Too many miles?

[Bon Voyage]

Here is some you can compare to: My 2001 8.3 bus from Yakima, Washington has 145,500 miles (Yes it’s accurate) and engine is at about 9400 hours now. Camshaft was replaced at 61,328 miles, so you could reasonably assume it was 4000 hours at the time. Second cam has lasted longer than the first.

Hours are good for measuring engine wear and miles good for the rest of it. Personally I pay more attention to hours than miles though.

[cadillackid]

Great deals can be had on still good busses that may fail a school inspection. An acquaintance of mine just got a beautiful thomas RE loaded and rust free.. a driver smacked the stairwell into a fire hydrant and be t it up.. scrap for the bus was going to pay the school $1500 so he got it for that. Trip to junkyard for a new door and call to thomas for a stepwell.. apparently you can buy stepwell a as replacement parts.. so for 2500 bucks he has a really beautiful 05 HDX with 100k original miles and 6k hours.

If you are willing to fix body damage you can get smokin prices.

[cadillackid]

Originally Posted by Bon Voyage

Here is some you can compare to: My 2001 8.3 bus from Yakima, Washington has 145,500 miles (Yes it’s accurate) and engine is at about 9400 hours now. Camshaft was replaced at 61,328 miles, so you could reasonably assume it was 4000 hours at the time. Second cam has lasted longer than the first.

Hours are good for measuring engine wear and miles good for the rest of it. Personally I pay more attention to hours than miles though.

Hours are esp important in cold weather states or on air conditioned busses where they can spend oodles of idle time.

Cold weather idling is the hardest on a bus esp if the driver doesn’t use high idle. The engines run cold a lot of that idle time.

I’ve seen drivers idle busses the entirety of a basketball game while they nap or watch videos on their tablet etc.. high idle turned off because it’s quieter .

Of course all of us read of all the ills of idling yet drive by any rest stop or truck stop and it’s rows of trucks idling for hours.. so is it really that bad??

[CHEESE_WAGON]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

Hours are esp important in cold weather states or on air conditioned busses where they can spend oodles of idle time.

Cold weather idling is the hardest on a bus esp if the driver doesn’t use high idle. The engines run cold a lot of that idle time.

I’ve seen drivers idle busses the entirety of a basketball game while they nap or watch videos on their tablet etc.. high idle turned off because it’s quieter .

Of course all of us read of all the ills of idling yet drive by any rest stop or truck stop and it’s rows of trucks idling for hours.. so is it really that bad??

Those trucks don't have glow plugs and don't have auxiliary heating and air a lot of the time. Drivers have to keep comfortable so they are well rested. Those engines are also heavier duty.

[WIbluebird]

I idle my work bus a LOT when I'm on charter trips in the wintertime...sometimes for 6-8 hours at a time. It's hell on the DEF/EGR system but it's either that or freeze to death and have irate passengers on the return trip.

Wish my company would pay for Webastos or similiar...they would save a lot of money and have way less issues with emissions systems clogging up but w/e

[cadillackid]

I know why they do it.. and I do the same for A/C in the summer. i have coolant heat in my 2 busses now so im good for awhile in winter.. till the batteries get low and I have to start up and charge em. .



my point was all you ever hear is how idling is bad yet truckers idle all the time and still are going 500K or more before an inframe....

[WIbluebird]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

I know why they do it.. and I do the same for A/C in the summer. i have coolant heat in my 2 busses now so im good for awhile in winter.. till the batteries get low and I have to start up and charge em. .



my point was all you ever hear is how idling is bad yet truckers idle all the time and still are going 500K or more before an inframe....

It's my understanding (and this is corroborated by my experience with the buses at work) that the problem years were from 2010 to 2015 or so.

After about 2015 Cummins mostly had the emissions stuff figured out (relatively speaking, there is/was still a decent amount of failures).

Probably the worst batch of buses we had were the 2013 Blue Birds. Out of the 8 we had, I think 6 of them had the emissions systems rebuilt or replaced multiple times at the tune of 10s of thousands of dollars (a good chunk of that was under engine/manufacturer warranty though).

[cadillackid]

so the "you'll wash out the rings" if you run a diesel idling too long not fuilly warmed up is essentially a myth?


I know at low idle speed with no webasto in ohio and of course up where you are will result in wintertime of an engine temp at 140 or below from all the heaters on?


I now here in columbus the yhad alot of issues with their IC busses and the DPFs from the 08 to say 12 or 13.. asctually i think until they started buying cummins 6.7s.. those have given them very good service..

[WIbluebird]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

so the "you'll wash out the rings" if you run a diesel idling too long not fuilly warmed up is essentially a myth?


I know at low idle speed with no webasto in ohio and of course up where you are will result in wintertime of an engine temp at 140 or below from all the heaters on?


I now here in columbus the yhad alot of issues with their IC busses and the DPFs from the 08 to say 12 or 13.. asctually i think until they started buying cummins 6.7s.. those have given them very good service..

Cummins 6.7 and whatever the big one is called now (L9?) are pretty much the only diesel options offered in any school bus these days...except for that 4 cylinder Detroit that Thomas supposedly offers in the Safetliner C2 but I have yet to see it in the real world.

Cummins was really the only engine manufacturer to make an effort in meeting the last few rounds of emission regs. IC and Cat either failed miserable or gave up altogether.

[cadillackid]

the maxxfroce DT wasnt bad until they went compound turbo which became a disaster.. that pretty much put a fork in the IH engines..



the CAT Medium duty stuff actually was pretty good but their class 8 stuff later on became Junk.. and MD has a low margin.. so to give up class 8 and still make MD was foolish.. you could never make a profit sao they dropped out of the game altogether..


I know the 6.7 has become the standard except some districts are buying the IC with the PSI 8.8 gasoline motor.. I think Bluebird still offers the V10 gas until the 7.3 gas is ready..

[FreebirdTheBus]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

It is so irritating to help somebody out on their bus purchase and then find out that they're a flipper. I'd like to say the joke's on him because they're going to prove to be badly rusted (they're Utah buses), but the joke will be on whoever buys them, unfortunately.

I'm not a flipper. I'm a first-time home buyer looking for support as I make decisions This bus is being purchased from a dealer who got it direct from a school district.

[FreebirdTheBus]

ok, not to beat this all over the head. Yes, I'm guilty of paralysis by analysis often but ....it's my first home and purchase so a little anxiety in there too. So, I asked a slew of questions to the dealer and they've give me more info than I even asked so they've been great there. I'm posting the docs and notes they gave me. I'm getting a third party mechanic to check it out. But feeling good so far....even with high miles. Hours (& miles even though high and if accurate) the hours seem low. Maybe not stretched enough -- but I hear these can go for many hours. I realize maintenance could be around the corner. Anywho, if anyone has solid feedback on the notes and docs -- i'm all ears before I start negotiating price. Because I will NOT pay their price for the miles. I've included photo of bus and attached all the service records from the district too. Thanks!

Reply from dealer:

"Here’s my Q’s & Asks:

1. Were you given any maintenance service history records when you acquired the bus from the school district? (I presume this is where it came from). See attached

2. Do you have any ownership history/use? Yes. This bus was owned since new by the Monroe School District. It was your typical route bus that picked kids up in the morning and dropped them off in the afternoon.

3. The sticker says WA Patrol inspected March 2020. I take it this about when you acquired the bus since they stop by to test your inventory? The 2020 WA State Patrol sticker is put on the bus once it has passed it's 2020 annual safety inspection.

4. I mentioned this to Jack when we were testing things out but forgot to follow up. I’d like to know the number of hours on the bus. There isn't an hour meter. Below is a picture of what our scantool came up with when plugging into the engine computer. We did notice today that the engine computer is a Cummins "recon" computer (remanufactured or reconditioned) so the hours and miles are not accurate. If you do the math on the hours and miles you'll be able to get close I bet. Looks like the average MPH (engine miles divided by the hours) is 19 miles per hour.

5. I know you’re going to have that hard downshift thing looked at and looking forward to hearing what’s up on that.

We drove the bus (approximately 25 miles) and found the down shift to get much better when the bus is at proper operating temperature. I asked my shop manager to personally inspect the bus and he checked the fluid level, condition then drove it. The transmission was just a touch overfull so we removed some fluid and drive the bus. Both he and I have personally driven the bus and found the downshift to be ok - not something we are concerned with.

Can you also verify the cruise control actually does work? Cruise control does work.

9. Any transparency you can provide on what’s involved in a transaction would be awesome - costs, title fees, process, etc. Pretty easy - the price of the bus + $150 doc fee and a $33 trip permit if you drive it home

10. I presume being a bus company you have mechanics on site? If so, if I ever wanted to ask questions and pick their brain to understand things, could I do that? If not, do you have a mechanic you recommend? Certainly

11. Last, do you happen to know if this bus ever had an engine, transmission, or camshaft replacement, or engine rebuild ever? The only thing that we are aware of is the turbo was replaced in 2017 at 228,000.

[Bon Voyage]

I think those under storage bins aren’t pass through so the space might be a little less than if it’s pass through. Not 100% sure.

My response below is numbered the same as each question you asked. I didn’t go through the service history.

3. My bus had the 2018 Washington Patrol inspection sticker which was done 1 month before I bought it, and I still had repairs to do. Charge air cooler, rear brakes and drums, and the ABS module was broken - the school district had taped over the warning light under the dash so you couldn’t see the light was on. Since it was new in Alberta I had to get a special inspection done to get it registered, I had to fix it.

4. My math shows it’ll have about 13,300 hours on it assuming the first half of its life was the same use as the second half. Somebody check my math.

5. I’d be concerned about transmission issues (it’s easy to not be concerned about an issue when you’re the one selling it), where did you see it had hard shifting? Taking out a little bit of tranny fluid doesn’t help hard shifts. If it is having hard shifts it’s almost always an internal trans issue that would require a rebuild. Having said that it might be something you can baby and not have issues with... depends on how bad it is, how much you use it and your risk tolerance.

11. My turbo was replaced by the school district in 2015. Invoice shows it was $1200 for the part and installed by the school district.

I’m not extremely familiar with large number of engines and their hours but I think the hours are quite high. Considering the hours, miles and possible tranny issues (if there are) I’d expect to get it very cheap or move on to something else. If it were me I’d move on - but where did you hear of the hard shifting?

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by FreebirdTheBus

I'm not a flipper. I'm a first-time home buyer looking for support as I make decisions This bus is being purchased from a dealer who got it direct from a school district.

Sorry, I didn't mean you were a flipper, I meant the person I was helping on reddit turned out to be a flipper (maybe you were the person on reddit but I don't think so). Since you're buying from a dealer, I guess you're a flippee.

[RossRollingHomes]

I can get you one for less money and less miles.