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Spade_Cooley's avatar
Spade_Cooley
Explorer
Sep 06, 2020

Repairing damage to fibrglass.

Today I raked the left rear of my new travel trailer and put a few larges gouges in it as I slid by a post. Its going to take a pro to fix it. I have done the small repairs on my older trailer but body work is beyoned my ability. It will need filling ,
sanding and painting. Do dealers have body men that can handle this type of repair? I'm a thousand miles from my dealer at the present.

It sure feels ugly when you mess up a new toy.
  • Dealers? NO. Dealers can barely fix regular RV issues.

    Any auto body shop can repair fiberglass. Corvettes are particularily fiberglass, so that is a start...

    This is just the flat siding panel of fiberglass, not a molded fiberglass like a boat?

    Either way, you can make the repair. Fiberglass is really easy to work with. Sand it down, sand it deep enough so your new fiberglass resin will be able to have thickness and still be flush with the surface. Apply the fiberglass soaked resin according to directions. Let dry, sand smooth, paint.

    How good you want it to look will be a big factor in if you want to do it or have a pro do it for very large sums of money. This will be an odd fix so a body shop might charge more and take longer to get to...
  • Spade Cooley wrote:
    Today I raked the left rear of my new travel trailer and put a few larges gouges in it as I slid by a post. Its going to take a pro to fix it. I have done the small repairs on my older trailer but body work is beyoned my ability. It will need filling ,
    sanding and painting. Do dealers have body men that can handle this type of repair? I'm a thousand miles from my dealer at the present.

    It sure feels ugly when you mess up a new toy.
    No dealers don't have body shop men. Take it to any auto body shop to have fixed that can do fiberglass repair.
  • Friend dinged his Class A DP. He had an independent fellow that did boat fiberglass repairs. He came twice. Once to fix the fiberglass and again to paint it. Very in expensive. Call a couple of local boat shops and see who they use.
  • From postings here, dealers are notorious for long delays doing service and repairs. I did major damage (almost tore off the rear cap, tailswing on a post) to my 5er 3 yrs ago. Googling, I found an RV repair facility about 50 miles away with very good reviews, and they had a satelitte facility only 15 miles away. Dropped my 5er off at the sat facility and they picked it up and took to main facility. They wrote up estimate, contacted my insurance for go ahead, started repairs, and had it ready to pick up in less than 3 weeks. And that included around July 4th holiday. Great job, looked new afterward.

    If you were closer, I would recommend Coach Specialist of Texas in Mansfield, TX just south of DFW.
  • Call your insurance company. They will have a list of body shops that can do the repair.