Greetings from the Old Dominion!

[Jman6631]

Hey folks,

A new member and about to buy my skoolie!

I'm in Marshalltown, IA and have it on good authority that Hoglund Bus & Truck are a very reputable source for high quality used school buses. I spent a lot of time with them on the phone over the last few weeks. Thanks to business travel I spent four very pleasant, un-hurried, zero pressure hours in their lot looking over an inventory of two dozen busses.

I found one that suits my needs and tomorrow I pick up a 1998, 65 passenger, Freightliner/Thomas, Cummins ISB 5.9L, Alison auto 2500, hydraulic brake, 102K mile bus for $4,000. Then I get to drove it back to DC into a hurricane - wish me luck!

[BurlKing]

Hey! We have a 92 thomas international that was from hoglund in monticello mn and man what a great bus!

[dond]

Welcome...

[nat_ster]

Welcome

Glad to have you here. We always like to see one more.

Asking questions will only get you opinions, not experience. The build threads will share the experience they learned the hard way.

All that info is waiting for you in the build thread section. I would start with threads over 20 pages. That way you will get passed all the failed builds that never go anywhere.

Don't host pics on this site, use a third party image hosting site.

Photobucket is one of the oldest, and still the most reliable of all hosting sites.

Here is a link to help you figure out how to post pics.

http://www.skoolie.net/forums/f10/ho...-op-11846.html

We all look forward to pics.

Nat

[Jman6631]

Thanks Nat and all for the warm welcome. The purchase was a success, and more importantly, the 1,664 mile drive home to Virginia was, too! The dealership lived up to it's reputation and I got a really great bus platform for my build-out.

Worthy Shout-Out: HogLund Bus in Marshalltown, IA, 1hr. North of Des Moines is one of the top dealerships in the country, and now I know why. I cannot say enough about how they treated me and handled the sale. Brian Glenney, the salesman, was outstanding. It sure is refreshing to work with people with genuine integrity who care about what they do. Brian was tireless in his support of me and my particular purchasing requirements. He steered me to the right buses that met my requirements, not the most expensive ones.

He went so far as to drive the 1hr each way to Des Moines to pick me up on the day I was likely to make the purchase. He also championed my preferred purchasing method, PayPal, which was the only one I could use on such short notice. His management resisted at first, understandably, as it wasn't their normal process. In the end the deal went through without a hitch and all are happy.

Brian showed limitless concern and capacity for all of my newbie questions. He gave me his undivided attention with a level of patience that was truly admirable. I'd buy another bus from them tomorrow.