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smlranger · 07-15-2016, 07:27 PM

The clear coat and some of the base color is fading badly in places on my roof radius. I am curious what others with CC's have paid to have this done. My current plan is to have either OMC or CC do it when we get to Oregon in October. I have been unable to find shops in my home area that will do the work. One did quote $1,800 but never followed through on my call for an appointment. CDI in Forest City, IA (they do all of Winnebago's paint work) gave me a tentative quote of $1,100.

Roscott · 07-15-2016, 07:49 PM

I had a similar problem, including clear coat peeling. Earlier this spring, instead of having it repainted, I had color-matched spray on liner applied. My Dad did this to his coach about 4 years ago and has been very happy. See this thread:

http://www.irv2.com/forums/f103/well...it-288541.html

Cost was $800.00

l1v3fr33ord1 · 07-16-2016, 04:36 AM

smlranger-

We had a trusted local auto body shop do this work in May. We had other work done at the same time. The total was around $3,800, of which the roof work was about $2,000, although the invoice was not broken down enough for me to tell.

smlranger · 07-16-2016, 05:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roscott

I had a similar problem, including clear coat peeling. Earlier this spring, instead of having it repainted, I had color-matched spray on liner applied. My Dad did this to his coach about 4 years ago and has been very happy. See this thread:

http://www.irv2.com/forums/f103/well...it-288541.html

Cost was $800.00

I would certainly consider doing that. The color matched truck bed liner spray jobs I have seen look pretty good.

My primary concern would be that my coach has no defined edge where the roof radius meets the top of the front cap. With base coat/clear coat the painter can blend the new paint into the paint on the cap. With the different texture of the liner, not sure how they would do that and not make it look odd.

Also, did your shop do this work inside or outside? Most of the places I've seen that do bed liner spray don't have service bays large enough for a coach.

Roscott · 07-16-2016, 09:13 AM

The work was done under cover...not necessarily inside, but under a metal roof attached to the back of the building with a half wall opposite the building. It was long enough to cover the entire rig, with room to spare.

Smitty77 · 07-16-2016, 10:13 AM

We had our front cap done for about $1250, high, but I got it done. This was a local Southern California RV Dealer. He had inside booth, but due to capacity problems, he brought in an outside contractor to do our job (Told me he'd have to do this, due to his shops backlog. And that he had this guy do overflow work for him over the last 5 years, and would not use him if he did not do a good job.) Our job came out good...

OMC can do this for you. But again, let Jim know ahead of time, as he can then tell you if the schedule will work out well for both of you or not. And yes, they do it inside.

I also had quotes to remove all of our dark maroon paint, fix some bumps and bruises, on our coach. This included the work on the dark maroon paint areas of the coach, of grinding down the existing micro checking fiberglass, a big job and not for the faint of heart or shallow check book

! This was Straight Line, and they have a good reputation, and OMC also recommends them for larger jobs.

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The owner came and did our estimate for us at OMC. I had planned on returning in early January to leave the coach with him. Off season for him, and our labor rate reflected this. Enough to keep his key staff busy during the off season, and pay the bills

! I feel they would have done a great job for us. We were going with lighter colors to complement the mostly beige coach, and reduce the impact of further micro checking of darker paints, and also hopefully have a bit cooler coach in the hot sun areas of travel too. However, after we got the quote, we also got the increase of our Health Care (Pre 65 Post ACA has really kicked the cr_p out of our planned retirement budget. From $12.5K (higher then our pre retirement planning post ACA $6.5K) to over just at $19.5K a year for both of our Health Insurance. We still have $6k of deductible on top of that. So, Straight Line missed out on some business, and we have a micro checking dar maroon paint area of our coach... As we will wait until I hit 65 before checking our budgets again, and then get a paint refresh if we can at that time...)

Best of luck to you on this, and do schedule enough time to in our travels. Oh, and don't worry too much about where the white roof and the radius and caps merge. They usually just sand and prep about a 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch into the the part of the roof, and then paint up that new line.

Travel safe,
Smitty

deandec · 07-16-2016, 10:52 AM

I had my roof front brow done in 2003.

$1,000 to remove clear coat, paint, and reapply clear coat from the top of the windshield to the back of the air horns.

It is still good today.

The three other sides of the roof cap I redid myself.

Lots of work for the amateur, and not very professional result except for having no more peeling and obvious paint failure.

1986CC38 · 07-16-2016, 04:40 PM

This is all good advice. I recently toured the CC repair site and talked at length with a repair tech and the office folks. Nice people. Their hourly labor rate is $115- which is lower than some in Oregon. I will give you a quick breakdown of what I found out. To totally repair and repaint a coach (including any recasting of siding) is around $31.5 K. If you divide up the area square footage and allow for no structure cracking, your estimates sound about right. I used to believe that was my best option to deal with age. But I don't anymore. I found cheaper better options. Did you state what kind of paint do you have on your coach? The info should be in your coach information. Lacquer is easy (that's what I have), and other paints are more difficult. Everyone has their bent, but I would sand, primer, an repaint. Clear coating is optional if you are good at waxing, etc. The paint is important to protect the gel coat, or surface even on a newer laminate product. The newer coaches even crack though they are all painted now, according to the factory. I didn't like the explanation I received why that is (they blame Dupont, and every other manufacturer), and so did my own research to track down that answer on my own. It's not the product so much as the casting method (allows bubbles that eventually produce cracks). I saw several newer coaches mid-2000's in the bays with some of those issues, including fading- especially ones with pull-outs. So paint or something over faded paint is a really, really good idea. Your roof (unless you cover it) will get the most sun.

smlranger · 07-16-2016, 05:56 PM

My coach is painted with Sikkens paint and, other than the roof radius, the paint looks great. I do have a few places on two of the slide room aluminum trim where the paint has bubbled. I also want those areas addressed.

My previous coach, a Winnebago Journey, had the checking of some of the filon siding. I paid about $13K to have the entire coach sanded, primed with high fill primer and a 5 color full body paint job, with four coats of clear. They used Dupont Chroma base and Chroma Premier clear and the coach looked absolutely fabulous. In about 3 years, the checking reappeared in a few places but it was not very visible.

I traded that coach in 2013 and the fellow who bought it from the dealer calls me from time to time with a question. He told me just about 3 months ago that folks still think the coach is new. It is a 2002 and I had the paint done in about 2010.

Good paint done properly holds up well.

1986CC38 · 07-17-2016, 12:29 AM

Totally agree with good paint job. Sounds like you did it right. And your pricing seems right too for a quality paint job. Hey, it's like painting your house if you live in it a lot, you want it to pop. Neat thing too about helping out the new owner. I like that about RVers. There is definitely good will that transfers with owners. Good for you. I wish more people did that in this world. Aluminum is an interesting surface to deal with regard to paint. The polymer improvements are supposed to improve things-they say- but everyone I know has had paint fade and cracks due to expansion/contraction properties of that surface. It also messes with the sealing. And God help us if it gets bent. Ironically, most of the guys I talk to about aluminum are body and fender guys messing with their RV's, so it's interesting to hear them banter on with their newest solutions. Everyone has a theory it would seem, and I like hearing them describe their approaches like a NASA scientist. I think I am having more fun with RV repairs, etc. than I ever did fixing the homes I owned. But then again I think Jay Leno's Garage is the best show on Television. Go figure...

B Bob · 07-17-2016, 08:48 AM

We had Country Coach do our roof radius clear coat two summers ago. They charges approx $2,200 and did a very good job. We have the Dutch Sikkens paint on our coach. The color on it has not faded. Amazing for a Burgundy. But I had similar paint on our last sailboat and it did not fade either. However, some of the dark paint area has some cracking. It is worst on our entry door. You don't notice it until you get up close.

In my opinion clear coat makes a huge difference in the appearance of a motorhome. This is especially true over time. Much of our motorhome and the top is just gel coat. So if this was not covered by clear coat it would oxidize and look terrible. It would look like cheap RV's that don't use clear coat.

If it were my choice to have our roof done again I would have the CC factory do it. The work they did is top grade and it was worth every penny I paid.

smlranger · 07-17-2016, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by B Bob

We had Country Coach do our roof radius clear coat two summers ago. They charges approx $2,200 and did a very good job. We have the Dutch Sikkens paint on our coach. The color on it has not faded. Amazing for a Burgundy. But I had similar paint on our last sailboat and it did not fade either. However, some of the dark paint area has some cracking. It is worst on our entry door. You don't notice it until you get up close.

In my opinion clear coat makes a huge difference in the appearance of a motorhome. This is especially true over time. Much of our motorhome and the top is just gel coat. So if this was not covered by clear coat it would oxidize and look terrible. It would look like cheap RV's that don't use clear coat.

If it were my choice to have our roof done again I would have the CC factory do it. The work they did is top grade and it was worth every penny I paid.

Bob, my base color on the radius is faded so I think I need both base and clear redone. Were you able to get the coach back out of the shop each night they were doing the paint work?

B Bob · 07-18-2016, 07:24 AM

smlranger - We went on an Escapees Alaska cruise when CC did our clear coat repair. So I don't know if you will be able to use yours.

Smitty77 · 07-18-2016, 09:57 PM

The nature of the kind of work you're asking to be done, means at least a few days without it

!

I'd plan on it being inside the shop of the bulk of the pre work, and then cleaning, masking, and multiple paintings applications.

Good time to take a few days to live it up in a nice hotel, or cabin, or Oregon beach cottage...

Nature of the kind of work involved...

$.02...

And of course best,
Smitty