smlranger wrote:
The coach has urethane clear coat on it and not lacquer. If you are seeing fiberglass cracking or what some folks call 'checking,' the only permanent fix is to replace the sidewall/s. Very expensive. Sanding, priming, repainting and clear coating the wall will not fix it. It will reappear. I had the fiberglass checking on a 2002 Winnebago Journey and had a full body paint job done at great expense. It looked wonderful but the small cracks in the glass started to reappear in about 3 years.
I would strongly suggest you look for another rig. There are just too many good used RV's out there to take this problem on unless you can get it really cheap and live with it.
Agree with all the above and I am a 2003 Revolution owner and had it since new. I'm actually OK with the checking as it gets to a certain point and then kinda doesn't get any worse. A polish job and a wash job still make it look nice as long as you are about 25 feet back. Many manufacturers including, Fleetwood, Monaco, Newmar. Winebago all had the problem during that era and really up to about 2008. You can avoid it by finding a unit with lighter colours as the paint doesn't get hot enough to cause the checking. Or you can buy a badly checked darker unit and have it painted a lighter colour. Then the checking will not return. Our coach is 4 colours. The lighter have no checking and the black is the worst. Whenever one area gets too bad and the clear coat actually starts to flake or peel off I just sand it down, use a flexible filler primer, put a couple of base coats and three or four clear coats and its good for another 4 or 5 years. I do the worst parts once year. The better part of 6 hours prep 1 day and a couple hours of painting the next day. Overall the coach looks fine...or at least good enough for me. Use a proper 2 part clear coat like spray max 2K and get a professional buffer and you will have factory like results.
