# Mobile Workshop and Office A workshop, retail, grooming or salon unit is a cargo van or light box body with a trade fitted into it: benches, racking, a power system, water in some builds and a customer facing flank in others. Body repair is routine. Getting the fitout back to working condition is what sets the date. ## The fitout is bolted through the shell, so it moves with it The shell on these units is a cargo van or a light box body, and the fitout is bolted through it. That detail matters more than it sounds. Shelving, benches, tank frames and equipment racks anchor into the wall posts or the floor structure, so a panel that moved in a collision has taken load from the fitout with it. Cargo shelving and racking install runs $750 to $7,500, four to thirty hours. Pulling a racking run to reach the panel behind it, then reinstalling it true, is often more hours than the panel work itself. Van collision repair and refinish runs $1,500 to $40,000, ten to two hundred hours. The wide end of that band is not about severity alone, it is about how much fitout has to come out and go back. A unit with bolted, accessible racking prices near the low end for damage that costs twice as much on a unit built in place and sealed. Owners rarely know which of the two they own. Opening one bay panel at estimate stage tells us, and it is worth twenty minutes before a number goes on paper. ## Retail and vending units, and the display flank that gets hit Retail and vending units carry their value on the outside. A serving hatch, an awning, display lighting, a graphics wrap and often a fold down counter all live on one flank, and that flank is the one nearest passing traffic at every stop. Awning fabric replacement runs $400 to $2,500 and awning arm and motor replacement runs $500 to $3,500. LED lighting upgrades run $250 to $2,500. Window install runs $400 to $3,500, and a hatch only tracks correctly while the opening stays square, which a lower rail hit quietly stops being. Graphics are the other half of that exterior. Vinyl wrap and graphics application runs $1,500 to $7,500 and decal removal and reapplication runs $400 to $2,500. On a partial repair the honest problem is the wrap seam: a replaced panel wrapped fresh will not match the vinyl beside it, because vinyl in this climate fades on a schedule of its own. Wrapping the full flank rather than the single panel costs more and looks like one vehicle instead of two. An owner should hear that before the repair starts, not at pickup. ## Grooming units and what constant humidity does to a build A grooming unit runs a hot water system, a tub, a dryer load and a waste tank inside a sealed box, and the interior lives in humidity that no cargo van was designed around. The predictable failures follow from that: corrosion at fasteners and floor edges, delamination at the tub surround, and a subfloor that has been damp for far longer than anybody realised. Rust treatment and anti corrosion coating runs $400 to $3,500. Water damage restoration and subfloor replacement runs $750 to $15,000, four to sixty hours. Water heater service runs $350 to $4,500 and fresh water plumbing service and repair runs $285 to $4,500. Black and gray tank repair or replacement runs $750 to $8,500. The dryer and the pump are the two loads that size the electrical system, so twelve volt and shore power electrical wiring at $400 to $5,500 tends to appear on the same estimate as any interior work. A grooming unit that comes in for a body repair and leaves without its floor edges checked is a grooming unit that will be back inside a year. ## Salon and barber units, cabinetry and the draw the chairs need Salon and barber units are a cabinetry problem with a power problem attached. Station cabinetry, mirrors, a shampoo bowl and a chair mount all fix to the floor or the wall, and cabinetry repair, refacing and custom build runs $500 to $7,500, four to thirty five hours. Mirrors and glass details crack from body flex long before they crack from impact, so a unit that has cracked the same mirror twice usually has a structural issue behind it rather than a mounting issue, and replacing the glass a third time solves nothing. Power is the other constraint. Dryers, processors, a water heater and lighting on one shore connection is a heavy draw, and these builds are often upgraded after purchase without anybody resizing the feed. Transfer switch and shore power diagnostics runs $285 to $1,500 and inverter and charger replacement runs $750 to $4,500. Where a repair opens the wall anyway, correcting a feed that was already marginal costs the wire and the labour rather than a second visit and a second week off the road later on. ## Taking a fitout apart in an order that lets it go back together Whatever trade rides inside, the return to service looks similar. The fitout comes out in labelled sections, the shell is repaired and refinished, insulation and sound deadening at $750 to $4,500 goes back wherever it was disturbed, panels and headliner close at $500 to $4,500, and the fitout goes back in reverse order with the electrical proven before anything covers it. Body and paint labour is $210 per hour, mechanical and electrical is $260 per hour, and detail labour is $95 per hour. The date turns on two things nearly every time: one long lead part, and how much of the fitout has to be rebuilt rather than simply reinstalled. We name both at the estimate rather than at the halfway point, and we say which of the two we are least sure about. A vehicle that is a working business gains nothing from optimism, and an owner told three weeks who loses five has lost more than an owner who was told five at the start and planned around it. Where a trade unit has a public facing side, the finish work is scheduled last and given its own time rather than squeezed into the final afternoon. Paint correction and polish runs $500 to $4,000 and a full interior and exterior detail runs $500 to $3,500. Fleet graphics and vinyl wrap runs $1,500 to $8,500. A unit that goes back on the road with a sound repair and a mismatched flank still reads as damaged to every customer who walks up to it, and on a vehicle whose whole job is being looked at, that is a repair only half finished. - Fitout removed in labelled sections and reinstalled to a measured shell - Wrap seam and colour match discussed before any partial panel repair - Floor edges and fastener corrosion checked on every water carrying build - Electrical proven before panels, headliner and cabinetry close --- Source: https://ocrv.guru/vehicles/specialty-mobile-business/mobile-workshop/ 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/.