Collision and body work on the big stuff, for Diamond Bar.
Recreational vehicles, camper vans, fifth wheels, trailers, box trucks and fleet bodies. Structural, fiberglass, paint, roof, slide-out and systems work, all of it under one roof in a 35,000 square foot shop 22 to 25 miles down the SR-57.
5 to 800+ labor hours
20 to 250+ labor hours
- Shop floor
- 35,000 sq ft
- Licensed
- BAR ARD00288521
- EPA
- EPA CAL000367879
- Body and paint
- $210 per hour
- Mechanical
- $260 per hour
- Service model
- In shop, no field work
Request a quote
Tell us what happened
Damage on a large body is rarely only what you can see. Give us the outline and we will tell you what we would need to look at.
What this shop holds itself to, in numbers
A repair is finished when it measures inside a stated tolerance, not when someone says it looks right. These are the numbers this shop works to, the method used to measure each one, and what you can check yourself when you pick the vehicle up.
| What is measured | Value | Method | What you check | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A repaired body seam on a recreational vehicle or a commercial body should hold a panel gap within one sixteenth of an inch of the gap on the undamaged side of the same vehicle. | within 1/16 inch of the opposite side | Measured with a taper gauge at three points along the seam, top, middle and bottom, and compared against the same three points on the undamaged side. | Stand at the corner of the vehicle and sight down the seam. A gap that opens or closes along its length is visible from ten feet away without any tool. | Shop standard |
| Flush difference across a repaired joint should not exceed two millimetres, measured perpendicular to the panel face. | 2 mm maximum step across the joint | Measured with a digital gap and flush gauge at the two ends and the midpoint of the joint. | Run a flat palm across the joint. A step you can feel with your hand is a step an adjuster can measure. | Shop standard |
| Total dry film build on a refinished panel should land between four and six mils, including primer, base and clear. | 4 to 6 mils total dry film | Measured with a coating thickness gauge at a minimum of five points per panel, recorded on the repair order. | Ask for the film build readings. A shop that measures will have them written down. A shop that does not will change the subject. | Industry spec |
| A blended repair should be indistinguishable from the adjacent panel in daylight at a viewing distance of three feet. | no visible boundary at 3 feet in daylight | Spray-out card compared against the adjacent panel under corrected daylight before any material goes on the vehicle, then verified outdoors after cure. | Look at the repair outdoors, never under shop lighting, and never at a right angle. Walk the panel at a shallow angle, which is where a mismatch shows first. | Shop standard |
| A straightened frame or chassis should return to within three millimetres of the manufacturer datum at every measured control point. | within 3 mm of datum at each control point | Measured on a frame rack against published datum dimensions, or by cross-tram comparison against the opposite side where no published datum exists, with a before and after printout. | Ask for the before and after measurement sheet. Structural work without a printed measurement record is an opinion, not a repair. | Industry spec |
| A fiberglass or composite panel converts from repair to replacement once the damaged area exceeds roughly one third of the panel or the substrate is delaminated beyond the visible impact zone. | one third of panel area, or delamination past the impact zone | Mapped by tap testing and moisture metering across the whole panel, not just the visible damage, because delamination travels further than impact. | Ask where the tap test stopped finding hollow. That boundary, not the dent, is what decides repair or replace. | Shop standard |
| Wood substrate behind a repaired wall or roof section should read under sixteen percent moisture content before anything is closed up. | under 16 percent moisture content | Pin-type moisture meter readings taken on a grid across the exposed substrate and recorded before the panel is reinstalled. | Ask for photographs of the open cavity with the meter in frame. A shop that closed it up without measuring cannot produce that photograph. | Industry spec |
| A repaired slide-out should travel its full stroke and seat evenly against both wiper seals, with no more than a quarter inch of variance between the top corners at full extension. | under 1/4 inch corner variance at full extension | Measured at both top corners of the slide room at full extension and full retraction, over three complete cycles. | Cycle the slide fully three times at delivery. A slide that seats on the third cycle but hesitates on the first is not finished. | Shop standard |
| Any repair that breaks a seal is water tested before delivery, with a minimum fifteen minute directed spray at the repaired seam. | 15 minute directed spray, no intrusion | Directed hose spray at the repaired seam from three angles, with the interior cavity observed and moisture metered afterward. | Ask whether the vehicle was water tested and for how long. This is the single cheapest question that separates a finished roof repair from a future claim. | Shop standard |
| Any vehicle with driver assistance sensors gets a post repair scan and, where the sensor mounting was disturbed, a documented recalibration before it leaves. | post repair scan on every equipped vehicle | Pre repair and post repair scan reports, both attached to the repair order, with a recalibration record where a sensor or its mount was touched. | Ask for both scan reports. A single post repair scan does not prove the fault codes present at intake were addressed. | Industry spec |
Publishing these is unusual. Most shops in this trade describe quality with adjectives, which cannot be checked and therefore cannot be argued with. A number can be checked by you, by an adjuster, and by the next shop that ever touches the vehicle.
Why a panel gets replaced instead of repaired
Because the damage crossed a measurable boundary, not because replacement pays better. A fiberglass panel is repairable until the damaged area passes about a third of the panel, or until tap testing finds delamination outside the visible impact zone. Past either line a repair will telegraph, hold moisture, or fail at the bond, so the panel comes off.
Inside the boundary, repaired
Crack, hole and impact repair
4 to 28 labor hours
Past the boundary, replaced
Full fiberglass panel replacement
16 to 120+ labor hours
The jump is not the price of the panel. It is the labor to remove trim, awning rails, lights and compartment doors, bond and fair the new panel, then refinish and blend into the adjacent panels so the repair does not show.
Both bands come from the same posted labor rates at OCRV Center. The jump is labor and refinish, not the price of the part.
Does a supplement raise my deductible?
No. A deductible applies once per claim, not once per estimate. A supplement raises what the carrier pays, not what you pay. If your deductible was already applied to the original estimate, additional approved damage does not apply it again.
- 01The original estimate is written and the carrier applies your deductible to it once.
- 02Teardown finds damage that was not visible at the first inspection, which on a large body is the normal case rather than the exception.
- 03A supplement documents the additional damage with photographs and measurements and goes to the carrier for approval.
- 04The carrier approves the supplement and pays the additional amount directly to the shop.
- 05Your out of pocket does not change. It is still the one deductible.
Every operation this shop performs
Sixteen parent operations covering structural, fiberglass, paint, body, interior, roof, slide-out, awning, electrical, generator, plumbing, appliance, fabrication, detail and documented assessment work, with seventy four specific procedures underneath them.
- Collision Repair$1,000 to $150,000+3 procedures
- Frame and Structural Repair$3,000 to $20,000+5 procedures
- Fiberglass Repair$750 to $12,000+5 procedures
- Paint and Refinishing$2,500 to $35,000+6 procedures
- Body Repair$750 to $12,0004 procedures
- Interior Remodeling and Repair$1,500 to $50,000+7 procedures
- Roof Repair and Replacement$500 to $18,000+5 procedures
- Slide-Out Repair$400 to $8,500+4 procedures
- Awning Repair$400 to $3,5004 procedures
- Electrical Repair$285 to $5,000+6 procedures
- Generator Repair$400 to $8,500+3 procedures
- Plumbing Repair$285 to $8,500+5 procedures
- Appliance Repair$350 to $4,5005 procedures
- Custom Fabrication$1,000 to $15,000+4 procedures
- Detailing and Reconditioning$500 to $2,5004 procedures
- Inspection and Evaluation$250 to $1,2004 procedures
What actually changes between one vehicle and another
Three variables decide how a job runs: whether the vehicle physically fits and how tall it is, what the body is made of, and what paint system the finish needs. Everything else is detail. This is that matrix.
| Class | Access and height | Substrate | Paint system |
|---|---|---|---|
| RVs and Motorhomes12 types | Up to 45 feet long and 13 feet 6 inches tall, drive-in bay required | Fiberglass, gelcoat, filon, aluminium skin over wood or aluminium framing | Multi stage base and clear with full body graphics, booth cure |
| Campers12 types | Under 30 feet, tow-in or truck mounted, standard bay | Filon and lauan sandwich, aluminium skin, fiberglass shell | Single stage or gelcoat repair with decal replacement |
| Fifth Wheels7 types | Up to 45 feet, pin height clearance required, drive-in bay | Fiberglass over aluminium cage, laminated sidewall, aluminium roof | Base and clear with gel coat repair and multi panel blend |
| Trailers10 types | Tow-in, up to 40 feet, standard or drive-in bay by length | Aluminium or steel frame, filon or aluminium skin, wood or steel deck | Single stage, spot blend, or full graphics replacement |
| Vans and Camper Vans9 types | High roof clearance, standard bay, lift accessible | Steel and aluminium unibody with bonded conversion structure | OEM colour match, base and clear, blend into adjacent panels |
| Commercial and Heavy Vehicles9 types | Drive-in bay, up to 53 foot combination, height to 13 feet 6 inches | Steel cab, aluminium or composite box, FRP panel | Fleet colour match, full refinish, reflective compliance marking |
| Buses and Fleet Vehicles14 types | Drive-in bay, up to 45 feet, high roof clearance | Steel and aluminium body over frame, FRP cap and skirt | Agency colour match, reflective and emergency marking, full refinish |
| Specialty and Electric Vehicles4 types | Standard bay with high voltage isolation area | Aluminium and mixed material unibody, structural castings | OEM colour match, low bake cure for battery platforms |
| Mobile Business Vehicles6 types | Standard or drive-in bay by length, utility disconnect required | Steel or aluminium body with bonded interior build | Brand colour match, full graphics and wrap replacement |
R-06 . The interchange note
Diamond Bar has a chokepoint running through it
The SR-57 and SR-60 share a single two mile alignment on the edge of Diamond Bar, where seventeen lanes of freeway merge into fourteen and roughly 350,000 vehicles a day pass through, about 26,000 of them trucks. It is ranked the worst truck bottleneck in California and the second highest truck accident location in Southern California. That does not produce dramatic high speed wrecks. It produces low speed impacts into tall rear ends and full length sideswipes from the weave, on vehicles that present thirty or forty feet of target.
The two damage sources nobody files a claim on
Diamond Bar tracts sit on the slopes above Diamond Bar Boulevard, which runs along the valley floor that becomes Brea Canyon. Hillside lots mean short, steeply pitched driveway aprons, and a long wheelbase crossing a steep apron drags. Hitch contact, rear bumper and receiver scrape, folded entry steps, a fresh water tank skid plate worn through and a fifth wheel pin box grounded at the crown of the apron are all routine here, and none of them involve another vehicle.
A meaningful number of Diamond Bar homes were built in the nineteen seventies and eighties with seven and eight foot garage doors. A high roof Sprinter or a coach with a rooftop air conditioner does not clear that. The result is a sheared air conditioner shroud, a destroyed vent or antenna, a ladder bent into the rear cap, and a header strike that cracks the roof to cap seam and starts a leak that does not surface for six months.
Getting out of it
SR-57 south from Diamond Bar, down through Brea Canyon, across the Los Angeles and Orange county line, on to the SR-91, then east to the Weir Canyon Road and Yorba Linda Boulevard exit, and La Palma Avenue from there.
- Distance
- 22 to 25 miles
- Off peak
- 28 to 35 minutes
- County line
- post mile 12.55, which is 4.4 miles from the confluence
- Shop sits in
- the Savi Ranch light industrial corridor on the north side of the SR-91
Diamond Bar is in Los Angeles County, and the shop is in Orange County, so the trip does cross a county line. In practice that is the point: you are heading south out of the bottleneck rather than fighting through it.
What the carrier measures, and what the shop measures
A carrier is deciding what it owes. A shop is deciding what the vehicle needs. Those two questions overlap but they are not the same question, and most claim friction lives in the gap between them rather than in anyone acting in bad faith.
The carrier is measuring
- Whether the loss is covered under the policy in force at the time.
- What the vehicle was worth immediately before the damage.
- Whether the repair cost approaches that value, which is the total loss question.
- Whether each line item in the scope is documented well enough to authorize.
- Whether any part of the damage predates this loss.
The shop is measuring
- Where the damage actually stops, which is found by teardown and not by looking.
- Whether structure moved, against the opposite side or a published datum.
- Whether the substrate is dry, and how far any delamination or soft decking runs.
- Whether a panel is inside the repair boundary or past it.
- Whether every seal broken during the work passes a water test afterwards.
We write the scope with photographs and measurements, submit it, and handle the supplement when teardown finds more than the first inspection could see. In California the choice of shop belongs to the vehicle owner, whichever shop a claims representative mentions first.
Naming an insurance carrier is not a claim of affiliation, endorsement or a direct repair agreement. We work with claims from these carriers. Ask us about your specific policy.
- Top 25 Pitfalls Insurance Companies Do Not Tell You
- How an RV or Fleet Insurance Claim Actually Works
- Repair or Replace, and Who Decides
- What To Do In The First 48 Hours After Damage
- Your Deductible, Betterment and Depreciation
- Supplements, and Why the First Estimate Is Never the Last
- Total Loss or Repairable, and How the Number Is Reached
- Hail and Storm Damage Claims
- Water Damage and Leak Claims
The twenty five things that most often go wrong on a claim, and what to do about each
How a repair moves through the shop
Seven gates, each with a condition that has to be met before the next one opens. A gate is not a step in a brochure. It is a stated criterion, which is why asking where your vehicle is gets an answer that means something.
Each stage is a gate, not a step. A gate opens when a stated condition is met, which is why you can ask where your vehicle is and get an answer that means something.
- G-01
Intake and documented assessment
Opens when the vehicle is on the floor, photographed from every affected angle, and the visible damage is written down with measurements rather than adjectives.
This is where a claim is either set up to succeed or set up to argue. A scope written from a walk around misses what teardown finds, every time.
- G-02
Teardown to the actual damage boundary
Opens when trim, lights, seals and panels are off far enough that the edge of the damage is visible rather than inferred, and the boundary is photographed.
On a large body the damage almost always runs past what the outside shows. Finding that edge is the whole reason a supplement exists.
- G-03
Scope and carrier authorization
Opens when the written scope, with photographs and measurements, has been submitted and the carrier has authorized the line items in it.
Days spent here are days nobody is working on the vehicle. Being specific in G-01 and G-02 is what shortens this gate.
- G-04
Structure before surface
Opens when any frame, chassis or substrate work measures inside tolerance against the opposite side or the published datum, with a printed measurement record.
Paint over unresolved structure is the most expensive mistake available in this trade, because it has to come back off.
- G-05
Refinish and cure
Opens when film build measures inside specification across the repaired panels and the colour is indistinguishable from the adjacent panel outdoors in daylight.
Judged outside, never under shop light, and never at a right angle to the panel.
- G-06
Reassembly, water test and scan
Opens when every seal that was broken has passed a directed water test, and any vehicle with driver assistance sensors has a post repair scan on file.
A roof or window repair that was not water tested is a future claim with a delay built into it.
- G-07
Delivery against the register
Opens when the finished work is walked with you against the same tolerance numbers this shop published before it started.
We stand behind our work.
What the work costs, and how the number is built
Labor is billed at a posted hourly rate for the discipline the work falls under, plus materials, plus parts at markup, plus tax on the parts and materials. Every band below is that arithmetic applied to a realistic hour count.
5 to 800+ labor hours
15 to 80+ labor hours
4 to 60+ labor hours
10 to 100+ labor hours
20 to 250+ labor hours
40 to 250+ labor hours
3 to 80+ labor hours
2 to 35+ labor hours
2 to 14 labor hours
1 to 20+ labor hours
2 to 35+ labor hours
20 to 250+ labor hours
The arithmetic
- Labor is billed at the posted rate for the discipline the work falls under. Body and paint is $210 per hour, mechanical and electrical is $260 per hour, diagnostics is $285 per hour, and detail is $95 per hour.
- Materials are calculated on every repair order. Paint supplies are $55 per paint hour and body supplies are $5 per body hour. A $45 hazmat and disposal charge applies when chemicals, refrigerant or LP is involved.
- Parts carry a 100 percent markup at or under $100 and 35 percent above it.
- Sales tax of 7.75 percent applies to parts and materials. Labor is not taxed.
- A 50 percent deposit is due at authorization on any job over $2,000.
- An additional 25 percent is due when parts arrive on any job over $10,000.
- The final balance is due at pickup. No vehicle leaves the property until it is paid in full.
- A 3.5 percent surcharge applies to credit card payments over $1,000. That is a pass through of merchant fees on high ticket work.
- $500 Minimum repair order. Below that figure the setup, teardown and documentation cost more than the repair.
Collision damage is assessed in the shop. A written repair plan is $150, applied as a credit against authorized repair. In depth diagnostic time is one hour at $285 per hour, also applied as a credit.
Who this shop actually works for
Private owners with one vehicle they care about, businesses whose vehicle is the business, fleet operators counting downtime in dollars per day, and public agencies whose claims route through a joint powers pool rather than a retail carrier.
The vehicle is the storefront. Every day it sits is a day of closed doors.
7 situations
Procurement rules, a joint powers pool, and a unit the public notices when it is missing.
4 situations
Questions we get asked most
Q01Do you work on recreational vehicles from Diamond Bar?
Q02How do I know if a body repair was done correctly?
Q03Why would a shop replace a panel instead of repairing it?
Q04Does a supplement raise my deductible?
Q05How long will my vehicle be here?
Q06What does it cost to find out how bad it is?
Q07Do you come to my storage yard or my driveway?
Q08Can you handle a claim, or do I deal with the carrier myself?
Next step
Get it in front of someone who measures
Damage on a thirty or forty foot body is almost never only what you can see from the outside. An hour with the vehicle open tells you more than a week of guessing, and the cost of finding out becomes a credit the moment you authorize the work.
- Shop floor
- 35,000 sq ft, in shop only
- Licensed
- BAR ARD00288521, EPA CAL000367879
- From Diamond Bar
- 22 to 25 miles, 28 to 35 minutes
- Standing behind it
- We stand behind our work.
Collision damage is assessed in the shop. A written repair plan is $150, applied as a credit against authorized repair. In depth diagnostic time is one hour at $285 per hour, also applied as a credit.