Dodge Recalls Challenger and Charger After Installing Wrong Wheels

As far as recalls go, this latest by Dodge is on the smaller side with only 173 models affected.

The reason behind the recall, however, is more noteworthy. It would appear that Dodge installed the wrong wheel for the brakes on both the Dodge Challenger and the Dodge Charger. More specifically, 65 Challenger models and 111 Chargers built between May 20 and September 25 of this year are affected by the recall.

There’s no problem with the actual wheels per se, except that in this case said wheels are incompatible with the brakes installed on the vehicle according to the official NHTSA recall announcement. This results in inadequate clearance between the front tire inner sidewall and the suspension steering knuckle, again according to the NHSTA. Allpar was first to report the story.

The problematic wheel, number 5LD37RXFAA in FCA’s parts catalogue for those who wonder about these things, is a gloss black model which will have to be replaced by wheel number 5M84MALAC which is a Scat Pack Challenger and Charger wheel with a twin six-spoke design. The original wheel can work on other models, just not with this specific brake setup.

We couldn’t get official confirmation of what wheel 5LD37RXFAA looks like, but our online searches brought up the Challenger’s dual five-spoke base wheel design more often than not. This is believed to be the wheel that doesn’t fit with the brakes…

… and this would be the replacement wheel.

So to sum it up, a total of 62 Dodge Challenger and 111 Dodge Charger models were available with wheels that didn’t fit with the brakes. The combination should not have been available to order according to FCA.

The problem was discovered by workers at the Brampton factory in early September and subsequently investigated for the rest of the month. Affected vehicles will need to get the wheels replaced and aligned.