Recently we had a customer come to us with an RV damage claim resulting from hitting a large overhanging tree limb in their RV park. This is an easy thing to do when you are unfamiliar with the new surroundings and pulling into an RV park after dark.
The tree limb impact did significant damage to the roof, the sides and some of the equipment on the roof. The repair was covered under the owner’s RV insurance policy, but the situation was unique: The Manufacturer has been out of business since 2009. In the RV world, this particular RV is called an “orphan.” An RV is referred to as an “orphan” if the company that manufactured it is no longer in business.
This particular RV was a 15-year-old, 2000 Safari Zanzibar Motor Coach. While this particular RV was an older model, it was still in excellent condition, and the damage was repairable and within reason to not be a totaled unit.
But the situation does raise some problems that other Rv’ers might be concerned with if you have an RV from a manufacturer that is no longer in business. Can they still be fixed?
Since over 80% of the companies that once manufactured RVs are now out of business, orphans are a common sight at our RV repair shop. Buying an orphan manufactured by a company that has just gone out of business can cause problems getting warranty work performed on the construction of the RV such as the roof or sidewalls.
For the most part, the RV owners who come to us are concerned that we will not be able to find the parts, or to match the paint on the RV. However when you think about it, auto body shops are still able to find parts for and repair cars that have long since gone out of business. Consider the Oldsmobile, Pontiac or Saturn.
As with all RV’s, most of the parts such as electronics, plumbing equipment, and interior parts and appliances are shared across all brands, and owning an orphan not too much of a problem for simple or common RV repairs. Most RV’s are built on truck chassis made by International, or Ford or common truck manufacturers, so finding engine and chassis parts are easy to come by.
In the case of this particular brand, Safari Motorcoach Corporation (also known as Safari Coach) was based in Oregon. The company’s manufacturing plant was initially located in Harrisburg, and the Safari Coach brand name was purchased by Monaco in 2002, however in 2009, the Safari name had been discontinued.
In 2002, Monaco Coach purchased Safari and the Beaver brand name. In 2009, Monaco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In 2010, Navistar International purchased Monaco, but it did not purchase the Safari Coach brand name, and the Safari and Beaver brand brands were discontinued.
If this customer were to take their RV to their local RV dealer, they would be hard pressed to find someone willing to fix this unit. This customer was mostly concerned with our ability to match the existing paint on his RV. We get that concern a lot. This owner went so far as to research the paint codes and find us a paint company in Bend Oregon that supplied the original paint to Safari.
Rest assured orphan RV owners, this is not a necessary step to repairing your RV. Our shop custom mixes and matches every paint on every RV that we repair. Even if we had the exact paint code from the exact paint manufacturer, the paint on an RV ages and fades with time just like it does on a car, and we custom tint each color for an exact match to the existing paint. We even have computerized mixing equipment that can scan a paint sample and match the paint exactly. But it takes a skilled painter to get really the paint on the RV to match exactly.
If your Orphan RV requires a specialized part that is unique to the original manufacturer, there are companies that we deal with who can find obsolete parts or even have them made for us.
So between paint matching, exterior wall or fiberglass panel repairs, obsolete parts sourcing, and multi-manufacturer RV repair parts, your RV can be fixed, and the insurance company will cover the repairs. We were able to return this customer’s RV back to the pre-loss condition in no time.