The rear wall broke my 2020 Vista 27PE

[Randy Hardin]

Hello, all-
We own a 2020 Winnebago Vista 27PE - and were so happy last year to get this to replace our much older 2003 R-Vision motorhome. The old motorhome was a bit shorter, and showing its age. Our Vista was in great shape.

Then about 2 months ago, it seemed like a beautiful day to take it out for one of our last nice days of the season. I backed out of the rented parking space that we store it in, and steered to avoid the building that was straight behind the parking spot. Then, I switched into drive, and pulled forward, turning to the left to head towards the exit.After a moment, there was a loud crashing sound from the right-rear. I stopped and got out to figure out what happened. I thought something had fallen out of a cabinet.
Then, I stepped outside to look, and discovered the reason- a short concrete bollard that I hadn't realized was there. I wasn't thinking of the tail and that bollard, just was sure that I was clear of the building. I bent and tore loose the back wall, fairly cleanly. I knew about the tail, but just got over confident, and didn't give myself enough space. It barely scuffed the side, broke the lens of the marker light on that corner, and grabbed the corner of the rear wall to bend while tearing it off from that lower corner up. I kicked myself and got some waterproof tape to close up most of the opening, except for the very bottom, which is too far out to tape- and doesn't have much to tape it too.
I have two shops that are the likely choices to do the repair- a local shop that has been great for repairs in the past and the local shop from the big camping chain. Local shop's estimate is about $13K. Insurance estimates about half of that- about $7K. Chain store estimate- which is from pictures only and missing several major items- like the wall and the shower stall- is $8900, if I adjust it with the lowest cost for the wall and the shower from the other estimates. Both repair options seem to not be too worried about the low-ball offer & check from the insurance, as they believe that they will just negotiate to finish out the repair. All of them say that sometime late spring is when it will likely be done.
All of this has me worrying. I'm worried about missing early season events. I'm worried about choosing my local repair place, and finding that something doesn't work out for them to do the repair- like Winnebago refusing to sell them the Wall assembly, since I phoned Winnebago and they said that they wouldn't sell to someone who wasn't a dealer, and the independent repair shop isn't. I'm worried about how to finish up sealing it against the pests that could crawl in from underneath- and any weather problems that might blow up from underneath as we go through an Ohio winter. I'm worried about whatever there is that I don't yet know that I should be worried about.

So- what exper0ience have others had with a similar situation? I haven't cashed the insurance check yet, since it's so far off, but I'm sure I'll need to soon. How do I handle this? I trust the local shop to do a solid, quality job- but they are a small shop, and resource limited, so I'd have some belief that they might have additional delays as well. Anything else that you think I should be thinking about? What odds are you giving me on being able to actually get this done early in the season? Any other advice or experiences that might help me feel a little more on top of getting our moving home fixed?

Sorry for the long message, and thanks in advance for whatever helpful information you can share.

Randy

 

[Morich]

Step one for me would be to get the talk with the insurance done upfront! The idea of a shop going back to them as work goes on is way out of line in my experience. Once claims are settled, I don't think of myself as having much control!
In my view, you have two options, one is the quicker way and just go with the loss for getting it back on the road, or traded. Less stress, more loss!
It then gets way deep in what the priorities may be!
I can't tell which angles are shown in some of the pictures, so it is hard to tell the damage.
Can you give us more info on which direction we are looking in pictures one and two?

In rebuilding a few RV, the bigger problem I found was managing the damage to metal sides, etc. as they are a problem to replace or straighten. In this one, I don't currently see need to fully replace any of the full sections but do more pulling them back together and repair the joint. Mostly, I see you being somewhat lucky as the shower may come out and let you do much easier work to replace framing from inside which then doesn't need to look super due to being hidden by the shower stall.
I would be looking at using long pipe clamps run to the RV front to pull the rear section back into alignment! One of the advantages of fiberglass is that you can put pressure on straight items, unlike metal which has all kinds of folds built in that make it impossible to clamp without damage!
Can't see the roof top rear corner but it may require replacement cap??

Lots of details on the repair but that is where you may need to search out the guys who really want the job enough to work out the details!
It's hard to find those motivated people if they are not doing it themselves!
This may be a time to bite the bullet, sell for salvage and move on while letting those motivated folks do this one!