman Flatbed Trailers.Following discussions with ODI concerning manufacturer records, consumer complaints, interviews, and the risk to the public resulting from a wheel separation eve
Complaints from the API and bulk file are merged and deduplicated by ODI number; the API alone misses records.
System and subsystem counts are numbers of distinct complaints, recalls or communications that name them. One record can name several systems, so shares across systems can add to more than 100 percent; a single share never exceeds 100 percent.
Recalls are counted once per campaign, investigations once per action and manufacturer communications once per NHTSA id, even when NHTSA lists several model names for the same record.
A sales denominator is a calendar-year proxy, not the population of vehicles still in use. Rates are copied from verified pipeline output.
NHTSA's complaints API and bulk file list no complaint for this make, model and model year in this data build.