Our Process, Step by Step, With Real Timelines

The most expensive thing that happens in this trade is doing a job twice. A cap repaired over a bent backer, a wall refinished over a separated laminate, a slide seal replaced on a racked opening. Each of those looks finished on delivery day and each of them comes back. So the sequence below is built to front-load discovery, even though it makes the first two weeks of a job look slower than an owner would like.

The practical version is this. We spend real time before we quote, we get everything approved in writing before we cut, and we verify before we deliver. In exchange, the back half of the job runs without surprises and without a second round of supplements written after the paint is already on. That trade is almost always worth making on a vehicle you intend to keep.

These are the stages every job passes through, whether it is a two day bumper repair or a four month structural rebuild. Small jobs compress several of them into an afternoon. Large jobs spend weeks in a single stage waiting on a carrier or a part. Nothing gets skipped, because the steps that get skipped are the ones that produce callbacks.

These are working ranges from vehicles that go through this shop, measured from the day the vehicle arrives to the day it leaves. They assume parts are available. They are not promises, because two of the three variables that control a schedule are outside the shop, and the third is what teardown finds. We give you a real schedule after teardown rather than before, and we tell you which specific part is holding a job when you ask.

Contained cosmetic and small body work runs two days to two weeks. That covers a bumper repair or replacement, a single panel refinish, a compartment door, a light housing, or a contained gelcoat repair. Roof reseal and recoat work runs three days to two weeks depending on penetration count and how much failed sealant has to come off. Awning fabric and arm work is usually one to five days. Detail and paint correction is one to four days.

Mid-size structural and system work runs two to six weeks. That is a fiberglass cap repair with graphics reproduction, a contained delamination repair with skin removal, a slide room pulled for mechanism and rail correction, a window or windshield replacement with resealing, or a subfloor section replaced under a dinette. Full roof membrane replacement typically runs two to five weeks depending on decking condition, because soft decking turns a roof job into a structural job.

Major structural and collision work runs six weeks to six months and occasionally longer. Full sidewall replacement, cap replacement, frame sectioning, extensive water damage with cabinetry and slide removal, full-body repaint, and vintage restoration all live here. On this tier the schedule is driven by carrier supplement review cycles and by parts, and coach components go out of production quickly enough that fabrication is frequently faster than waiting for a back order that may never fill.

Carrier supplement review is the first. Every supplement resets a review cycle, and structural jobs typically generate two or three. A carrier that turns supplements around in three days and a carrier that takes three weeks produce very different completion dates on identical damage, and the shop does not control which one you have. What the shop controls is submitting a supplement complete enough that it does not come back with questions.

Parts availability is the second and it is usually the larger one. A five year old coach can have a discontinued slide rail, a discontinued window frame, or a cap that is simply not made anymore. When that happens the options are a long back order, a salvage part of unknown condition, or fabrication. Fabrication often wins on time even though it looks more expensive on paper, and we will tell you the comparison rather than defaulting to whichever is easier.

Decision latency is the third and it is the one owners control. When a carrier responds and a choice has to be made about a part, a color, or a scope option, a job that waits four days for an answer finishes four days later. On supplement-driven work we may need decisions quickly, so give us a number you actually answer.

You get told when something changes and when a decision is needed, and you can call and ask for status at any point. What we will not do is invent a completion date to make a conversation more comfortable. If a supplement has been sitting at a carrier for eleven days, that is what we will tell you, along with the date it was submitted so you can escalate it yourself if you want to. Owners who escalate their own files usually get faster answers than shops who escalate on their behalf.

Photographs go into the file as work progresses, particularly on anything that will be closed up and invisible at delivery. Substrate condition, structural correction, welds, bond lines, and the state of things behind a panel are all documented while they are visible. That record is for you, for the carrier, and for whoever inspects the unit if you sell it.

Before a vehicle is called finished, every opening gets operated, every slide gets cycled under power, and the unit gets water tested at the repaired areas and at every penetration that was disturbed. On any chassis with driver assistance systems, a post-repair scan is run and calibration is performed and documented. If any of those steps fails, the job is not finished, regardless of what the calendar says.

The balance is due at pickup. Card payments over $1,000 carry a 3.5 percent surcharge. Anything outside the covered scope on an insurance job, along with your deductible and any betterment or non-recoverable depreciation the carrier applied, appears as its own line rather than folded into a total. Do not sign a final release with your carrier until the vehicle has been delivered and you have asked whether any open items remain.