Type of brake system (air brakes or hydraulic). There weren't many within the distance we were willing to drive for a bus, so we did not look at this website as much. However, sometimes the best insight can come from hearing someone else's journey. The chassis construction, engine, and transmission all weigh into this number. We ended up spending around 390 total hours! This is where we wasted a good amount of time. Here are a few things you need to be aware of when buying a school bus for sale that are different for almost every bus you will come across: - Bus lengths/number of windows. They seem to have a large inventory as well for those looking for a school bus for sale.
Note: Craigslist was the #1 place that we looked for a school bus for sale back in November 2018, before we created the Skoolie Livin Classifieds. It is a very good place to find many buses for sale. They usually have over 100+ buses at any given time for sale on there. Keep in mind you'll want to budget for any unexpected repairs that may pop up. In time, you will find someone with the perfect bus that is willing to go through all your questions honestly. Then it came down to how and where to find used school buses for sale that were not rusted out hunks of junk.
Because of the lack of communication from most of the sellers on eBay, we didn't spend too much time on eBay. Even worse, our phone number was shared by some of the people we talked to and we started getting calls from random people with a school bus for sale. But with a dealership, you potentially have access to different financing options. With these types of websites being local, you can pick up some great items for your conversion and maybe even find your bus for sale! You Don't Have Financing Options. We found a few buses that were potential candidates for our skoolie conversion, but we only got a response from one seller on the several buses we asked for further details and pictures. 5 Used School Buses for Sale on eBay Motors. This helped me find every possible bus that was for sale from a private owner.
But making that decision has significant risks. Then you are going to have to look at a larger area across the internet to find it if you want to get going on your skoolie conversion ASAP! Start by calling your local school districts and let them know you're interested in buying a used school bus from them and ask to be connected with the best person to talk to about it. Your job is not only to find a good bus to buy, but you should also focus on the seller. The only reason I had to annoy them was that they were either doing a horrible job at selling their bus or they were not giving all the information we as potential school bus conversion owners need to know!
WORD OF CAUTION: We do have to caution doing a complete bus inspection or have a mechanic do a complete inspection of the bus before placing a bid on any bus from an auction. Mid-sized school buses include 7-window, 8-window, 9-window, and 10-window configurations ranging from 25 feet to 35 feet in length. It's not a good direct-to-consumer market (yet), so they don't have clean-cut marketing or a good knowledge base of information that you can weed through and find the right bus – especially when it comes to those of us who want to do a school bus conversion. Expect to pay $4, 000 – 10, 000 for a mid-sized bus for sale with a truck chassis and powertrain that has been well maintained, has little rust, and is ready to be converted and hit the road. That shouldn't be too costly, right?
The Shortcut to Search Craigslist and eBay. I guess "cheap" varies from family to family. We created a 78-Point DIY Bus Inspection Workbook that covers 160+ components. I have personally used Jax's bus finding services for finding two buses that we use now for The Bus Fair parking lot shuttle buses. We will now walk you through everything we learned throughout the process of finding our used bus for sale – good, disappointing, and downright scary…. Finding the perfect bus for sale for a school bus conversion comes down to you being knowledgeable about buses and knowing what you want. One of the major factors is being able to trust the person or company where a bus is purchased and understanding what to watch out for when looking to buy a school bus. Wheelchair door placement (maybe no wheel chair lift at all). If you are like us, you are probably planning on traveling with it often (maybe even across the country) and you might travel down roads where there are no gas stations for hours at a time. First place to check is our Classifieds section of our website. Depending on how far you are willing to travel to find the right bus, you can literally have thousands of options, with new buses being listed almost daily. Enough for a long test drive?
Granted it started out hard for me and I scoured the internet for hours every night searching for a short school bus for sale. Some more pros than cons, with others being difficult, non-stop money pits. Suspension type (leaf or air ride). Small Short Bus Cost (Van Chassis). There are websites like this pretty much for every state, as well. The bus you're buying and the bus you think you're buying aren't always the same. The GVWR is the gross weight capacity the bus can handle. Think about this for a second… would you rather annoy a few people you do not even know or have the foundation of your skoolie end up being a huge problem? That's why working with a reputable dealer is often the better choice. It's going to need some TLC, though. Every school bus is different, but a few basic items to watch out for include: lots of rust, weird engine noises, tires not wearing evenly, very bald or cracking tires, service history, and mileage. Go to Google and search "(desired state) Craigslist. " Local or National: You can find bus auctions or a bus auction website that is either focused on local regions or pull in inventory from a national supply.
In this guide, we walk through where to find a school bus for sale, then selecting and buying a school bus to convert it into a skoolie. We will then build on this with our guide to buying a school bus for sale that thousands have now used to find their bus to convert. I actually said "that's weird! " Does your family need some time spent together? Cruise control or no cruise control (cruise control should be a must have I might add). Where to find school buses for sale online. Nothing made us less confident than dealing with some sketchy person, no matter how beautiful the bus was.
Small school buses basically use the same van chassis, engine, transmissions, and even the cabs from the common work or delivery vans made by the same manufacturers (Ford, GM, Chevy, etc). Check out the 78-Point DIY Bus Inspection Workbook for Beginners here. He charges a very resonable fee that covers: - Phone consultation with you to understand what your bus life goals are so he can recommend what length and motor/transmission type will handle it. The good part about eBay is the ability to use many different filters to narrow down your results to find buses for sale that are from specific manufacturers, year ranges, price ranges, distances from where you live, sizes, miles on the odometer, etc. The first bus for sale that we ended up seeing was a 2000 Bluebird TC1000. Auction Sites We Used with Bus Auctions.
And check out his Instagram account which features his veggie oil conversion full size bus. These short van chassis buses tend to have a lower GVWR than other truck chassis options, so your build may be restricted. Buying a used a school bus for sale to convert into a skoolie can be a difficult process. No matter what the reason, we always assumed they were trying to hide something, otherwise they would have worked to get the information and took the pictures we needed. Surplus / Auction Websites.
These buses also are higher off the ground, increasing the privacy aspect of your skoolie and being able to handle off-grid conditions better. We spent a combined 26 hours per day looking everywhere for the perfect school bus. You want a bus that is going to last you for as long as possible so make sure you spend your money right! After searching for almost two weeks, I read an article that someone had found their bus for sale on Facebook Marketplace. We got much more information than we could have ever anticipated since he was a diesel mechanic. When it came to school buses for sale on Craigslist, we had to at least look through over 1, 000 bus listings on there. Additional information is available in this support article.
Here are some more details on the top 5 places for where to buy a used bus for sale to convert into a skoolie. Most Random Rockford Item To Buy On Craigslist Right Now. In the rest of this article, we will answer more questions and go into detail about several of these items. If you do not feel like spending hours and hours searching through city after city on Craigslist and then searching eBay, there is an easier way to search both of them at one time. Could you use an RV? Some over in the west coast, too. Then we figured out a strategic way to search the Craigslist listings in each city and in each state we were willing to travel to.
One thing I'd like to mention is on the day of pickup we found a few other issues with the brake lines and heater fan so Don Brown put us up in a hotel for the night and gave us cash for dinner. For Colorado, it is: - Click this link and it will bring you to a page with the list of cities in the state that have their own specific Craigslist listings page. We knew exactly what the ideal bus for a school bus conversion was for us and our skoolie floor plan. We just searched for the keyword "school bus" in each city.