2026 Chevrolet and GMC Recall: Steel Wheels May Crack

General Motors is recalling 952 Chevrolet Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV pickups because a steel wheel can crack at the disc vent holes. NHTSA campaign 26V496000 was filed July 30, 2026, and the consequence line is blunt: a cracked wheel may separate at the disc, taking steering with it.

The part at the center of this one spends most of its life doing nothing. On the trims involved, the wheel GM is chasing is largely the 18-inch spare, the one bolted under the bed against a flat tire that may never come. A defect in a spare stays invisible until the worst possible evening, and then it becomes the only wheel holding up that corner of the truck.

VINs became searchable at NHTSA on July 30. Owner letters do not mail until September 14, which leaves a gap of more than six weeks in which an owner can find this faster than the mail will tell them.

The Issue

Disc vent holes are the openings punched through the face of a steel wheel, the ones that let brake heat out and give the wheel its stamped look. They are also stress risers. Every hole is a place where load has to route around an absence, and a wheel that leaves the press with the wrong metallurgy or the wrong thickness will show it there first.

GM's description says the cracking develops over time rather than arriving with the truck. That is what makes a spare the awkward case. A road wheel telegraphs trouble through vibration and noise across thousands of miles. A spare sits in the dark, cracks quietly if it is going to, and gets torqued on by someone kneeling on a shoulder with traffic going past.

Affected Models

Vehicle	Model year	Wheels named	Units
Chevrolet Silverado EV	2026	18-inch steel road wheels (Work Truck) and 18-inch spare (Work Truck, LT)	513
GMC Sierra EV	2026	18-inch spare steel wheel	Balance of 952

Trail Boss and RST are not in the campaign. Those trims ship with a tire inflator kit instead of a spare, so they never received the part. The trucks that escape this recall do so by carrying less equipment, not better equipment, which is worth remembering the first time an inflator kit meets a sidewall tear it cannot fix.

NHTSA's own record is less specific than GM's bulletin. The federal summary says only "the steel wheels," without separating road wheels from the spare, and secondary coverage has split on which is which. The federal filing and GM's dealer bulletin agree on the fix and the population; they differ in how precisely they name the part.

The Parts Counter Problem

GM assigned two internal numbers to this action, N262556920 and N262556921, and told dealers to pull parts sales records for two over-the-counter wheels, 85535663 and 85162242. Anyone who bought one of those across the counter owns a potentially cracked wheel that no VIN lookup will ever surface.

That population has no letter coming. A recall reaches vehicle owners through the registration file, and a wheel sold as a service part has no registration behind it. Dealers are the only mechanism GM has for finding those buyers, which means a customer who bought a replacement steel wheel in the last year should call rather than wait.

The Second Steel Wheel Recall in Two Weeks

Chrysler filed a steel wheel campaign of its own on July 16, covering 641 2026 Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator trucks whose wheel walls were machined thinner than the drawing specified. Two steel wheel cracking recalls, two automakers, fourteen days apart.

Nothing in either filing names a shared supplier, and neither company has said the two are connected. The federal records describe different failure mechanisms, thin walls in the Jeep case and disc vent hole cracking in the GM case. What the pair does establish is that steel wheels, the least glamorous component on any truck, produced two separate federal campaigns inside a single month.

What Owners Should Do

July 30, 2026. VINs became searchable at NHTSA. That date has passed, so any owner can check now at nhtsa.gov/recalls or through Chevrolet or GMC owner centers.

September 14, 2026. GM mails owner notification letters.

On inspection. Dealers check the wheel for suspect disc lot dates and replace anything from an affected lot, free of charge. Trucks that pass need nothing further. Chevrolet customer service is 1-800-222-1020 and GMC is 1-800-462-8782.

Unsold trucks that fail inspection are on hold at dealers until replacement wheels arrive, so anyone shopping a 2026 Silverado EV or Sierra EV Work Truck should ask whether the unit has cleared this campaign before signing.

How Long Will the Recall Repair Take?

GM has not published a labor estimate. Reading a lot date off a spare takes minutes, and swapping one takes little longer. The visit is an inspection for most owners, with replacement only for the trucks whose wheels trace to a suspect lot.

Parts supply is the variable. GM has already told dealers to hold failing inventory until replacement wheels are available, which is the clearest signal in the filing that stock is not sitting on shelves waiting.

How Worried Should an Owner Be?

Day to day, little changes. On the trims where only the spare is involved, the defective part is not touching the road, and the truck drives exactly as it did. The risk is deferred rather than absent, which is a different thing from safe.

The scenario that matters is the roadside one. A driver puts the spare on after a flat, drives to a tire shop on it, and that is the drive where a cracked disc has to hold. Owners in that situation before the inspection should keep the speed down and the distance short, which is standard practice on a temporary spare anyway.

Silverado EV Work Truck owners have the closer case, since GM's bulletin names the 18-inch road wheels on that trim alongside the spare. Those trucks are worth booking early rather than waiting on the September letter.

Find your Chevrolet recall information: https://www.chevrolet.com/ownercenter/recalls