Fleetwood RV Repair in Yorba Linda

Fleetwood Class A coaches use a welded steel and aluminum superstructure with laminated fiberglass sidewalls and one piece moulded front and rear caps. The basement compartment structure on diesel pushers is a significant part of the vehicle structure, carrying the bay doors and a large amount of stored weight, and it is often overlooked in damage assessment.

Chassis varies by line and era. Gas coaches including Bounder, Flair, Southwind and Storm use the Ford F53. Diesel pushers including Discovery, Providence, Excursion and Expedition use Freightliner XC series chassis, and the higher Discovery LXE trims used the Fleetwood Power Bridge chassis, an in house design that adds a structural element carrying the house rather than treating the chassis and house as separate systems. Class C units used the Ford E Series cutaway.

Upper trim Fleetwood coaches carry full body paint, which is a multi stage base, graphic and clear system applied over the entire coach rather than gelcoat. Repairing it correctly is a refinish problem, not a touch up problem.

• Ford F53 gas chassis on Bounder, Flair, Southwind, Storm and Fortis
• Freightliner XC diesel chassis on Discovery, Providence, Excursion and Expedition
• Fleetwood Power Bridge chassis on upper trim Discovery LXE
• Ford E Series cutaway on Jamboree and Tioga Class C
• Full body multi stage paint on Discovery, Providence and Pace Arrow upper trims

The full catalogue including long discontinued lines. Bounder, Pace Arrow and Southwind are the volume, and a great many of them are twenty to thirty years old and still in daily use.

American Coach product, which shares the REV Group ownership and much of the same construction approach at a higher trim level, is covered under the same processes. Holiday Rambler and Monaco have their own hubs on this site because their chassis and paint systems differ enough to warrant it.

• Class A gas: Bounder, Flair, Fortis, Southwind, Storm, Terra
• Class A diesel: Discovery, Discovery LXE, Providence, Excursion, Expedition
• Legacy diesel: Revolution, American Tradition, American Eagle
• Class A legacy gas: Pace Arrow, Pace Arrow LXE, Frontier
• Class C: Jamboree, Tioga, Tioga Ranger, Pulse
• Legacy towables: Wilderness, Prowler, Terry, Mallard

Full body paint clearcoat failure is the signature Fleetwood problem on coaches over roughly fifteen years old. Multi stage paint on a large fiberglass surface in Southern California sun has a finite life, and once the clear starts to lift it goes across the whole coach rather than in one spot. There is no partial fix that looks right, and owners who try one panel end up refinishing the coach anyway.

Cap radius cracking is the second, and it follows the same physics as every other moulded cap: chassis flex concentrating at the tightest radius, usually at the windshield corners and at the rear cap where it wraps the corner. On older Bounder and Pace Arrow units the cracks are frequently decades old, filled repeatedly and never structurally repaired.

Basement compartment door sag and frame corrosion is the third pattern and the one most likely to be missed. Bay doors on diesel pushers are large, heavy and carry their own hardware, and the compartment structure around them corrodes and deflects over time. A door that no longer latches cleanly is often reporting a structural problem rather than a hinge problem.

• Full body paint clearcoat lifting and delamination across the coach
• Gelcoat and laminate cracking at windshield and rear cap radii
• Basement compartment door sag and compartment frame corrosion
• Roof membrane termination failure at front and rear caps
• Sidewall delamination around slide and window openings
• Slide mechanism wear on Power Gear and hydraulic slide systems
• Cabover seam leakage on Jamboree and Tioga Class C units

Honestly, mostly not. Fleetwood body parts for discontinued lines are largely gone. A front cap for a 2004 Southwind or a compartment door for a 1999 Pace Arrow is not something you order. Some chassis and running gear parts remain available through Ford and Freightliner, and some interior components can be sourced through REV Group, but body panels are a fabrication question.

That is the core of what we do on this brand. We mould fiberglass cap sections in house from the surviving side of the coach or a donor pattern, we fabricate compartment doors and skirt panels, and we build structural members to match original section. A Fleetwood that a dealer body shop calls unrepairable is usually just a coach that needs parts made.

On cost, full paint refinish runs $5,000 to $35,000 and up at 40 to 250 hours, and a full body repaint on a forty foot diesel pusher sits at the top of that. Collision runs $1,000 to $150,000 and up. Fiberglass cap repair runs $750 to $12,000 and up at 4 to 60 hours, full cap replacement $4,500 to $25,000 and up at 30 to 120 hours. Compartment and baggage door repair runs $200 to $1,800 at 1 to 10 hours each.