Before and After
Before, During Teardown, and After
Short answer
Three photographs per job, not two. Before, during teardown, and after. The middle one is the only one that proves anything.
OCRV Center documents repairs in three stages: intake condition, teardown findings and finished result. The teardown stage shows the hidden damage that outside-only estimates typically miss on laminated RV structures.
Updated 2026-07-29 by OCRV Center Editorial Team
A two photograph before and after tells you a shop can make something look correct. It does not tell you whether the structure underneath was addressed, and on an RV that is the entire question.
So we document three stages. What arrived. What was actually there once the panel came off. What left. The middle photograph is the one that matters, because it is the evidence that the repair addressed the cause rather than the symptom.
It is also, practically, what gets a supplement approved. A carrier looking at a photograph of displaced superstructure has a very different conversation than a carrier reading a description of it.
Why the Teardown Photograph Decides Everything
On roughly seven out of ten RV collision jobs, teardown reveals damage that was not in the original estimate. That is not an indictment of whoever wrote it. A laminated sidewall genuinely hides its own condition, and separation keeps spreading for weeks after the impact that started it.
What that means for you is that the estimate written before teardown is a starting position, and the photograph taken during teardown is what turns a supplement request into a supplement approval. We take those photographs on every job whether a carrier is involved or not.
- Mapped versus visible extent
- Delamination typically runs two to four times the visible bubble. We photograph the moisture grid and the thermal survey alongside the opened wall so the comparison is documented.
- Structure against specification
- Measurements recorded before and after correction. A number on a rack readout is harder to dispute than an opinion about whether something looks straight.
- What got resealed
- Every roof and sidewall penetration disturbed during a repair gets photographed after resealing, because that is where a repair fails eighteen months later if it was skipped.
- Finish verification
- Blend transitions photographed under raking light, which is the condition where a sectioned or mismatched blend actually shows.
The Full Job Files
Photographs without numbers are still marketing. For the complete picture, the case studies section carries full job files: hours, dollars, calendar days including parts delays, and exactly what teardown revealed on each one.
Those include a Class A front cap rebuild that ran 98 days, a fifth wheel another shop called a total loss, and a Sprinter conversion where the carrier initially valued a $42,000 build at zero.