IMMI Seat Custion Locking Mechanisms

On February 1, 2010, Indiana Mills & Manufacturing, Inc. (IMMI) notified NHTSA that it sold certain school bus seats, manufactured between October 6, 2009 and January 25, 2010, and that these seats did not meet FMVSS No. 222, "School bus passenger seating and crash protection," when installed in a school bus application. IMMI stated that certain seat cushion locking mechanisms are capable of being misaligned during vehicle assembly or after the vehicle is in use. A seat cushion with a misaligned locking mechanism might not be able to meet the requirements of FMVSS No. 222 as it would not allow the cushion to remain attached to the seat during a certain threshold of upward force. Should a school bus seat cushion become detached from the seat during vehicle operation, personal injury is possible to the seat occupant(s). On April 2nd, 2010, RMD mailed IR letters requesting 573 Defect Report submissions to 13 of the 14 purchasers IMMI listed in its February 1st letter to the agency. Daimler Trucks (Thomas Bus) had already filed a Defect Report for its buses in February (10V-058). After a second IR letter was mailed to the other 13 purchasers on June 17, 2010, RMD received a response from all purchasers with the exception of Durham School Services. As a school bus operator and not a vehicle manufacturer, they would not be required to notify the NHTSA and submit a Defect Report, but RMD did want to notify them of this safety issue. Of the 12 respondents, 4 chose to file a subsequent Defect Report for school buses they built with these seats: Collins Bus Corp: 10V-291 Starcraft Bus: 10V-194 Bus West: 10V-292 HA Dehart & Sons: 10V-142 The remaining 8 responses did not require a Defect Report as the vehicles were repaired prior to sale, the seats were previously returned to IMMI, or they were not installed into buses as original equipment. This EQ is closed. EQ responses can be found in the Document Repository. A working spreadsheet of responses can be found by clicking on t