Paint & Body
RV Painting and Refinishing in Placentia, California
RV painting and refinishing ranges from a single blended panel to a complete coach respray in the shop's enclosed downdraft booth. Full resprays typically run $5,000 to $35,000 and 40 to 250 hours at $210 per hour, with paint supplies at $55 per paint hour. Placentia owners are about ten minutes away, and every coat is sprayed in-shop.
Why does RV paint prep take so many hours?
Because everything under the paint has to be right first. Trim, lights, awnings, rails and graphics come off. Every chip, crack and previous repair gets addressed. Old failing clear is sanded back. Only then does primer go on, and only then does the surface get blocked flat.
Blocking is the step owners never see and always notice the absence of. Sanding a high build primer flat with long boards is what makes a forty foot sidewall read straight instead of showing waves in the reflection, and it is measured in days rather than hours on a large coach.
Masking is its own workload. Windows, seals, tires, the roof edge and the underside all need protection, and on a coach with a full graphics wrap that also means documenting the original layout carefully enough to reproduce or delete it accurately afterward.
How do you match faded RV paint?
We match to your coach, not to a factory code. Years of Orange County sun shift the original color measurably, so a code match against a sun beaten sidewall reads wrong in daylight. A spectrophotometer reading off a cleaned, polished section gives the target the eye will actually judge.
The match is then verified with sprayout cards under both booth lighting and natural daylight before any panel is committed, because metallics and pearls flip differently under different light sources and a card that looks perfect indoors can read a shade off outside.
For partial repairs the color is blended into adjacent panels rather than cut at a hard edge. Blending across a panel boundary is what makes a spot repair invisible, and it is why a single panel job still consumes material and hours across neighboring surfaces.
Should I respray or just correct the clear coat?
If the clear is oxidized but still intact with measurable film thickness, wet sanding and machine polishing can restore gloss for a fraction of a respray. If the clear has failed, peeled or checked down to primer or gelcoat, correction has nothing left to cut and a respray is the only honest answer.
We measure film thickness before recommending correction. Cutting into a clear coat that is already thin produces a beautiful finish that fails within a year, which is a worse outcome for the owner than being told up front that the panel needs to be refinished.
Partial resprays are a legitimate middle path. Roofs and the upper third of a coach take the worst ultraviolet exposure, so refinishing those areas while correcting the lower panels is common and can cut the total substantially without leaving an obvious line.
What is included
- Removal of trim, lights, rails and hardware for edge to edge coverage
- Chip, crack and previous repair correction before priming
- High build primer with long board blocking for a flat reflection
- Spectrophotometer match plus sprayout card verification in daylight
- Enclosed downdraft booth application with controlled cure schedule
- Vinyl graphics reproduction, reinstallation or clean deletion
- Final denib, wet sand and machine polish before reassembly
How the work runs, step by step
- 1
Surface evaluation
Film thickness is measured, failing areas are mapped, and the coach is assessed for substrate mix and graphics layout.
Day one
- 2
Disassembly and masking
Trim, lamps, awning rails and hardware come off, then glass, seals and the underside are masked for full coverage.
2 to 5 days
- 3
Repair, prime and block
Chips and cracks are repaired, high build primer is applied, and the surface is long board blocked until the reflection reads flat.
1 to 3 weeks
- 4
Spray and cure
Base and clear are applied on a controlled schedule in the booth, with flex additive selected for the substrate involved.
2 to 5 days
- 5
Finish and reassembly
The coach is denibbed, polished, reassembled with new seals where required, and inspected in daylight before delivery.
3 to 7 days
Questions we get asked
What does a full RV paint job cost?
Can you recreate my original graphics package?
Will the new paint hold up to Southern California sun?
Do you paint the roof as part of a respray?
We Can Help! Contact Us Today.
Bring it to the shop and we will assess the damage, document it properly for your insurer, and tell you exactly what the repair involves. Serving Placentia and the surrounding area from our 35,000 square foot facility.
All work performed in-shop. We stand behind our work.