Shop and Rates

Every sheet written here has the same four parts, and reading them in order removes most of the mystery. Labour, which is hours at a posted rate: body and paint at $210 per hour, mechanical and electrical at $260, diagnostics at $285 with a one hour minimum credited against an authorised repair, and detail at $95. Parts, at cost plus a published markup, 100 percent at or under $100 and 35 percent above it. Materials, which are not guessed: paint supplies calculate at $55 per paint hour and body supplies at $5 per body hour, straight off the hours written, plus $45 flat where chemicals, refrigerant or LP are involved. Then tax, at 7.75 percent on parts and materials, with labour untaxed.

Two consequences fall out of that structure and both favour an informed owner. Because materials are a formula on hours rather than a figure somebody chose, they cannot be inflated independently of the scope, and they come down when hours are struck. Because labour is not taxed, a structural job that is mostly hours carries proportionally less tax than a job that is mostly parts, which is the opposite of what most people assume. A sheet that does not decompose into those four parts is a sheet worth asking about, whoever wrote it.

The rate is the part owners compare and the hours are the part that decides the bill. A coach differs from a car in setup and access rather than in technique. A forty foot vehicle has to be positioned, levelled and worked from staging. A sidewall repair means removing an awning, a rail, trim and often a window before anything is touched, then putting all of it back. A full length booth session is a different operation from a panel in a bay. Refinishing a section of a coach means blending across a surface with no natural break in it, and matching on the panel rather than from a code, because a coach that has spent fifteen years in Southern California sun is no longer the colour it left as. All of that is hours, and none of it is visible in the damage.

The same arithmetic explains a band like collision repair at $1,000 to $150,000 or more. A scuffed cap corner and a rolled coach are the same line on a menu and nothing alike in the bay. A range with its drivers named is more honest than a single figure that had to be padded to survive teardown, and any figure quoted before a coach is open has padding in it, including ours.

Comparing two estimates by their totals tells you almost nothing, because totals differ by scope, by hours, by parts sourcing, and by whether either document anticipates what teardown will find. These are the questions that make two sheets comparable, and each has a factual answer somebody can look up rather than defend.

• How many hours are written, split between body, paint, mechanical and diagnostic time.
• Which operations are repair and which are replacement, and on what evidence.
• Are parts new, aftermarket, used or fabricated, and is the source named.
• Are materials a formula on hours, or a figure somebody chose.
• Does the sheet say where it expects to find more once panels come off.
• Was it written from photographs, or from the vehicle with panels already off.

A shop with bays to fill has an incentive to encourage work, so the cases where this one argues against spending are the ones worth naming. A recoat over decking that reads wet, which seals moisture in and gets charged again later at membrane prices. A house battery bank replaced before anything was measured under load. A slide motor fitted to an opening that has moved. A ceramic coating on a coach whose roof penetrations have not been looked at in three years. On a mass produced travel trailer with a wet subfloor and structural damage, the repair arithmetic frequently does not work against a settlement offer, and if you ask, that is the answer you will get.

There is a floor as well, and it is a commercial fact rather than a stance. Nothing here opens as a repair order under $500, because setup on a vehicle this size costs more than that before anybody touches it. Deposits work the same way: 50 percent at authorisation on work over $2,000, a further 25 percent when parts arrive on work over $10,000, the balance at pickup, and a 3.5 percent surcharge on card payments over $1,000. Special order parts take a full deposit at order and it does not come back, because the part was made or pulled for one coach.

All of it is posted for a reason that has nothing to do with generosity. A rate an owner reads for the first time at the counter reads as a tactic, and a shop that will not state its hourly figures before it writes hours is asking to be trusted on the only number that matters. Insurance billed work may be written at carrier negotiated rates that differ from the posted ones, which is normal and worth knowing, because the posted rates are what a customer pay job costs and not necessarily what lands on a claim.