# Mechanical and Systems Mechanical and Systems covers the building half of your RV: twelve volt and 120 volt power, generator, plumbing, appliances, heating and cooling. Mechanical and electrical labour is posted at $260 per hour, diagnostic time at $285 with a one hour minimum, and an RV systems estimate is $150. Both are credited against an authorised repair. ## An RV is two vehicles sharing one chassis Every motorhome and every trailer is really two machines bolted together. One is a road vehicle with wheels, brakes and steering. The other is a small building with a breaker panel, a water heater, a holding tank and a roof. Mechanical and Systems is that second machine. Almost nothing an owner calls a mechanical problem sits under the hood. It sits in a bay compartment, behind a panel inside a wardrobe, or in the ceiling. Sorting out which of the two machines has the fault is the first thing that happens when a coach arrives from Laguna Niguel, and it decides who touches it. Framing it that way is not a metaphor for a brochure. It changes what you should expect from an estimate. Building systems fail in ways a car never does: a fitting works loose over years of vibration, a ground screw corrodes in marine air, a unit that sat unused for two seasons gums up internally. Those faults are found by testing, not by reading a code, and testing is billed as time. An owner who expects a scan tool to name the part is going to be disappointed on this side of the vehicle. ## Where the twelve volt side and the shore power side meet Two separate electrical systems run through a coach and most confusion starts there. The twelve volt side comes off the house battery bank and runs lights, the water pump, slide motors, jacks, furnace ignition and appliance control boards. The 120 volt side comes from a shore pedestal, a generator or an inverter and runs the air conditioners, the microwave and the receptacles. They are not the same voltage, not the same wire, and not the same failure pattern, and treating them as one system is how an owner ends up replacing the wrong thing. Those two systems meet at exactly two components, which is why both get named constantly in a systems diagnosis. A converter takes 120 volt shore power down to twelve volts and charges the batteries. An inverter goes the other direction, pulling from the battery bank to make 120 volts when nothing is plugged in. A transfer switch decides whether the 120 volt side is fed by the pedestal or by the generator. So when a coach has no lights on shore power but works fine on the generator, or drains its batteries while plugged in all night, the fault is almost always one of those three boxes rather than the appliance that stopped. ## How systems labour and diagnostic time are billed Mechanical and electrical labour is posted at $260 per hour. Diagnostic, scan and programming time is posted at $285 per hour with a one hour minimum, and that hour is credited against an authorised repair, so an owner who approves the work is not paying twice for the same hour. An RV systems estimate is $150 and is credited the same way. Parts carry a 100 percent markup at or under $100 and 35 percent above that. Sales tax of 7.75 percent applies to parts and materials. Labour is not taxed. A 50 percent deposit applies at authorisation on any job over $2,000, and nothing here is priced below $500. Posting the rates rather than quoting a different number to each customer is deliberate: a rate card you can read before driving up is harder to argue with than a figure invented at the counter, and it makes the credited diagnostic hour verifiable instead of a promise. - Mechanical and electrical labour, $260 per hour - Diagnostics, scan and programming, $285 per hour, one hour minimum, credited against an authorised repair - RV systems estimate, $150, credited the same way - Hazmat and disposal, $45 flat, applied when refrigerant, LP or chemical disposal is involved ## Work this shop turns down and sends elsewhere Scope stops at the building. There is no engine rebuild work, no transmission rebuild work, and no emissions testing performed at this facility. A Cummins ISB that needs internal work goes to a diesel shop, and we say so on the phone rather than tear into it and hand back a partial job. Brakes, axles, bearings and suspension are handled on trailers and vans as posted, but a motorhome engine and transmission are somebody else's licence and somebody else's tooling. Everything happens in the bay. There is no mobile visit, no roadside call, and nothing gets done in a customer driveway, because a real systems diagnosis needs a shore pedestal, a load bank, a water supply, a drain and a lift. Owners ask about it regularly. The honest answer is that half the tests would be impossible in a driveway and the other half would be unreliable, which costs more in wasted hours than the drive north ever will. ## Choosing a diagnosis over a parts cannon Owners who arrive with the diagnosis already made are the most expensive customers in the building, and it is not their fault. A forum thread says a Norcold that stops cooling needs a control board, so a board gets bought, fitted, and the unit still does not cool, because the sealed cooling unit itself was finished. Two hours of measurement first would have saved the part and the second visit. Billing the diagnostic hour and being right beats fitting a part on a guess and billing it twice. Crediting that hour against the repair exists to remove the incentive an owner feels to skip it. Bring the symptom, not the conclusion: what was running, what was plugged in, whether the generator was on, what the monitor panel showed, whether anything smelled hot, and how long it had been sitting before it happened. Those details shorten a diagnosis more than any tool in the building does. ## What changes between a diesel pusher and a travel trailer Vehicle class changes this work more than brand does. A Class A diesel pusher carries a 50 amp service, two or three air conditioners, an AquaHot or hydronic loop, an Onan on a slide out tray and a battery bay you can stand beside. Access is good and component count is high, so diagnosis moves quickly and parts cost more. A travel trailer has a 30 amp cord, one rooftop unit, a Suburban furnace and a converter buried under a bed platform that has to come apart before a meter reaches anything. Van conversions sit at the far end of that spread. A Sprinter build hides its entire electrical and plumbing system behind cabinetry glued and screwed by whoever built it, usually with no diagram anywhere. Two hours of that job is furniture removal before testing starts. Bus conversions are harder again, because the previous owner was often the builder, and the wiring reflects their reasoning rather than any standard a technician can predict. - Class A diesel pusher, 50 amp service, two or three air conditioners, tray mounted Onan - Class C, 30 amp service, one rooftop unit, converter under a dinette or bed base - Travel trailer, 30 amp cord, Suburban furnace, converter behind a bed platform - Camper van conversion, owner built wiring behind glued cabinetry and no diagram ## Related - [Electrical Repair](https://ocrv.guru/services/mechanical-systems/electrical-repair/) - [Generator Repair](https://ocrv.guru/services/mechanical-systems/generator-repair/) - [Plumbing Repair](https://ocrv.guru/services/mechanical-systems/plumbing-repair/) - [Appliance Repair](https://ocrv.guru/services/mechanical-systems/appliance-repair/) - [Battery and Charging System Repair](https://ocrv.guru/services/mechanical-systems/battery-charging-system/) - [Solar Panel Installation and Repair](https://ocrv.guru/services/mechanical-systems/solar-panel-installation/) - [Water Heater Repair and Replacement](https://ocrv.guru/services/mechanical-systems/water-heater-repair/) - [Air Conditioner Repair and Service](https://ocrv.guru/services/mechanical-systems/air-conditioner-repair/) --- Source: https://ocrv.guru/services/mechanical-systems/ OCRV Center, 23281 La Palma Ave, Yorba Linda, CA 92887. (949) 799-3387. Serving Laguna Niguel, California. All work performed in shop. No mobile or roadside service. Licences: California Bureau of Automotive Repair ARD00288521; EPA CAL000367879. Published ranges are ranges, not quotes. Every figure traces to https://ocrv.guru/prices/.