How Long Repairs Actually Take, and What Moves the Date

Shop time is the hours a technician has hands on the unit. Calendar time is how long the unit is in our possession. On a clean cosmetic job those two numbers are close. On anything involving a brand specific panel they can differ by weeks, because a sidewall skin that has to be built and crated at the factory does not care how efficient the bay is.

We quote both separately for exactly that reason. A single blended figure would either be optimistic enough to be a lie or padded enough to lose the job, and neither helps somebody deciding whether to authorize work.

These are working ranges from jobs that went normally, with parts on hand. Every one of them can be longer if teardown finds more than the outside suggested, which on a heavy hit it almost always does.

• Single panel repair and blend, two to five days at the $210 body rate
• Awning arm or motor replacement, one to three days at the $260 mechanical rate
• Slide mechanism repair, three to eight days once the gear pack or rail is in hand
• Roof membrane replacement, five to twelve days depending on decking condition
• Full body repaint on a coach, three to five weeks including fixed cure windows
• Frame or structural correction, four to ten weeks and almost entirely parts dependent

In order of how often they are the cause. Nothing else comes close to these four, and three of them are visible before work starts if somebody looks.

1. Parts lead time. A discontinued or allocated cap, skin or graphics kit is the single largest cause of a moved date, and it is why we confirm and date a panel order before opening a wall.
2. A supplement after teardown. Damage found under a panel changes the scope, and the carrier has to authorize the change before the work can proceed, which adds days that are nobody's fault.
3. Cure windows. Booth cure and structural adhesive cure are fixed by the material. They cannot be compressed with heat without producing a finish that fails at the boundary in eighteen months.
4. Bay sequencing. A unit that arrives mid repair on three others waits its turn. This is the one we control, and it is why a quiet month buys continuous work rather than a cheaper rate.

On a heavy hit, a date given before teardown is a guess dressed as a commitment. We have never taken a big front impact apart and found less damage than the exterior suggested, so a day one date on that kind of job exists only to be renegotiated later, usually at the worst possible moment for the owner.

What you get instead is a measured scope after authorized teardown, with the parts order dated, and a release date that we then hold ourselves to. A date that arrives on day three and holds is worth more than a date on day one that moves twice.

We call when the date moves, and we say why. There is no weekly status call on a schedule, because a scheduled call with nothing to report trains people to stop answering, and then the one call that matters gets missed.

If a part goes on backorder mid repair, that is a phone call the same day with the new dock date and the options: wait for the factory panel, source a used one, or in some cases fabricate. Each of those has a different cost and a different result, and the choice belongs to the owner rather than to us.