Forum Discussion

SGTJOE's avatar
SGTJOE
Explorer II
Apr 17, 2016

Hair Line Cracks on MH

I have a 2001 National Tradewinds, it's white with decals and recently I was going to have the decals replaced with paint. The problem I ran into is under the sun faded decals there are little hair line cracks. Has anyone else had these on their RV?? Anyone had these repaired?? And if so was it costly??
  • A body shop should be able to tell if they are just small cracks in the gel coat or if they are more serious. Cracks in the gel coat are not too unusual on RV's with fiberglass sidewalls.
  • Search the forum for discussions about paint checking. If it is paint checking, a permanent fix will probably require replacement of the sidewalls.
  • they are called spider cracks and they are not a problem,they are real common on boats.I have the same unit as yours and just finished removing decals and painting the stripes,the few "cracks"are not noticeable at all don't worry about them.
  • I just had my coach into a paint shop last week for an estimate on end cap and roof side rails. Went over similar cracks with the painter. He told me that the factory did not allow for the difference in temperature on the dark locations when they applied clear coat over the dark striping.
  • rgatijnet1 wrote:
    A body shop should be able to tell if they are just small cracks in the gel coat or if they are more serious. Cracks in the gel coat are not too unusual on RV's with fiberglass sidewalls.


    I wish manufacturers would realize this and do something about it. 2 year old coaches can often look much older just by the cracking.