Daimler Recalls 3,189 Grote Headlamps Sold as Freightliner M2 Replacement Parts

The vehicle campaign, 26V475000, is straightforward. It names 23,276 units across 2026-2027 Freightliner EM2 and Business Class M2 trucks plus Freightliner Custom Chassis S2RV and S2C, and a VIN lookup either returns it or it does not. Owner letters go out Sept. 20.

26E052 has no VIN attached to it at all. It follows the part. That scatters the affected lamps across three populations at once: dealer and distributor shelf stock, jobber inventory, and trucks that have already been repaired — potentially including chassis well outside the 2026-2027 vehicle-recall range, since the lamps are sold as direct replacements for the M2 106 and 112. A 2021 M2 that had a headlamp swapped this spring can be carrying the defect and will never surface in a VIN search.

Daimler has not developed a fix for either campaign. Owner notification for the equipment recall does not begin until Oct. 2, twelve days behind the vehicle letters, and both carry the same DTNA campaign number, F1036. Owners are directed to DTNA customer service at 1-800-547-0712.

That gap is the practical problem. A truck moving through a fall PM cycle may not be flagged yet; a lamp sitting in a bin almost certainly will not be. No warranty claims, crashes or injuries have been reported so far. Grote's lamps were one of several commercial-vehicle campaigns filed the same week, alongside Paccar's recall of 5,919 2027 Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks over power distribution centers contaminated with oil.

Three things this week. Quarantine any A66-41940 lamps in active stock — with no remedy defined, fitting one now means doing the job twice on your dime. Pull service invoices back through 2026 for M2 headlamp replacements and flag those units by hand, because nothing in a VIN lookup will do it for you. And treat a driver complaint of low beams that come up slowly after high-beam use in hot weather as this defect until proven otherwise.

Then decide what to fit in the meantime. If a unit needs a lamp before Daimler defines the remedy, run the part number through an interchange lookup to find an equivalent from another supplier instead of reordering straight back into the recall, and confirm the fitment for that make and model year before the order goes out. If the dim-beam symptom shows up on a truck with no A66-41940 lamp fitted, or persists in cool weather, it is a different fault — grounds, connectors or the harness — and worth working through a diagnostic guide before you buy anything at all.