Pricing and Payment Questions From Hacienda Heights Owners

Because three trades with three different tool sets touched the coach. Body and paint is $210 per hour, mechanical and electrical is $260, diagnostics, scan and programming is $285 with a one hour minimum. A slide repair that needs a Schwintek controller put into learn mode, a rack replaced and a sidewall panel refinished legitimately crosses all three. The rate card is published so you can audit the invoice line by line.

Because a walk around number on a coach is a guess, and guesses are what turn into arguments later. The collision teardown estimate is one hour at $210, the RV systems estimate is $150 for slide, awning, water, electrical and generator work, and the in depth diagnostic is one hour at $285 with a one hour minimum. Each is credited against an authorized repair, so the cost comes back to you if you proceed.

No. Phone quotes on RV work are wrong often enough that they are not given. One symptom, a slide that stalls halfway out, can be a $500 Schwintek motor, a $1,400 controller and rack set, a $3,000 slide room structural repair, or a $7,500 rebuild once the floor is found delaminated. That is exactly why the published band for slide out mechanism repair is $500 to $8,500 or more. What can be given over the phone is the rate card, the estimate tiers, the deposit structure and the turnaround bands.

Files over $2,000 take a 50 percent deposit at authorization, so $3,200 on a $6,400 job. Parts are ordered after that clears. Files over $10,000 take an additional 25 percent when parts arrive. The balance is due at pickup and no vehicle leaves the property until the file is paid in full. Special order parts carry a 100 percent non refundable deposit at order, which is separate from the job deposit and reflects that no supplier takes back a cut to order sidewall panel.

$14,000 crosses both thresholds. Fifty percent, $7,000, is due at authorization. An additional 25 percent, $3,500, comes due when the cap and its associated parts arrive at the dock, not when they are ordered. The remaining balance is due at pickup. Front and rear cap replacement runs $4,500 to $25,000 or more, and the schedule is driven by the molded OEM cap, frequently backordered eight to sixteen weeks depending on the coach builder and model year.

Because the supplier will not take it back. A slide room floor panel is built for one floor plan, cut to one dimension and shipped on one freight class. Once the purchase order is released, the money is spent whether you proceed or not, so the deposit is 100 percent and non refundable at order. The same applies to molded caps, one piece Class A windshields, tinted Hehr or Kinro window assemblies and Solera fabric cut to a specific awning length. Stocked items behave normally.

Two tiers. Parts priced at $100 or less carry 100 percent markup, so a $38 Dometic vent lid bills at $76. Parts over $100 carry 35 percent, so a $900 Carefree awning assembly bills at $1,215. Small parts cost nearly as much to source, receive and track as large ones, and that handling work does not scale with the price tag. Sales tax at 7.75 percent applies to parts and materials. Labor is not taxed.

No. Sales tax at 7.75 percent applies to parts and materials only. Labor is not taxed in California, so body and paint hours at $210, mechanical hours at $260 and diagnostic hours at $285 appear with no tax on them. Roof recoat and reseal runs $750 to $4,500 or more and a large share of that is labor, so the taxable portion is smaller than most owners expect.

Card payments over $1,000 carry a 3.5 percent surcharge, so $9,200 on a card adds $322. Most owners paying a balance that size use a check, a cashier's check or a bank transfer and keep the card for smaller lines. The surcharge is the processing cost on high ticket transactions passed through directly rather than buried inside the labor rate where every customer would pay it. Deposits follow the same rule.

Because the sidewall was closed when the first number was written. On a toy hauler a lower panel scuff often hides crushed framing, a fractured Lippert cross member, wet luan and separated Filon backing. Once that is exposed the added lines are real: structural labor at $210, replacement framing, adhesive, and frequently delamination work that starts at $1,500 and climbs with square footage. Nothing outside the authorized scope gets performed.

It is a flat $45 charge that applies whenever chemicals, refrigerant or LP are part of the job. On a refrigerator that means either the sealed refrigerant side or the LP side. Refrigerant handling requires EPA 608 refrigerant certification and LP work requires LP certification, and both generate regulated waste that has to be captured, manifested and hauled rather than poured out back. The fee is flat instead of hourly so it does not scale with job size.

Paint supplies cover the materials that are consumed rather than counted: primer, sealer, reducer, activator, clear, tack cloth, masking paper, tape, filters and booth consumables. Body supplies cover abrasives, filler, adhesive, weld wire, gas and fasteners. Billing them per hour instead of itemizing sixty small lines keeps the invoice readable and keeps the labor rate itself honest. Both are taxable at 7.75 percent because they are materials, not labor. On a full refinish running four to ten weeks, the paint supply line is one of the larger material figures on the file.

Because a panel sprayed edge to edge against an unblended neighbor is visible from twenty feet in Yorba Linda sun. Coach gel coat and paint fade, so a ten year old sidewall is not the color the paint code says it is. Blending carries new material into the adjacent panels until the transition disappears, then clear is laid across the whole group. Blend hours bill at $210 with $55 per paint hour in supplies. Skipping blend saves money and buys a repair you will notice every time you walk past it.

Because delamination is a symptom, not a repair. The band covers everything from one wet two foot section on a travel trailer sidewall to a Class A with both walls separated, a soaked subfloor and framing that has to come out. What moves the number is square footage of separation, whether the framing under it is sound, whether the wall is single skin fiberglass or a laminated sandwich, and whether water reached the floor.

There is no in house financing program. Payment is deposits, then balance at pickup, and no vehicle leaves the property until the file is paid in full. Owners commonly use their own bank, a credit union RV loan or a card, remembering the 3.5 percent surcharge on card payments over $1,000. The honest advice on a large file is to phase it. Structural and water intrusion work goes first because it gets worse on its own.

Yes. Municipal fleet and public agency work is handled on a purchase order, with the standard deposit requirement adjusted to the agency's procurement terms and agreed in writing before parts are ordered. Send the purchase order, the unit list and the scope to info@ocrvcenter.com and the estimator will confirm what the terms allow. The published rate card applies unless the agency holds a negotiated schedule.