Paint & Clear front cap

B.O. Plenty wrote:

goducks10 wrote:
My 5er has the dark brown faded cap. I got a quote from a local independent RV repair shop of $850.00. They remove the cap, sand off the gel coat, paint it and reinstall it. Takes about a week.
On my brand forum I frequent another 5er owner with a dark grey cap got his repainted for IIRC $1100-1200 at a different shop. Neither are dealers. I'm located in Oregon FWIW.

The cheap gel coat needs to be removed and the cap painted for it to be done correctly.

WRONG! The gel coat is just the colored layer of the fiberglass cap. If you take off the gel coat you are down to the bare fiberglass. I've had both my front and rear caps painted because of faded gel coat. Nobody would remove the cap to do this. On mine they stripped the decals, sanded the gel coat and sealed it with an epoxy sealer, sprayed on a colored base coat and then sprayed on several coats of clear. Same as refinishing a car. The front cost $1500.00 plus decals...The rear was done at a different shop. It cost $1050.00 plus decals. Both turned out well and have held up for a couple years so far. It's hard to find a shop with a large enough paint booth to do this. Mine was done at two different shops where they paint buses and semis.It's amazing how much bad information you can get from these forums...

B.O.