Incomplete vehicle

[Plyman]

Anyone dealt with one of these....just curious if I can beat the bus insurance racket with it, or do I make it worse? Lol

[o1marc]

What does the title say it is?

[john61ct]

My understanding is Incomplete can make things very difficult in some states DIY not allowed, only from commercial upfitters employing engineers with E&O insurance.

[brokedown]

It's incomplete from the company who manufacturered the chassis (such as International) and completed by the bus body builder (Bluebird/Thomas/etc). That's why you have 2 tags, and it shouldn't cause you any trouble at all. Your title should correctly indicate that it's a bus.

[Twigg]

Originally Posted by brokedown

It's incomplete from the company who manufacturered the chassis (such as International) and completed by the bus body builder (Bluebird/Thomas/etc). That's why you have 2 tags, and it shouldn't cause you any trouble at all. Your title should correctly indicate that it's a bus.

This ^^^

It happens because the chassis manufacturer adds the VIN#.

Usually, the bus company simply adopts the VIN and sends the vehicle out titled as a bus. But they don't always do this way.

It's less of an issue than it used to be as most bus manufacturers now make their own chassis.

I think Thomas used to do it most because before the Saf-T-Liner they used Freightliner chassis for all their buses.

[EastCoastCB]

Originally Posted by brokedown

It's incomplete from the company who manufacturered the chassis (such as International) and completed by the bus body builder (Bluebird/Thomas/etc). That's why you have 2 tags, and it shouldn't cause you any trouble at all. Your title should correctly indicate that it's a bus.

yep, THIS^^

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by Plyman

Anyone dealt with one of these....just curious if I can beat the bus insurance racket with it, or do I make it worse? Lol

Sorry I assumed OP meant trying to register & insure as an RV for lower rates, after DIY custom upfitting.

[cadillackid]

fro mthe eway my busses are it seems that the VIN is cvreated by the chassis maker (as noted), however my title is titled with the year and vehicle type of the BODY maker..

if I run the VIN from either of my busses at Navistar they tell me for instance my DEV bus is a 1990 , my title is says 1991.. turns out my chassis is a 1990 according to navistar, but the VIN on the title (they match of course).. comes up as 1991 and body type BUS for the DMV.. and for insurance purposes when the insurance company pulled the VIN, it matyches the year and type specified by the Body manufacturer not the chassis..

[cowlitzcoach]

I had a 1979 IHC/Carpenter bus. Or at least that is what the title and the Carpenter data plate said.

The IHC data plate was quite a bit different. It was a Loadstar chassis that had been completed almost 18-months before the body was completed.

IIRC the body was completed in 1/79 and the chassis was completed in 6/77. So between the time the chassis was completed and the body was completed the incomplete chassis was sitting around in some cow pasture for months.

Back in the day this was not an uncommon occurrence. Body builders would put in their requests for the chassis they knew that they could sell and the chassis manufacturers spit the incompleted chassis out and shipped them to the body builders. If the spe'c's were not the norm the chassis would sit until it was requested. Which resulted in fields full of bus chassis waiting for a body to be completed.

In the late '70's, for a variety of reasons, the inventory of incomplete chassis at the different body builders was huge. The huge inventory meant that a chassis could sit a long time out in the weather before it was completed. The exposure sometimes could cause problems down the road for the end user. Some people who were knowledgeable would bid the bus body separate from the chassis. The chassis part of the bid spe'c was specific that the chassis had to be built within a short window of time before the body was built.

My '79 didn't have any problems due to sitting out in the weather. But we did have some '77's and '79's with gas engines that had a problem the whole time we had them in service with rusting fuel tanks.

[Lolo1]

When you run my vin it comes back as a 2000 ford e-450 truck cut-away chassis/ passenger van. On the title under body style it says SB for school bus. But when I went into the dmv I just slid the paperwork across the counter and said yea I just bought this and I want to register it The guy asked how much I paid for it and I told him $500. And he said that will be $56. And the kicker is when I went in to pay for my new registration this last year it only cost me $20. A vlittle n the guy l bI home the counter was confused by how cheap it was. I don’t old her lady; in this life I found you don’t question good things. She just laughed.