# Bumper Repair and Replacement: Cost, Hours and Process in Hacienda Heights Bumper repair and replacement covers the steel rear tube on towables, the bolt on bumper and fascia on van and truck chassis, and the molded bumper cover on a Class A rear cap. On RVs the most common failure is not a strike. It is a rusted or overloaded rear tube that has cracked at its welds. ## Specifications - Price band: $500 to $4,500 - Shop hours: 2 to 20 hours - Turnaround tier: Light cosmetic - Insurance billable: yes - Parts lead time: In stock for common 4 by 4 tube sections, 7 to 20 business days for chassis fascia and molded covers - OEM brands: Lippert, Norco, Trim-Lok, Kwikee, Alpha Systems ## The rear tube on a towable is not a bumper The 4 inch square steel tube across the back of most travel trailers and fifth wheels looks like a bumper and is not one. Its designed jobs are to enclose a sewer hose, carry the tail lights and license plate, and provide a rub point if something touches the back of the coach at walking speed. It is welded to two brackets off the frame and its wall thickness is usually an eighth of an inch or less. Almost every failure we see on one traces to load it was never meant to carry. A two bike rack cantilevered off the back with a receiver welded to that tube puts a multiplied moment into two small welds every time the coach crosses a dip. The crack appears at the bracket, the tube rotates, and the tail light wiring pulls apart before the owner notices anything. The other failure is rust from inside. Water enters at a missing end cap or past the sewer hose cap, sits in the bottom of the tube, and eats it from the inside out. By the time a hole shows on the underside, the section has lost most of its wall and welding to it is patching foil. Replacement of the section is the durable answer. - Rusted section cut out and new tube welded in at the bracket - Full tube replacement with new brackets where the frame ends are sound - Bracket reinforcement where a rack has been mounted, with an honest load statement - Tail light, license plate and wiring reinstatement, which is where the small hours go - End cap and sewer hose cap replacement, the cheapest preventable item on this page ## Chassis bumpers and Class A covers are a different job A Sprinter, Transit or cab chassis motorhome carries a conventional bolt on bumper and painted fascia with absorbers and brackets behind it. That is familiar work and it prices predictably: the part, the brackets, the hardware, and a refinish if the fascia is painted. Where sensors or a camera are mounted in the fascia, they come out and go back in on their original brackets. A Class A rear bumper cover is usually a molded fiberglass or ABS piece bonded or bolted to the rear cap, and the visible crack is often the least of it. The mounting bosses behind the cover fail first, so a cover that looks fine can be hanging on two of six mounts. We pull the cover to read the bosses before quoting a repair to the surface. On both, the deciding question is whether the cap or body structure behind the cover took load. Where it did, the scope moves off this page and into laminate or structural work, and we say so in writing rather than filling over it. ## What it costs and what we will not sign off on The band on this page runs from an end cap and light reinstatement at the low end to a full tube replacement with brackets, or a painted chassis fascia with hardware, at the top. Labor is 2 to 20 hours at $210 per hour, and welding on a steel tube is the fastest part of the job. Removing rusted fasteners and reinstating wiring is the slow part. What we will not do is put a rating on something that does not have one. If you want to carry bikes or a cargo box off the back of a towable, that load belongs on the frame with a fabricated frame mounted receiver, not on the sewer hose tube. That is a real scope we can quote, and it is honest work priced as fabrication rather than as a bumper repair. ## Not included - We do not certify a rear bumper as a load rated cargo carrier. A rear tube on a towable is a sewer hose enclosure and a light mount, not a rack mount, and we will not weld a receiver to one that cannot carry it. - Hitch and towing capacity upgrades are a separate fabrication scope, not a bumper repair. - A cracked molded cover on a fiberglass rear cap is a laminate repair and is priced as fiberglass work when the cap itself is involved. ## Questions **Can a rusted travel trailer bumper be welded or does it need replacing?** If the rust is localized and the surrounding wall still has thickness, a section can be cut out and new tube welded in. Where the tube has been holding water for years, welding to it does not hold, because there is not enough sound metal at the weld edge. In that case we replace the tube and the brackets, which usually costs less than two attempts at a patch. **Why did my bumper crack where the bike rack mounts?** Because the rear tube on a towable is a light and sewer hose enclosure rather than a load rated structure. A rack cantilevers weight behind the mount and multiplies it every time the suspension cycles, and that moment concentrates at the two bracket welds. The fix is a frame mounted receiver, which we quote as fabrication, not another weld on the same tube. **How long will my coach be in the shop for a bumper?** Two to five business days for most tube and cover work, and the calendar is usually set by parts rather than labor. Common 4 by 4 tube stock is here. A painted chassis fascia or a molded Class A cover runs 7 to 20 business days, and a painted part adds cure time on top of that. **Do you paint the bumper as part of the repair?** Refinishing is a separate line item. A raw steel tube gets a coating as part of the corrosion scope. A body colored fascia or cover is quoted through the paint program, because the cost driver there is color match and blend into the adjacent cap rather than the bumper itself. --- Source: https://ocrv.club/rv-body-shop/bumper-repair-and-replacement OCRV Center, 23281 La Palma Ave, Yorba Linda, CA 92887 Phone (949) 799-3387. Email info@ocrvcenter.com. Serving Hacienda Heights and the surrounding area. 18.4 miles, 24 to 38 minutes via SR-60 west to Fullerton Rd, then south to La Palma Ave. In shop work only. All estimates are priced and credited against an authorized repair.