Three bays, one van, one family, since 2007

It started as a scrap of paper on a clipboard, because two people walking the same rig kept checking the same things twice and missing the awkward ones. Putting the walk in a fixed order fixed that. Then somebody asked for a copy of the clipboard to take home, and it turned out that the sheet — not the repair — was the thing people actually valued.

The zeroes went on it later, and for a plain reason. A customer came in convinced the brakes were finished because that is what he had been told. They were not finished, they were barely worn, and the only way to prove it to him was to measure them in front of him and write the number down. After that we wrote every number down, including the boring ones.

What we work on

Travel trailers, fifth wheels, Class C and Class A motorhomes on the coach side — house systems, roof, gas, electrical, running gear, slides. Truck campers and pop-ups. Utility and cargo trailers too — brakes, bearings, couplers and lights. We do not do chassis engine work on a motorhome; that goes to a truck shop, and we will tell you which one rather than pretending.

What we are not

We are not a dealership and we do not sell rigs. Nobody here works on commission, which removes the only real reason a shop would want to find you a problem. We are not an insurance body shop either — if a tree came down on the roof, we can inspect it and write what we see, but the claim work belongs somewhere with an estimating department.

How the shop runs

Two of the three bays are tall enough for a Class A; the third takes a trailer and is where most of the axle work happens. The van covers inspections, gas tests, batteries, seals and small repairs at storage lots and campsites, which matters here because a lot of rigs in Sarasota County live in a lot rather than on a driveway.

March and October are the two weeks of the year everybody remembers at once. If you have a date, call early, and if we cannot do it properly in the time available we will say so instead of taking the booking and hoping.