How to find a short, medium or large school bus for sale. If so, you're in in luck. 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. We also cover a few extra details like motor oil lab analysis and a few additional questions to ask the seller. This is the foundation for your home. 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. These truck chassis mid-sized buses are some of the most sought-after, especially if you are looking for one with hardy engine and transmission combinations. Kerlin Bus Sales & Leasing is a dealer located in Silver Lake, IN, offering a variety of used school buses.
But making that decision has significant risks. 5 Ask Too Many Questions. 2 Know How Much a Used School Bus Costs. Top 11 Skoolie Kitchen Design Ideas. Everyone wants to find a great deal, but don't ignore all the risks you take by buying from an individual you've never met. We paid $4, 000 for our bus pictured here. These buses also are higher off the ground, increasing the privacy aspect of your skoolie and being able to handle off-grid conditions better. The DIY bus inspection workbook was written for beginners. On Craigslist, cash is king. This is a great way to buy a better bus, even if you don't have the full purchase price available in your bank account right now.
Written By: Brock Butterfield-. In 2023 we will be coming out with a new feature to get real insight into what other skoolie owners think of the engines in their skoolie, what their experiences are, and if they would recommend their engine in the size skoolie they have. Do NOT buy a bus for sale from someone who is not good at answering your questions to help you make a decision on the bus. Of course, there are many other odd ways to find an old school bus for sale in your local market, but if you are looking for a specific bus with the exact engine, transmission, size, etc. Most Random Rockford Item To Buy On Craigslist Right Now. The most common mid-sized school buses for sale we come across are the International 3800 school buses with a Navistar T444E engine and Allision AT545 transmission. You could pick up this short school bus in Machesney Park. 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. Depending on where you're located here are some websites that have used school buses for sale.
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. Craigslist comes with it's downside of scammers and such so be smart about it and as always go see the vehicle in person and inspect it yourself before handing over any cash. 5 Used School Buses for Sale on eBay Motors. EBay Motors was another place we checked often. Interior ceiling heights. Now that you have your patience in check and some knowledge of what school bus to buy for a school bus conversion, the last thing you should know is more about the process of how to buy a school bus for personal use and converting it into a tiny house on wheels. After searching everywhere that came first to mind, I figured why not give it a look. 3 Pros & Cons of Each Type of Bus Engine. More on this coming soon! I would have rather spent my time drawing up skoolie floor plans and watching skoolie tours on YouTube.
Having an engine that can be rebuilt without being completely removed from the school bus first can save potentially thousands of dollars in labor and limit the risks of future breakdowns if you end up having to rebuild your school bus engine. The best places to buy a used school bus for sale include classifieds, such as Skoolie Livin Classifieds, government auction sites, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and eBay Motors. When we looked, they had many buses down in Florida, Texas, Arizona, and other states down south. We would definitely recommend using this site to do your Craigslist and eBay searches. 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. 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.
Some over in the west coast, too. Choosing a bus that is slightly out of your price range today can pay dividends down the road. 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.
Don't give up on the search and don't buy something that isn't exactly what you're looking for. He does not take a commission on the sale and is only paid by you. It was luckily about 20 minutes from where we lived in Madison, WI at the time, but in a very sketchy part of the city. Click Here to Sign Up for a Skoolie Livin Account to start contacting sellers today! Some auctions are online and others you have to be there in person. 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. However, it is still worth a shot, especially if you are near or in some of the southern states. 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 now walk you through everything we learned throughout the process of finding our used bus for sale – good, disappointing, and downright scary…. We live in Wisconsin, so this is the site we used. First place to check is our Classifieds section of our website. When this happens to you, even if you love the bus, know that it is for a reason and move on.
Patience will also keep you away from some sketchy situations that we got ourselves into. It is a very good place to find many buses for sale. If no luck there then onto the interwebs! Tax season is upon us, what will you do with your return? You can really find some great deals on buses that school districts are retiring and have been well maintained. However, sometimes the best insight can come from hearing someone else's journey. So, he was selling the bus we bought to go buy a box truck. If the individual is reluctant or evasive, that's a red flag.
The second issue is that the platform is not the easiest for getting ahold of the seller to ask questions. Below are a few articles we put together to get some inspiration as you get started looking for the right school bus to buy. 27 billion monthly active users now on Facebook, the Facebook Marketplace should definitely be a place you keep an eye on when searching for a bus to convert or anything you many need to complete your school bus conversion. I was very impressed by their efforts. We were so excited to get out there and start seeing buses that we did not even spend the time upfront questioning people thoroughly on the buses and weeding through them before going to see them. Small Short Bus Cost (Van Chassis).
You can then click on each state, search for a school bus, and then look through the results. In the end, we got the best bus based on our desires! He found the bus through his connections in the bus industry and originally bought it to convert into a mobile shop to do roadside repairs, but some of the people in the bus industry did not like the fact that he would show up in a school bus to repair another school bus. Low prices are tempting. Most didn't know the transmission model number that was in the bus or even where to look, which was very important to us. The first bus for sale that we ended up seeing was a 2000 Bluebird TC1000.