What to strip, dump, disconnect and bring before you hand over the keys

Strip the coach of everything that is not part of the coach. Bedding, clothing, kitchen contents, tools, camp chairs, the contents of every basement compartment, and anything loose in a cabinet. Two reasons, and neither is about trust. A repair generates dust, and fiberglass dust and sanding residue travel through an interior in ways that surprise people even with masking in place. And a technician working a sidewall from inside needs the cabinets open and often needs a cabinet run out entirely.

Empty compartments also let us look. On a water intrusion job the basement is the first place a stain shows, and a compartment packed with gear is a compartment nobody inspected. Take out anything fragile, anything you would be upset to lose, and anything with a smell, since a unit sitting closed in a bay in July concentrates it. Leave the coach in a state where a stranger can open every door and drawer without moving your possessions, because that is precisely what the work requires.

Tell us the propane state on arrival and expect it to be handled before any hot work begins. Welding, grinding and cutting near an LP system is not something anyone improvises around, and structural work on a coach very often ends up within a few feet of a line, a regulator or a bottle. On a motorhome with a fixed ASME tank the system is closed, valved off and documented. On a trailer or a fifth wheel with removable DOT cylinders the bottles come off the tongue entirely.

Turn every appliance off at the appliance and close the service valve before you drive up. Do not attempt to purge or bleed anything yourself. If you know a bottle is low, do not top it up for the trip: a full bottle is more to handle and more to store. If the coach has had an LP smell, a hissing regulator or a detector that has gone off, say so on arrival rather than letting it be discovered, because an LP system service is its own job at $285 to $2,500 across 1 to 10 hours and it is done by a certified technician.

Tell us where every battery is and where the disconnect switches are, and make both reachable. On a modern coach that can mean a chassis battery, a house bank, a separate generator start battery and a lithium bank with its own battery management system, in three different compartments. Electrical work, welding on a chassis and anything touching a wiring harness starts with an isolated system, and hunting for a hidden disconnect on a strange coach costs time on a labour clock.

Say what needs to stay powered and why. A residential refrigerator, a satellite receiver holding recordings, an alarm, a tracker, or a lithium bank that should not sit at a low state of charge for weeks all argue for keeping something live, and there are usually ways to do that. Say what is aftermarket, because an owner fitted inverter, solar controller or battery monitor is not on any wiring diagram and the person who fitted it is the only one who knows how it is wired. House battery work runs $500 to $5,500 across 2 to 10 hours if it turns out to be needed.

Black, grey and fresh, all three, dumped and flushed, before the drive rather than on arrival. This is the item most often skipped and it is the one that stops work soonest. A full black tank is heavy, it sits low in the structure, and on most coaches it sits directly beside or beneath the mechanism, the wiring and the framing that a slide, a floor or a subfloor job has to reach. A technician cannot pull a slide out over a full tank and will not cut a floor above one.

Fresh water matters for a different reason. A full fresh tank is a considerable amount of weight to move around a shop, and any coach that will be opened up for weeks should not have standing water in it. Rinse the black tank until it runs clear, leave the valves closed, and tell us if a tank is known to be cracked, weeping or reading falsely on the monitor. Tank work is $750 to $8,500 across 5 to 35 hours, and it is far easier to add to an existing repair order than to schedule separately later.

Empty it completely, wipe it out, and leave both doors propped open. Every food item goes, including condiments and anything in a freezer that will not survive a power interruption. An absorption refrigerator with the doors shut in a closed coach in a Yorba Linda summer will grow mould on the liner in under two weeks, and that becomes a cleaning job on top of your repair rather than part of it.

Turn it off at the control panel rather than leaving it on gas or on shore power. Use the manufacturer's door catch if it has one, or a rolled towel, and let air move through. If the refrigerator is part of what you want looked at, say so on the repair order at intake rather than mentioning it at pickup, because a refrigerator service is a separate band at $400 to $4,500 across 1 to 18 hours and an appliance is far cheaper to address while the interior is already open.

Take out every prescription, every document, everything of value and anything you are required to secure. Medication goes because a coach in a bay is not temperature controlled and because you will need it. Documents go because a title, a registration or an insurance file left in a coach that is being disassembled is a document you cannot produce when someone asks for it. Firearms and ammunition come out entirely, without exception.

Also take the things that are not obviously valuable but are not replaceable: photographs, a logbook, a set of keys to something else, a hard drive, a laptop, a bicycle computer. And take out anything with a battery in it that is going to sit for weeks in heat, including power tools and portable jump packs. A shop with a coach in pieces is a busy environment and the sensible policy is that nothing you would miss is in the vehicle.

Bring a spare key and expect to leave a working set. On a coach that is more keys than owners remember: an ignition key, an entry door key, a separate compartment or baggage key, sometimes a different key for the fuel or the LP cover, a generator compartment key, and a padlock key for a hitch, a ramp door or a rear cargo door. Missing one of those means either the compartment does not get opened or something gets cut, and neither is a good outcome.

Label the set. Tell us which key is which rather than leaving it to be worked out, and tell us if any lock is known to be stiff, seized or already worked around. If the coach has a keypad, a phone controlled lock or an aftermarket alarm, write the code down and note whether it survives a battery disconnect. Keep your own spare rather than handing over your only key, because there will be a day when you want to get into your own coach and there will also be a day when we need to move it.

One folder, physical or on a phone, with five things in it. The insurance policy or at least the declarations page, so the coverage in force at the date of loss is legible. The claim number and the adjuster's name if the claim is open. Any prior repair records for the same area, which is the document that settles a pre existing damage question fastest. Receipts and photographs for any custom build, aftermarket system or non factory installation, because a solar array or an owner fitted window is not in any manufacturer record. And the registration.

Bring the sealant log if you keep one, along with the photographs from any inspection pass. Bring anything that establishes a date. Insurance walk-ins are welcome and we write the estimate, and the estimate is better and faster when the file arrives with the coach. If the claim is not open yet, that is fine and it changes nothing about the drop off, though /insurance-help/how-claims-work/ is worth reading on the drive up.

No animal stays with the coach. It is stated plainly because it comes up, usually with the best intentions and usually involving a cat that lives in the unit full time. A repair bay has moving equipment, compressed air, open chemicals, welding, and doors that stand open onto a yard. There is no arrangement under which an animal in a vehicle under repair is a safe animal.

Plan for it in advance if the coach is your residence, because that is the hardest version of this problem and it is common among full time owners. Remove pet bedding, litter and food along with everything else, and tell us if an animal has lived in the unit, since that changes how an interior gets handled on a water damage or upholstery job. Owners living in their coach full time have a broader set of logistics to solve, and /we-work-with/private-owners/full-timers-and-snowbirds/ covers them.

Walk the coach with a phone and shoot the interior as it stands, empty. Every room from two corners, every cabinet run, the floor in each area, every countertop and table surface, the upholstery, the window coverings, and any existing wear, chip, scratch or stain. Then the exterior, all four corners and every panel, in the state it is arriving in. It takes ten minutes and it is worth doing even when nothing is in dispute.

Both sides benefit from the same set. Photographs at intake, at teardown and again before delivery are how the repair order records what was found and what was done, and an owner set taken in the yard before handover is the version nobody has to take anybody's word for. It also catches the thing you will otherwise remember wrongly, which is usually whether a particular scuff was already there. Bring that set with you or send it in, and it goes in the file alongside ours.

From Laguna Niguel the route is I-5 north, then SR-91 east, then local roads to 23281 La Palma Ave in Yorba Linda. Drive it early. A coach on the 91 eastbound in the afternoon is an unpleasant way to spend a morning's patience, and arriving with time in hand means the walkaround, the paperwork and the intake photographs happen properly rather than at speed. Fuel before you arrive, since a coach sitting for weeks is better not full and better not empty, and a fuel stop with a damaged unit is easier done once.

The gate is open Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 17:00, and Saturday from 9:30 to 15:00. Closed Sunday. Aim for a weekday morning if you have the choice, because that is when an estimator, a technician and a parts desk are all available at the same time and a drop off can turn into a real conversation. Call ahead on (949) 799-3387 so somebody is expecting the unit, particularly if it is oversized, on a transport, or arriving with a claim already open.

Tell us where it is and we coordinate transport to the shop. That is a routine part of a collision job and it is better arranged through us than around us, because a transport operator needs to know how the unit will be lifted or towed, whether the slides are retracted, whether the levelling jacks will stow, whether the chassis air system will hold, and where the tie down points are. Getting that wrong adds damage to a vehicle that already has some.

There is no mobile repair here, and that is a deliberate limit rather than an omission: a frame bench, a full length booth and lift capacity for a Class A coach do not travel. Retract every slide and stow every jack if the unit still has power to do it, or say clearly that it does not. Photograph the vehicle where it stands before it is moved, following the sequence at /the-center/guides/photographing-damage-before-anyone-arrives/, because a loading operation changes the evidence and it is the one step that cannot be repeated.

The coach is photographed before anything is touched, from every corner, then close on each damaged area with a scale reference in frame. Visible damage is written up and the places where more is expected are noted. If a claim is open we make contact with the carrier and the file gets a claim number and a date. Then the unit is either scheduled for teardown or parked pending an adjuster, depending on the carrier and whether an inspection is required before disassembly.

What does not happen in the first 48 hours is a final number. A first estimate prices what can be seen, and the honest position is that panels have to come off before anyone knows the scope: that is the whole point of the day axis on this site. No completion date is offered at drop off either, because the schedule after teardown depends on a supplement review and a parts lead time, and neither of those belongs to this shop. What you get instead is a dated record, a named point of contact, and a call when the supplement goes out. /insurance-help/after-an-accident/ describes the same period from the claim side.