Paint and Body
Paint and Refinishing
In short: Matching paint on a coach that has spent eight years in California sun means matching the vehicle as it is now rather than the factory colour code, because the factory colour stopped existing on your vehicle years ago.
- Typical range
- $2,500 to $35,000+
- Labor hours
- 20 to 250 hours
- Updated
Painting a 40 foot coach is not painting a car at a larger scale. The surface is a mix of fiberglass, filon, aluminium and sometimes steel, each of which takes primer and paint differently. The panels flex. The vehicle has spent years in direct sun that has changed the colour unevenly across its own body. And the booth has to be big enough to hold it.
That last point eliminates most shops before the conversation about technique even starts.
Colour matching, and why the factory code is the wrong answer
Every coach has a paint code. On a vehicle that has been outdoors in Southern California for eight years, that code describes a colour the vehicle no longer is.
UV breaks down resin and pigment. It does it faster on horizontal surfaces than vertical ones, faster on the south-facing side than the north, and faster on dark colours than light. So a single coach has multiple slightly different versions of what used to be one colour, and mixing to the factory formula produces a panel that is visibly newer than everything around it.
We take a spectrophotometer reading off the actual panel we are matching into, mix to that, then spray out a test card and check it against the vehicle in daylight before anything goes on the coach. Where the surrounding finish has degraded past the point where a match is achievable, we say so and quote refinishing a larger area, because the alternative is delivering a vehicle with a patch on it.
Blending, not butting
A repair painted up to a panel edge and stopped is a butt. It is faster, it uses less material, and in raking morning light you can see exactly where it ends for as long as you own the vehicle.
A blend carries the new colour progressively out into the adjacent panels, thinning the transition until there is no boundary to find. It costs more because it involves painting undamaged area, and it is the only method that produces a repair you cannot locate.
This is why a paint estimate covers more surface than the damage does. If an estimate you have been given covers exactly the damaged panel and nothing beyond it, that is a butted repair.
What the work covers
Spot repair and blend. A single panel repair blended into its neighbours. The most common job here.
Panel refinishing. Full panels resprayed, blended at the edges.
Full repaint, single stage. Colour and durability in one product. Suits work vehicles and budget-conscious coach refinishing.
Full repaint, base and clear. Colour coat under clearcoat. Deeper finish, better UV resistance, more repairable in future because the clear can be cut and polished.
Multi-stage and metallic. Pearl, candy and tri-coat finishes. These are unforgiving of technique and require spray-out cards for every batch.
Graphics and stripe reproduction. Covered in more depth under custom paint and graphics.
Fleet colour standardisation. Multiple vehicles brought to one consistent corporate colour across different original finishes and ages.
Prep is the job
Owners consistently underestimate this, so it is worth stating plainly: on a full coach repaint, spraying is a small fraction of the labor. The bulk is:
- Stripping old graphics and adhesive residue, which on a sun-baked coach is genuinely difficult
- Sanding the entire body to a mechanical key
- Repairing every chip, crack, star and stress fracture, of which an older coach has dozens
- Treating any corrosion rather than covering it
- Masking a 40 foot vehicle including every window, seal, light, vent and trim piece
- Priming, then blocking the entire body flat by hand
- Tack, degrease, and final inspection under lighting
Skip any of it and the finish shows exactly which step was skipped, usually within a year.
What it costs
| Job | Typical range | Paint hours |
|---|---|---|
| Spot repair with blend | $2,500 to $6,000 | 20 to 45 |
| Multi-panel refinish | $6,000 to $14,000 | 45 to 100 |
| Full repaint, single stage | $8,000 to $18,000 | 60 to 130 |
| Full repaint, base and clear | $15,000 to $28,000 | 110 to 200 |
| Multi-stage with full graphics | $24,000 to $35,000+ | 160 to 250 |
Paint labor is $210 per hour. Paint supplies calculate automatically at $55 per paint hour, so materials on a 140 hour job are about $7,700. Sales tax of 7.75 percent applies to materials, not labor. Everything is on the pricing page.
What we paint
Class A, B and C motorhomes, bus conversions and skoolies, fifth wheels and travel trailers, toy haulers, truck campers, Sprinter and Transit and ProMaster vans, camper van conversions, box trucks and delivery fleets, semi tractors, refuse and utility bodies, school and transit buses, ambulances and fire apparatus, police and municipal vehicles, Rivian R1T and R1S, and mobile business builds including food trucks.
Fleet work is a distinct discipline. Ten vans painted over six months to the same corporate colour need to match each other, not just their own original finish, which means batch control and recorded formulations rather than mixing each one fresh.
Preparing your vehicle
Remove personal belongings. Tell us about any aftermarket accessory that has been added, particularly anything adhered or screwed to a painted surface. If the vehicle has been repainted before, tell us, because what is underneath changes how we prep. And if there are areas you know leak, mention them, since a repaint is the natural moment to fix a seal rather than paint over it.
Estimates are $150 and credited back against an authorized repair.