cadillackid
Senior Member
really ANY engine can die.. you hear alot about cummins dying because they outnumber almost any other modern diesel engine.. literally everything except a ford or GMC has a 6.7 in it in the medium duty world.. the 5.9 was everywhere too...
the 2010 vision sounds like a nice bus.. Bulkhead A/C are my favorite.. I keep tryinfg to tell people who wasnt to rip out their bus A/C to mod it.. but people dont listen.. and then my inbox rings and my facebook rings with.. "I ripped out my A/C last year and now im dying".. and they want it for next to no labor.. Grrr.. is what I get for helping people i guess.. now its epxected of me in some bus circles that ill just fix people's A/C for free..
Travekl is interesting.. and our own experience as a teen was partly what ive thought about RVing.. dfirst off im in the Hotel business and have been for 25 years so I look at staying in hotels vs RVing differently because I rarely ever pay anything close to full price for a room.. as a teen dad thought it might be neat to rent an RV.. I had and my little brother really had zero interest in camping out in the sticks in tents.. I pretty much refused to go on vacations that included tent camping..
so we rented an RV and trekked out west (where we always went)... all of us had an awesome vacation.. except Mom.. she cooked and cleaned up (an RV kitchen didnt lend itself to multiple people tryign to help in the klitchen).. she made sure the inside stayed clean and such too.. so we never did that again.. in fact dad shortened the vacation and split it in two that year.. the RV went back early and we all went to new york for a long weekend (moms favorite place to go)...
at any rate the trend in hotel occupancy right now is that leisure travel is through the roof.. (if people are staying in hotels they are runningtheir covid campers).. there are some new people in RV's that discovered they liked it.. there are new skoolies because face it.. building your own rig , even a light build, is going to be better than buying a cardboard camper at "RV R us".. so I think we will continue to see skoolie builds stay somewhat strong for time to come..
the government is the biggest nemesis to the "affordable" bus market.. as greenies offer more and more grants to destroy older non emissions busses toi buy electrics, it has the potential to make someone who posseses nice older busses a chunk of change..
from what ive seen of bus junkyards (and I trek quite a few) there isnt much recycling going on.. the chassis are removed from the body,. the tires are shredded, the windows are all smashed into little pieces.. the nice plastic dashboards and computers that could make someone elses bus nice are destroyed.. seats ripped apart and the foam parts shredded...
in the end the metal of course gets sent someplace ot be "recycled" but a damn good bit of it goes to the landfill.. and they have told me so..
yes folks that somehow relates to being "green".. the fact we have to process all that petroleum to make even more plastic pieces for the newer busses.. and the energy intensive process of manufacturing the safety glass (with more plastic).. and the smelting and de-slagging and all that goes on with used steel to somehow turn it back into bus frames and bus sides.. that it just was recently.. makes a heck of a lot of sense... NOT!..
but anyway back on context here.. I believe alot of the bus market trends will be hinging on how many of these government grants get pushed out from the expanded EPA.. US politics and elections obviously will be at play as well.. as does the success or fail of the EV busses that are being put out now.. in the real world from friends that actually run school transportation departments the initial impressions are mixed.. but most echo what ive said for a few years.. on short routes they absolutely love them.. better than the diesels.. on busses that run nearly constant days (5-6 routes a day).. they run out of range before completing a day...
some of the arguments brought up on EV busses are "what about an extrended wide area power outage.. or massive winter artic chill".. the answer one transportation director gave me was "schools would be closed anyway in both of those scenarios here in central ohio"....
the 2010 vision sounds like a nice bus.. Bulkhead A/C are my favorite.. I keep tryinfg to tell people who wasnt to rip out their bus A/C to mod it.. but people dont listen.. and then my inbox rings and my facebook rings with.. "I ripped out my A/C last year and now im dying".. and they want it for next to no labor.. Grrr.. is what I get for helping people i guess.. now its epxected of me in some bus circles that ill just fix people's A/C for free..
Travekl is interesting.. and our own experience as a teen was partly what ive thought about RVing.. dfirst off im in the Hotel business and have been for 25 years so I look at staying in hotels vs RVing differently because I rarely ever pay anything close to full price for a room.. as a teen dad thought it might be neat to rent an RV.. I had and my little brother really had zero interest in camping out in the sticks in tents.. I pretty much refused to go on vacations that included tent camping..
so we rented an RV and trekked out west (where we always went)... all of us had an awesome vacation.. except Mom.. she cooked and cleaned up (an RV kitchen didnt lend itself to multiple people tryign to help in the klitchen).. she made sure the inside stayed clean and such too.. so we never did that again.. in fact dad shortened the vacation and split it in two that year.. the RV went back early and we all went to new york for a long weekend (moms favorite place to go)...
at any rate the trend in hotel occupancy right now is that leisure travel is through the roof.. (if people are staying in hotels they are runningtheir covid campers).. there are some new people in RV's that discovered they liked it.. there are new skoolies because face it.. building your own rig , even a light build, is going to be better than buying a cardboard camper at "RV R us".. so I think we will continue to see skoolie builds stay somewhat strong for time to come..
the government is the biggest nemesis to the "affordable" bus market.. as greenies offer more and more grants to destroy older non emissions busses toi buy electrics, it has the potential to make someone who posseses nice older busses a chunk of change..
from what ive seen of bus junkyards (and I trek quite a few) there isnt much recycling going on.. the chassis are removed from the body,. the tires are shredded, the windows are all smashed into little pieces.. the nice plastic dashboards and computers that could make someone elses bus nice are destroyed.. seats ripped apart and the foam parts shredded...
in the end the metal of course gets sent someplace ot be "recycled" but a damn good bit of it goes to the landfill.. and they have told me so..
yes folks that somehow relates to being "green".. the fact we have to process all that petroleum to make even more plastic pieces for the newer busses.. and the energy intensive process of manufacturing the safety glass (with more plastic).. and the smelting and de-slagging and all that goes on with used steel to somehow turn it back into bus frames and bus sides.. that it just was recently.. makes a heck of a lot of sense... NOT!..
but anyway back on context here.. I believe alot of the bus market trends will be hinging on how many of these government grants get pushed out from the expanded EPA.. US politics and elections obviously will be at play as well.. as does the success or fail of the EV busses that are being put out now.. in the real world from friends that actually run school transportation departments the initial impressions are mixed.. but most echo what ive said for a few years.. on short routes they absolutely love them.. better than the diesels.. on busses that run nearly constant days (5-6 routes a day).. they run out of range before completing a day...
some of the arguments brought up on EV busses are "what about an extrended wide area power outage.. or massive winter artic chill".. the answer one transportation director gave me was "schools would be closed anyway in both of those scenarios here in central ohio"....
