Fleet and Commercial
Box and Cargo Body Repair
In short: A box body is a structure rather than a container, so a torn corner post or a cracked bottom rail is a structural repair even when the damage looks like a dent in a panel.
- Typical range
- $750 to $18,000+
- Labor hours
- 4 to 80 hours
- Updated
A box body is easy to mistake for a container bolted to a chassis. It is a structure: corner posts, bottom rails, roof bows, cross members and skin, all working together, and the load path runs through all of it.
That is why a torn corner post is a structural repair even when the visible damage looks like a dent, and why a body with a cracked bottom rail will progressively distort until the doors stop closing.
Common damage
Corner posts. Struck at loading docks, in alleys and at drive-throughs. The most common structural damage on any delivery fleet.
Bottom rails. Damaged by forklifts, by kerbs, and by corrosion from road salt and standing water in the rail section.
Roof damage. Low clearance strikes. Frequently more serious than they appear because the roof bows carry the body's transverse stiffness.
Rear door and track damage. Roll-up door tracks bent by loads shifting, panels damaged, rollers seized, springs failed.
Floor failure. Wear, water ingress, forklift damage, and rot at the perimeter where water sits.
Side panel damage. Impact, scraping, and corrosion at panel joints.
Reefer panel damage. Punctures and delamination in insulated panels, which compromises thermal performance.
Reefer bodies specifically
Refrigerated bodies fail thermally long before they fail structurally, and the cause is almost always moisture in the insulation.
Foam core panels lose their insulating value when they take on water, and water gets in through a punctured skin, a failed seam or an unsealed penetration made for a shelf bracket. A refrigeration unit working perfectly against a wet box will run continuously and still lose temperature, which gets diagnosed as a unit problem and is not one.
So on any reefer with a temperature complaint we survey the panels and the seals first. That frequently saves the cost of refrigeration work that would not have solved the problem.
What we do
Panel repair and replacement in steel, aluminium and composite, corner post and bottom rail replacement, roof bow and roof panel repair, floor repair and full replacement, roll-up and swing door repair including tracks, rollers, springs and panels, reefer panel and liner repair, subframe and mounting repair, insulation replacement, e-track and cargo restraint installation, and interior lining and shelving.
Related work: lift gate install and repair, DOT reflective marking, fleet graphics.
Materials, and why they matter
Steel. Older and heavy duty bodies. Welded repair, and corrosion is the main enemy.
Aluminium. Most modern dry vans. Lighter, and the heat affected zone around a weld loses strength, so repairs frequently need reinforcement that a steel repair would not.
Composite. Modern dry van and reefer panels. Bonded and often structural, requiring the manufacturer's adhesive system. Repairing composite with a general purpose adhesive produces a joint that fails.
See welding and metal fabrication for the structural side.
What it costs
| Job | Typical range | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Panel repair | $750 to $2,500 | 4 to 12 |
| Panel replacement | $1,500 to $5,000 | 8 to 24 |
| Corner post replacement | $2,000 to $6,000 | 10 to 28 |
| Bottom rail section | $3,000 to $8,000 | 14 to 38 |
| Roll-up door repair | $900 to $4,500 | 5 to 20 |
| Floor replacement | $2,500 to $8,000 | 12 to 38 |
| Reefer panel repair | $1,500 to $7,000 | 8 to 32 |
| Comprehensive rebuild | $10,000 to $18,000+ | 45 to 80 |
Body labor is $210 per hour, structural work $260. See the pricing page.
Fleet scheduling
Downtime is the real cost on a commercial vehicle, and it usually exceeds the repair.
We schedule fleet work so you are never short more than an agreed number of units, we give realistic completion dates rather than optimistic ones so you can arrange cover, and for operators with recurring damage patterns we will suggest preventive work, corner protection and rail guards, that reduces the recurrence rather than just repairing it again.
Estimates are $150 and credited back against an authorized repair.
Corrosion, the slow failure
Most box bodies that reach the end of their life do so through corrosion rather than impact, and it starts in the same places on nearly every unit.
The bottom rail is first, because water and road debris sit inside the rail section and never dry. Then the floor perimeter where the deck meets the rail, then the rear frame around the door aperture where the seal traps moisture, then any point where a bracket or an accessory was mounted through the skin without isolation.
Aluminium bodies on steel chassis have an additional problem: galvanic corrosion at every point where the two metals touch without isolation. That is designed in at manufacture and undone by the first person who bolts a shelf bracket through the wall with a steel fastener.
Catching corrosion at the surface stage is cheap. Catching it after a rail has perforated means sectioning. We inspect these areas on every body that comes through for any reason and will tell you what we found even if it is not what you brought the vehicle in for, because a rail that is starting to go is a conversation worth having a year early rather than a year late.