Time of year to buy?

[vonslatt]

When is the best time of year to buy a School Bus?

Do prices drop on 10-12 year old busses on Jan 1 ?

Is there a glut of used buses just after school lets out ?

Are dealers more motivated during the school year when things are slow ?

I'm targeting a Blue Bird TC2000 late 80's early 90's for $3-5K. I'm figuring on buying from a dealer in the New England area so I can have the bus delivered to my house as I need to do significant work before having it re-titled and registered as a motorhome in MA.

Am I being realistic?

Cheers,

Jake.

[busone]

Dealers seem to have slower sales in the winter becaues lots of people don't want to have to transport a bus in the snow. If you are going to get a bus delivered though it is no big deal. If you buy local watch out for rust. Almost all school buses are steel and rust. It is good to have somebody who knows buses go with you to look at them because they know where to look for rust. As I reccommended in an earlier post I would talk to Greg. He has purchased buses from NY with little rust but he also passes on a lot of buses from that part of the country becase of rust.

[lapeer20m]

I personally prefer to buy buses direct from school districts. I've found that most around this area dont' sell old ones in the spring, but they wait until fall when school starts and they have recieved the new buses.

[Firearm]

Even the private company I bought my bus from was waiting until all the new buses arrived and were outfitted before selling off the old ones, even though they were officially retired last spring.

[J.B.]

Hi There , My experience is that the best time to buy a bus is the summer when school is out. The school districts do the major evaluation of thier buses and as you say wait until the new ones are in and ready for service. Thier budget year is not from Jan to Dec. It is for the school year, Sept to June. Here whereI live I was told by three districts that they could not release the Crowns thatI was interested in until the summer due to budget constraints. One district had thier Crowns sitting for a year with out use but would not release them. Things may vary from place to place but that was my experience.

J.B.