How To Estimate a Repair Yourself

Four steps. The whole thing works because every input is published rather than quoted, so you can run it before you ever contact the shop.

1. List the operations. Go through the ballpark table on the prices page and pick every line your job actually contains. Real jobs are usually two to five operations, not one. A leaking window is a reseal plus, frequently, water damage restoration plus interior panel work.
2. Choose a point in each hour range. Published ranges are wide because vehicles differ. Put a small, simple, accessible job near the low end. Put a large, complex or access constrained job near the high end. If you genuinely cannot tell, use the middle.
3. Multiply hours by the correct rate. Body and paint is $210 per hour. Mechanical and electrical is $260. Diagnostics, scan and programming is $285. Detail is $95. Most operations are one category, but a few, such as a slide seal replacement followed by a refinish, split across two.
4. Add materials, parts and tax. Paint supplies at $55 per paint hour. Body supplies at $5 per body hour. A $45 hazmat line if chemicals, refrigerant or LP are involved. Parts at 100 percent markup up to $100 and 35 percent above. Then 7.75 percent sales tax on parts and materials only, never on labor.

That is the entire calculation, and it is the same arithmetic our estimators use. The difference between your version and theirs is not the method, it is that they have opened the vehicle.

A thirty two foot travel trailer with a sound membrane, cracked lap sealant at the seams and terminations, and no evidence of water inside. The published band for a roof recoat and reseal is $750 to $4,500 across 4 to 20 hours.

Step one, operations. One operation, roof recoat and reseal. Nothing else applies, because the moisture check came back clean.

Step two, hours. A thirty two foot trailer with a handful of penetrations sits below the middle of the range. Call it ten hours.

Step three, labor. Ten body hours at $210 per hour comes to two thousand one hundred dollars.

Step four, materials, parts and tax. Body supplies at $5 per body hour on ten hours is fifty dollars. There are no paint hours, so no paint supplies. Coating and sealant materials are parts, and on a job of this size they will typically fall in the low hundreds, which puts them in the 35 percent markup tier. Sales tax at 7.75 percent applies to the parts and materials, not to the two thousand one hundred dollars of labor.

Result. Somewhere near the middle of the published $750 to $4,500 band, which is exactly where a thirty two foot trailer with sound membrane and tired sealant should land. If moisture mapping had come back positive, water damage restoration at $750 to $15,000 joins the estimate and the whole picture changes.

A low speed rear corner impact on a coach. The visible damage is a cracked rear cap, a scuffed sidewall over about three feet and a broken taillight housing. Assume teardown has been authorized and has already found lamination separation extending beyond the visible area.

Step one, operations. Four lines. Fiberglass cap repair at $750 to $12,000 across 4 to 60 hours. Delamination repair at $1,500 to $20,000 across 10 to 100 hours. Color match paint blending at $500 to $5,000 across 4 to 25 hours. Driver assistance scan and recalibration at $275 to $1,800 across 1 to 7 hours if the coach carries the hardware.

Step two, hours. Cap repair on a cracked but restorable cap, say eighteen hours. Delamination across a bounded area of one sidewall, say twenty five hours. Blending the corner and the adjacent panel, say ten paint hours. Recalibration, two hours.

Step three, labor. Cap and delamination hours are body labor at $210, which across forty three hours comes to just over nine thousand dollars. Ten paint hours at $210 adds two thousand one hundred. Two diagnostic hours at $285 adds five hundred and seventy. Labor alone is therefore a little under twelve thousand dollars.

Step four, materials, parts and tax. Paint supplies on ten paint hours at $55 is five hundred and fifty dollars. Body supplies on forty three body hours at $5 is two hundred and fifteen. Hazmat at $45 applies. Parts include the taillight housing, cap repair materials and lamination adhesive, marked up at 35 percent over $100. Tax at 7.75 percent applies to the parts and materials only.

Result. Comfortably inside the published bands for each operation, and a useful planning figure. What it cannot tell you is whether the corner impact racked the slide opening, which would add structural correction at $750 to $20,000 and change the file entirely.

A fifth wheel with a slide that binds partway out. The owner has cycled it several times trying to work it loose, which is common and rarely helpful.

Step one, operations. Diagnosis first, then whatever it finds. The in depth diagnostic is one hour at $285, applied as a credit against an authorized repair. Slide out mechanism service is $500 to $8,500 across 3 to 35 hours. Seal replacement is $400 to $3,000 across 2 to 14 hours. Slide room rebuild and structural repair is $1,500 to $7,500 across 10 to 35 hours if the room itself has moved.

Step two, the branch point. This example is different from the other two because the outcome is genuinely unknown before diagnosis. A controller or synchronization fault might be six mechanical hours. A worn gear rack and rail set might be eighteen. A slide room that has dropped because the floor beneath it is water damaged is a different job again, and the honest number is much larger.

Step three, labor on the middle branch. Eighteen mechanical hours at $260 per hour comes to four thousand six hundred and eighty dollars, which sits inside the published $500 to $8,500 band. Add seal replacement if the seals are being disturbed anyway, which they usually are.

Step four, the honest caveat. The $285 diagnostic hour is what converts three possible jobs into one known job, and it is applied as a credit against the repair. Skipping it and guessing is how owners end up authorizing a seal replacement on a problem that was structural.

Four things, and being clear about them is what separates a useful planning tool from a false promise.

• It cannot see concealed damage. On a laminated body the visible damage is regularly a fraction of the real damage, and no external assessment closes that gap. Teardown is the only method, which is why supplements are standard rather than exceptional on structural work.
• It cannot price interior access. Removing and reinstalling cabinetry, panels, wiring and furniture to reach a repair area is real labor that varies enormously by floor plan. Two coaches with identical damage and different interiors are two different estimates.
• It cannot predict parts availability. A discontinued component converts an ordering task into a fabrication or adaptation decision, and that is a different number and a different calendar.
• It cannot account for carrier negotiated rates. Insurance billed work may be written at rates that differ from the posted retail rates, so a claim estimate and a self built estimate can legitimately differ.

Used honestly, the method tells you the scale of what you are facing: whether this is a deductible sized repair or a claim sized one, whether to budget four figures or five, and whether the vehicle is worth repairing at all. That is usually the decision that actually matters.

When you want the binding number, bring the vehicle in. A collision estimate carries no charge, a systems evaluation is $150 applied as a credit against an authorized repair, and both produce a written document with hours, parts and materials broken out line by line. Request a quote.