# Frequently Asked Questions About RV Repair > The questions owners ask most cluster in five areas: what a job costs, how long it takes, how insurance actually works, whether the vehicle physically fits, and what the shop does and does not do. Every answer below reflects the posted rate card and the shop's real operating practice rather than a general description of the trade. Source: https://ocrv.biz/faqs/ Business: OCRV Center, 23281 La Palma Ave, Yorba Linda, CA 92887. (949) 799-3387. Serving Tustin, California. ## What do people ask about cost? Almost always some version of the same question: what will this cost, and why will nobody give me a number over the phone. The honest answer to the second half is that a number given over the phone on a large vehicle is a guess, and a guess that turns out low is worse for you than no number at all. What can be given immediately is the arithmetic. Body and paint labor is $210 per hour. Mechanical and electrical is $260. Diagnostics, scan and programming is $285. Detail is $95. Paint supplies calculate at $55 per paint hour, body supplies at $5 per body hour, hazmat is $45 flat where regulated material is involved, and sales tax at 7.75 percent applies to parts and materials but never to labor. Parts carry 100 percent markup at $100 or under and 35 percent above that. Every operation the shop performs has a published ballpark range and a labor hour range on the [prices page](/prices/). A roof recoat and reseal is $750 to $4,500 across 4 to 20 hours. A slide out mechanism service is $500 to $8,500 across 3 to 35 hours. A full paint refinish is $5,000 to $35,000 across 40 to 250 hours. Pick your operations, pick a point in the hour range, multiply, add materials and tax, and you will land close. What that arithmetic cannot do is see inside a wall. Concealed damage is the reason estimates get revised, and it is why teardown authorization exists. ## What do people ask about timing? How long, and then, once the repair is underway, why has nothing happened this week. Both deserve a specific answer rather than reassurance. Ask for two numbers instead of one: authorized labor hours and expected calendar time. Labor hours are estimable and reasonably reliable. Calendar time is governed by approval turnaround on insurance files and by parts availability on anything discontinued, and neither of those is inside the shop's control. A five hour bumper repair can occupy three weeks of calendar waiting on an approval while a two hundred hour structural rebuild moves steadily. Seasonal load is real and worth planning around. Winterization and de winterization cluster hard. Roof reseals cluster before the first rain. Collision work rises after holiday travel weekends. The shop runs 50 to 150 repairs and 100 to 150 maintenance visits a month, and booking a scheduled service ahead of those clusters is the difference between a chosen date and an assigned one. When a file pauses, ask which of four things it is waiting on: supplement approval, parts, booth scheduling or a decision from you. Each has a different next action, and a status update that only confirms the pause helps nobody. ## What do people ask about scope and fit? Two practical questions dominate: will my vehicle physically fit, and do you actually do this kind of work. On fit, the answer is almost always yes. The facility is 35,000 square feet with door height, bay depth, booth length, structural anchoring and lift capacity for a Class A diesel pusher, a fifth wheel toy hauler, a bus conversion, a box truck or a stretched van. For anything unusual, a lifted expedition rig, a tall conversion with roof mounted equipment, a lowboy or a crane body, send dimensions and we will confirm before you commit to a tow. On scope, the shop covers collision and structural, paint and refinish, fiberglass and aluminum, roof, slide and awning, electrical and power, LP, heating and cooling, plumbing and tanks, appliances, interior and remodel work, glass and doors, trailer and towing components, van and fleet upfit, and commercial body work. All of it in shop, none of it sublet to a second facility. What is not performed here: internal engine and drivetrain work, state vehicle inspection and tailpipe testing. Saying so early saves a wasted tow, which is the entire reason it appears on nearly every page of this site. ## Questions ### How much does RV collision repair cost? Structural collision repair runs $1,000 to $150,000 across 5 to 800 labor hours, which is a wide range because the vehicles and the damage vary enormously. Camper collision work runs $750 to $50,000 and van collision repair runs $1,500 to $40,000. The written estimate against your vehicle is the number that matters. ### Do you charge for an estimate? A collision estimate carries no charge and insurance walk ins are welcome. An RV systems estimate covering slide, awning, water intrusion, electrical or generator faults is $150, applied as a credit against an authorized repair. An in depth diagnostic is one hour at $285, also applied as a credit. ### Why is the diagnostic charged when the collision estimate is not? Because they are different amounts of work. Estimating visible collision damage is a documented walk around. Diagnosing an intermittent electrical fault or tracing a water path back through a laminated wall is hours of technician time with meters, scan tools and moisture equipment, and quoting that blind would mean guessing at your expense. ### What deposit will I be asked for? Jobs over $2,000 carry a 50 percent deposit at authorization. Jobs over $10,000 carry an additional 25 percent when parts arrive. Special order parts require a full deposit at order and that deposit is not refundable, because those components are usually non returnable and model specific. ### Is there a fee for paying by card? Card payments over $1,000 carry a 3.5 percent surcharge, which is a pass through of merchant processing fees on high ticket work rather than a profit line. Payments under $1,000 by card carry no surcharge. The alternative, building the fee into every labor rate, would penalize customers paying other ways. ### Do I have to use the shop my insurance company recommends? No. In California you name the repair facility, and a carrier cannot make its own recommendation a condition of settling the claim. Carriers may recommend a direct repair program shop, and that recommendation is legitimate, but most program shops cannot physically accept a forty foot vehicle. ### Which insurance carriers do you bill directly? Sixteen, including Progressive, GEICO, State Farm, AAA SoCal, AAA Enterprises, Mercury, Allstate, American Family, Wawanesa, National General, CSAA, Foremost, Liberty Mutual, Tesla, Cincinnati and AGWS. Direct billing means the carrier pays the shop and you settle your deductible at pickup. ### Will insurance work be billed at your posted rates? Not always. Insurance billed jobs may be written at carrier negotiated labor rates that differ from the posted retail rates. When that applies to your file you are told before work starts, and the estimate reflects it, so there is never a gap between what the paperwork says and what you were told. ### What is a supplement and why does my repair need one? A supplement is a second estimate filed after teardown exposes damage that could not be seen from outside. On laminated and sealed bodies it is the normal case rather than an exception, and on structural work the supplement is frequently larger than the original estimate. ### Why did the shop stop working while waiting for approval? Because work performed ahead of carrier approval can be declined, and then it becomes an argument about who absorbs the cost. Pausing at the approval boundary protects you from being handed a bill nobody authorized. It looks like inactivity and it is the file being handled correctly. ### Can you repair delamination, or does the wall have to be replaced? Both happen. Delamination repair runs $1,500 to $20,000 across 10 to 100 hours. The deciding factor is whether the bond has released across an area that can be re bonded and stabilized, or whether the substrate itself is crushed and rotted, in which case section replacement produces a result that actually lasts. ### My roof is leaking. Is that a reseal or a replacement? A roof recoat and reseal is $750 to $4,500 and buys years when the membrane itself is sound and the failure is at seams, terminations and penetrations. Membrane replacement is $3,500 to $18,000 and is the honest answer when the membrane is chalked, split or has water tracking beneath it. ### How do I know whether water has already damaged the structure? Moisture mapping, which is part of a $150 systems evaluation. Meters read through interior surfaces at grid points and the pattern shows both extent and likely entry path. Visible staining is a late indicator, and by the time a ceiling panel is discolored the substrate above it has usually been wet for a long time. ### My slide will not extend. What is that likely to cost? Slide out mechanism service runs $500 to $8,500 across 3 to 35 hours, which spans everything from a controller fault or a synchronization issue to a full rebuild. Seal replacement is $400 to $3,000 separately. Diagnosis comes first because the failure mode determines which of those you are actually looking at. ### Can you match my paint if the coach has a multi color scheme? Yes, and it is routine. Color match blending runs $500 to $5,000 across 4 to 25 hours. Segmented coach schemes involve base plus accent colors, hard masked boundaries and frequently decal graphics that come off and go back on, and each of those is documented as a separate operation rather than folded into one figure. ### The part I need is discontinued. What happens then? We document unavailability in writing from suppliers, then quote the honest alternatives: adaptation of a current equivalent, fabrication, or a used unit with no service history. Each is a different number and a different calendar, and the choice is yours to make with the real options in front of you. ### Do you work on trailers with no recreational features at all? Regularly. Cargo, utility, equipment and toy hauler trailers come through for frame and structural welding at $750 to $20,000, floor replacement at $500 to $9,500, wall and roof skin at $1,000 to $15,000, ramp and roll up door service, axle and brake work, and interior build outs. ### Can you install solar and a lithium house bank? Yes. Solar installation runs $1,500 to $12,000 across 8 to 40 hours depending on panel count, controller choice and how much rewiring the existing system needs. House battery replacement including lithium is $500 to $5,500, and inverter and charger work is $750 to $4,500. ### Does my vehicle need recalibration after body work? If it carries radar, camera or lane keeping hardware, yes. Driver assistance scan and recalibration runs $275 to $1,800 across 1 to 7 hours. Omitting it after a bumper, windshield or suspension operation leaves a safety system that reports normal and aims wrong, which is not an acceptable outcome. ### Can I stage a large job across multiple visits to spread the cost? On customer pay work, often yes, and we will tell you which sequence makes technical sense. What cannot be staged safely is anything where an opened envelope would be left exposed, or where a structural repair would be partially complete. Water intrusion work in particular should be finished once it is started. ### Do you store vehicles while parts are on order? Usually, and on a torn down vehicle it is the sensible option because a staged repair should not be moved. Discuss the expected parts timeline at authorization so the storage plan is agreed in advance rather than assumed, particularly on discontinued components where the wait can be genuinely long. ### What should I remove from the vehicle before dropping it off? Valuables, medication, firearms, electronics, documents and anything irreplaceable. Also clear the areas that have to be accessed, particularly around slides and any wall being opened. Tell us the LP tank state and whether the black and gray tanks are empty, since work involving heat near LP requires handling that system first. ### What is not performed at this shop? Internal engine and drivetrain work, state vehicle inspection and tailpipe testing. This is a body, paint, structural, systems and equipment installation facility. If a job falls outside that, we say so at the estimate stage and point you somewhere sensible rather than taking the vehicle in and subletting it. ### Is all work performed at your facility? Yes. Everything happens in shop at 23281 La Palma Ave in Yorba Linda, because the structural anchoring equipment, the downdraft paint booth and the lift capacity are what make these repairs correct. From Tustin the drive is the 55 north to the 91 east, exit Weir Canyon, roughly twenty five minutes. ## Related - [Prices and Posted Rates](https://ocrv.biz/prices/) - [Glossary](https://ocrv.biz/glossary/) - [Our Process](https://ocrv.biz/our-process/) - [Insurance Help](https://ocrv.biz/insurance/) - [Service Area](https://ocrv.biz/service-area/) - [Repair Cost Calculator](https://ocrv.biz/cost-calculator/) - [Resources](https://ocrv.biz/resources/) - [Request a Quote](https://ocrv.biz/contact/)