Coachmen RV Repair in Yorba Linda

Coachmen Class C coaches are built on a cutaway chassis, meaning the truck cab and cowl are retained and the house is built behind and over it. The house uses aluminum or steel tube framing with laminated fiberglass sidewalls over composite substrate on most current lines. The cabover is a moulded fiberglass shell bonded and fastened to the house framing and sealed against the cab roof and windshield header.

The Class A lines follow conventional practice: Mirada and Pursuit on the Ford F53 gas chassis with laminated sidewalls and moulded caps, Sportscoach diesel pushers on the Freightliner XC with full body paint on the upper trims. The Class B line is Sprinter and Transit based, which puts those units firmly in van repair territory with ADAS calibration attached to any front end work.

Because Coachmen is a Forest River company, frames, slides, axles and running gear across the towable and motorized lines come from the same Lippert and Dexter supply chain as the rest of the group.

• Ford E Series cutaway on Leprechaun, Concord and Orion Class C
• Chevrolet 4500 cutaway on the Chevy variants of the Class C lines
• Mercedes Sprinter cab chassis on Prism
• Mercedes Sprinter van on Galleria
• Ford Transit on Cross Trail, Beyond and Nova
• Ford F53 gas chassis on Mirada, Pursuit and Encore
• Freightliner XC diesel chassis on Sportscoach

The whole catalogue. The Class C lines are the volume and the Class B Sprinter and Transit units are the fastest growing part of the work as camper van conversions have proliferated.

Discontinued Coachmen lines are covered as well. The brand has produced a great many badges over the decades and the underlying construction is consistent enough that the repair path is clear even on units where no parts remain in the system.

• Class C: Leprechaun, Concord, Orion, Prism, Prism Elite
• Class B: Galleria, Nova, Beyond, Cross Trail EV
• Class B plus: Cross Trail, Cross Trail XL
• Class A gas: Mirada, Mirada Select, Pursuit, Encore
• Class A diesel: Sportscoach SRS, Sportscoach RD
• Travel trailers: Catalina, Apex, Northern Spirit, Clipper, Adrenaline
• Fifth wheels: Chaparral, Brookstone

The cabover to windshield header seam is the number one Coachmen issue and it accounts for more Class C water damage than everything else combined. The cabover shell is a large cantilevered fiberglass structure and the cab underneath it is a separate vehicle that moves independently. The seal at the windshield header takes all of that relative movement, fails, and lets water into the cabover floor and the front wall laminate.

The second failure is stress cracking at the cabover corners and at the front cap radius on Class A units, the same fiberglass flex problem that affects every moulded cap in the industry. The third is delamination in the rear corners of Class C coaches, where the sidewall meets the rear cap at a joint that carries road spray thrown up by the rear wheels.

On the Sprinter and Transit based Class B units the failures are van failures. Roof penetration leaks at fans, solar and racks, sliding door track wear on high cycle units, and galvanic corrosion at any steel fastener driven into an aluminum panel. Rear barn door hinge sag is common on heavily loaded conversions.

• Cabover to windshield header seam failure on all Class C lines
• Wet cabover floor and front wall laminate behind that seam
• Stress cracking at cabover corners and Class A front cap radii
• Rear corner delamination where sidewall meets rear cap
• Roof penetration leaks at fans, solar and racks on Class B units
• Sliding door track wear and barn door hinge sag on van based models
• In wall slide rail wear on Class C dinette and bunk slides

Current production Coachmen body parts are orderable through the Forest River supply chain with typical lead times of several weeks on moulded parts. Cabover shells and one piece caps for discontinued lines are the usual dead end, and on older Class C units the cabover and the front cap are frequently one part, which means an unavailable part is a very large unavailable part.

We mould cabover and cap sections in house. This is one of the more common fabrication jobs we do, because Class C cabovers take the most damage in low bridge and low branch strikes and they are the part manufacturers stop supporting first.

Cost bands: motorized collision runs $1,000 to $150,000 and up at 5 to 800 or more hours. Fiberglass cap repair runs $750 to $12,000 and up at 4 to 60 hours. Full cap replacement runs $4,500 to $25,000 and up at 30 to 120 hours. Van collision runs $1,500 to $40,000 and up at 10 to 200 hours, with ADAS scan and recalibration at $275 to $1,800 on top where the vehicle is equipped.