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Old 08-12-2014, 06:55 PM   #1
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Year: 2003
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NYS 2003 Ford F-350 Girardin Construction Vehicle Conversion

Hello all,

I'm now the proud owner of the above titled short bus! I won it at this auction: http://dev.auctionsinternational.com/se ... fo&lotId=4 and will be using it as a vehicle for residential and commercial construction job sites. I'll be removing all the non driver seats but potentially one, retrofitting two remote 120V AC circuits, building shelves for tools and equipment, fabricating a ladder rack, painting of course, and adding a tow hitch and wiring. I found today that insuring a school bus is a little more difficult than I had imagined.

Today when attempting to insure my vehicle, I discovered the apparent usual difficulties. I'll be contacting GMAC in the morning and attempting to register with the DMV tomorrow. I'll be registering the vehicle under an LLC. I read through all of the threads in the insurance / reg forum titled NYS specific and it would seem that the DMV should be the easy part as long as I ignore the words school bus and go with what the title says which is an E-350. Tell them it is a work van for commercial purposes and I should be OK? Since that information was kind of inconclusive from the threads I read, any additional short bus in NY guidance would be GREATLY appreciated! This Forum is more geared towards Homes with wheels so any potential differing information regarding a non RV type vehicle is difficult to locate.

So as to save from forum clutter, I'll likely be continuing this as my build thread as I have the opportunity to update.

If anyone else here has performed a similar project or has any advice / recommendations, I'm eagerly looking forward to your input.

Thanks in advance all!

katore8105 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-13-2014, 09:10 AM   #2
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Re: NYS 2003 Ford F-350 Girardin Construction Vehicle Conver

I use my short bus for commercial purposes and initially had difficulty finding commercial liability insurance that wasn't a small fortune. California requires that vehicles that are commercially insured carry a minimum of $750,000 liability policy. I was able to find commercial auto insurance through Geico but I pay over $1100 a year for liability only.

Stephan Willner
Willie's Woodshop
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Old 08-13-2014, 10:28 AM   #3
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Re: NYS 2003 Ford F-350 Girardin Construction Vehicle Conver

I like it! Looking forward to your build.
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Old 08-16-2014, 09:05 PM   #4
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Join Date: Aug 2014
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Year: 2003
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Rated Cap: 20
Re: NYS 2003 Ford F-350 Girardin Construction Vehicle Conver

Quote:
Originally Posted by penguin
I use my short bus for commercial purposes and initially had difficulty finding commercial liability insurance that wasn't a small fortune. California requires that vehicles that are commercially insured carry a minimum of $750,000 liability policy. I was able to find commercial auto insurance through Geico but I pay over $1100 a year for liability only.

Stephan Willner
Willie's Woodshop
I was able to obtain commercial insurance to the tune of ? $1,200 / year with GMAC. This does however cover any Employees I have as there is no way to separate myself from the rest of my company. I've decided to repaint, remove the lights, signs, and seats before attempting to register it with the NYS DMV.

Quote:
Originally Posted by leadsled01
I like it! Looking forward to your build.
Thank you for your kind words. I will update as I make progress. I do however expect there to be a couple of weeks to elapse before any meaningful progression.


Also, I would still like to hear from anyone who may have registered a Van style model in NYS. Maybe it's unwarranted to be concerned? I'm having difficulty deciphering whether or not I should expect trouble at the DMV based on my reading here. The search function here brings up plenty information regarding the difficulty registering their Bus but not specifically in regards to a Van Style Bus. Again, I thank anyone with relevant information in advance!
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