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Retirement & RV Repair options - Your opinion please


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35 minutes ago, Chuck B 2004 Windsor said:

I Would Not take my motorhome to any repair place that Was Not a Factory Authorized Service Center.  Here today, gone tomorrow.  Chuck B

I don’t think there are any “Factory Authorized Service Centers” remaining for Monaco Coach Corporation produced vehicles. I’m sure there are many orphaned motorhome product owners that would love to have a qualified mechanic to work on their coach.

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I can comment from the standpoint of not only owning an RV repair facility but as a tech as well.

First off I hire people with no RV schooling. I focus on hiring people with mechanical skills and then teach them myself. 2 years ago I hired a certified technician that had a 2 year degree. I had to spend time breaking him of his bad habits and then teach him a multitude of things the school never taught him. All he had was basic RV knowledge.  I felt the schooling was a waste of time.

People learn this trade by working on RV's daily. There is not a single week that goes by that I do not learn something new and I have been at this game for 20 years. I have seen many mobile RV Tech's come and go. They go to school, learn the trade, buy a van and tools and start hitting the campgrounds. Soon after they are over their head with work they were never trained on. I have been in that predicament in my early years but thankfully I had a handful of experts I could fall back on and consult with. Many of these techs do not have that expert support behind them so they end up turning jobs down or worse yet attempt a repair and make a complete mess of the work they do. What follows after that is a bad reputation that goes from one campground to the next.

Campgrounds and resorts in my area require the mobile RV Tech carry liability insurance. You are out of your mind if you work on RV's without being insured. You are only one job away from a law suit. There are also costs getting started - vehicle, ladders, general tools, specialized tools, circuit board testers, plumbing parts and tools, electrical testers and equipment. My Battery analyzer alone was $ 3,000. Add in parts inventory and you are looking at some serious money. You cannot just order parts as the job requires. Some parts orders are weeks away on delivery dates or worse yet back ordered for months. I try and keep a running inventory of critical parts on hand at all times. Customers who lose a capacitor or circuit board on an AC unit in the middle of summer do not want to wait a week for a part.

I know of one traveling RV Mobile tech who is semi retired. He owns a coach and him and his wife have a winter campground they stay in as well as a summer one. He works a leisurely schedule as a Mobile RV Tech and makes just enough money to fulfill his needs. He also had years of experience in RV tech work. Sorry but from what I have seen, some of these schools are not worth the money. You walk away with a fancy piece of paper and hardly no skill sets whatsoever. They go into the RV field green and many end up with bad reputations because they get over their head in repairs they have no experience with.

I like the idea of being a retiree and do RV Inspections as suggested by others. The investment is low and you can pick and choose what and where you inspect. I used to do inspections but quit doing them as they were too time consuming and it required travel which meant I was out of the shop.

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