Patching siding or replace

[rickdavis81]

This winter during an ice storm I had a tree come down on my ‘18 Prime Time Crusader. It tore the roof and punctured the siding with a hole about the size of my fist. There’s also some small cracks on the slide out siding and main camper siding. Insurance is wanting to have a body shop patch it. My fear is that if it was hit that hard that it might have caused structure damage to the camper that may lead to future delamination or leaks or future cracking that they don’t catch. I’d prefer to have the side replaced. Sold my last camper due to delamination and I didn’t like looking at it, was kinda embarrassing. Am I right to have concerns or am I being unreasonable and the patch is a totally acceptable fix? If this was an old camper I’d patch it and hope for the best. But being that I bought it new in late ‘19 and it’s never been out in the weather since I got it and it’s still like new I’d rather keep it that way.

[rickdavis81]

I’ve done some patching on corvettes before. Not a pro at any means. My concern is if it hurt the bonding of the siding to the studs or caused smaller cracks that go undetected until I hit a few big bumps in the road.

[campigloo]

A good shop should be able to handle that easily. Keep in mind corvettes and boats have been getting patched for decades.

[Lwiddis]

I’ve seen some really good work. Investigate the shop carefully.

[HappyKayakers]

I've had fiberglass work done a few times. Maybe I just got lucky with the shops that did the work but I never could tell where the patches were.