Looks Like I Bought A C7

[o1marc]

I've done enough research to know that buying a C7 is not all bad and that people will buy them. I watched 8 buses on GovDeals in Beaverton, Ore. No bids from the $1500 starting price until minutes before auction end. They staggered the sales by a half hour. Put $2k bids on each one and lost the 3:30, 4:00, 4;30, and 5:00. But nobody bid on my snipe of $2k and I got it for $1500.

https://www.govdeals.com/index.cfm?fa=Main.Item&itemid=510&acctid=5213

There are still a few left. Beaverton has taken really good care of these and a lot of major stuff was done recently.

 

[peteg59]

Cheap enough, but will transport back to GA, and de~EPAing the engine, and the various maintenance items called out, it make it worth it?

 

[Danjo-SKO]

Bus hoarder?

 

[o1marc]

Cheap enough, but will transport back to GA, and de~EPAing the engine, and the various maintenance items called out, it make it worth it?

$1650 for bus
$197 airfare
$ 800 in fuel home
$150 in hotel rooms

Total $2797
I had $5k in my 99 Genesis by the time I got it home.

I spoke with the maintenance manager and was impressed with their schedules and condition of the buses. They did most of the major stuff in the last 10k miles. Only wear items needing attention were tires on a few.

 

[peteg59]

Don't forget tires front and back, as well as brakes front/back, from the gov deals add.
So another 3K + or - on top of the 2.7K

So about 6K for that bus. And that is still fairly reasonable for a rust free?, generally sound mechanically, bus.

Hopefully it won't need any EPA crap, reworked anytime soon? Things could start to get expensive...
Good luck w/it going forward...

 

[TJones-SKO]

Not where I meant post.

 

[o1marc]

I have a spare set of wheels and tires, so that was taken into concideration.

 

[wrenchtech]

Congratulations on your auction win. On my recent trip to Colorado to pick up my bus, I spent a lot more than I planned. I had a second driver lined up who had to return home unexpectedly due to some family issues. I drove five hours through a snowstorm to go to the Denver airport to pick him up, which caused me to miss my window to get certain information to my insurance company to get policies written for the buses. That was on a Friday, so I had to sit over the weekend while incurring hotel room chargers and rental car fees. Then I found out that there was no where to return my rental car within 150 Miles of the pick up point for the buses. So I had to spend time driving to drop off the rental car and then take a Greyhound bus back to the town where my buses were. There was no action on the insurance over the weekend, so I had to wait for them to get rolling on Monday. I finally had insurance in place by the end of the day on Monday and was set to roll out on Tuesday morning. All in all I drove nearly 1000 miles in Colorado in rental cars and spent six days in motels or Airbnb.Thankfully the trip home in the new bus was relatively uneventful. And now I have to go back and get the other bus. So watch out and best of luck to you.

 

[cadillackid]

its an 05.. it shouldnt need DE-EPAing.. take care of the C7 it isnt gonnas blow up in a million pieces like the debbie-downers on this site want everyone to think will happen to all engines built since 2003...



its like all the rest of the EGR equipped engines.. you make sure the EGR system and coolant / Oil are kept in good order and it will run fine..



being more of a bus enthusiast than I am into campers.. i hang around and am on many online groups for people who are fleet managers abd mechanics for school systems that take kids to school every day and have lots of busses.. I am learning which engines are the real bad ones and which are typically troublesome..



the C7 is one that has gone through various stages and states over the years.. and has had some issues.. but many of its issues were related to the fact it likes to run warm yet still overheats at a relatively low temperature so theres less margin for error if you are driving it.. in other words pay attention to the gauges and alarms...



in effect dont run it floored at 80... its not made for that... take care of the C7 and it will last you a long time!


that said, beaverton is on the wet side of the state so its entrely possible there is rust.. however not bearly as bad as a northern salt-buggy.. it should be a good solid bus to run with!


the MVP is a great platform to build on!

 

[EastCoastCB]

its an 05.. it shouldnt need DE-EPAing.. take care of the C7 it isnt gonnas blow up in a million pieces like the debbie-downers on this site want everyone to think will happen to all engines built since 2003...



its like all the rest of the EGR equipped engines.. you make sure the EGR system and coolant / Oil are kept in good order and it will run fine..



being more of a bus enthusiast than I am into campers.. i hang around and am on many online groups for people who are fleet managers abd mechanics for school systems that take kids to school every day and have lots of busses.. I am learning which engines are the real bad ones and which are typically troublesome..



the C7 is one that has gone through various stages and states over the years.. and has had some issues.. but many of its issues were related to the fact it likes to run warm yet still overheats at a relatively low temperature so theres less margin for error if you are driving it.. in other words pay attention to the gauges and alarms...



in effect dont run it floored at 80... its not made for that... take care of the C7 and it will last you a long time!


that said, beaverton is on the wet side of the state so its entrely possible there is rust.. however not bearly as bad as a northern salt-buggy.. it should be a good solid bus to run with!


the MVP is a great platform to build on!

I hope I'm not a "debbie downer". I'm just admittedly not as smart or technically gifted as you are and am too poor to play R&D with unnecessary and superfluous technology.
I wouldn't own a C7 but I wouldn't begrudge anyone else doing so.

 

[PNW_Steve]

that said, beaverton is on the wet side of the state so its entrely possible there is rust.. however not bearly as bad as a northern salt-buggy.. it should be a good solid bus to run with!


the MVP is a great platform to build on!

I have purchased three buses from Western Oregon and Washington. Very little to no rust on them.


That is a nice looking bus. Good score Marc!

 

[wrenchtech]

Oregon to Georgia is quite a haul. What is your plan? Sightseeing and back road, or interstate and quickest route home? If you cross over the Cascade at Salem or Corvallis and go over to Bend you will see some of most beautiful country,but you will probably be well advised to have tire chains at the ready. Course you really should have tire chains anywhere in the west at this time of the year. I recently sold a set of six that were a perfect fit for 11R22.5, that I am now wishing I had held onto. If you need to get a hold of some in a hurry, the big truck stops that also have truck repair used to have the best price, but it’s been a while since I tested that theory.

 

[Sleddgracer]

if you are looking for rust free buses, and 25% more bang for your $, keep parts of Canada in mind - I involuntarily let out an expletive when I saw the clean, rust free undercarriage of my 1975 C60 Chevy bus/MH - it's hard to believe a vehicle that old could be so rust free - from what I've seen in ads and in person, northern Canada, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta are largely rust free - anywhere they have 'hard' winters and little slush seem to be good areas - the south coast of BC should be good too I think, as they have little snow and seldom have to put salt on the roads - Ontario vehicles in general are pretty much guaranteed to be rust buckets, as are vehicles from the Maritime provinces - I don't know much about Quebec vehicles - there is no import duty between Canada and the US, either direction, when importing goods made in North America ( not sure about Mexico ) - having a broker makes importing much simpler for things like vehicles and machinery

 

[cadillackid]

I hope I'm not a "debbie downer". I'm just admittedly not as smart or technically gifted as you are and am too poor to play R&D with unnecessary and superfluous technology.
I wouldn't own a C7 but I wouldn't begrudge anyone else doing so.

Nada.. im thuinking more of the people who have been here like 2 weeks and read of one person that had an issue so they start blasting out info to everyone that "this engine sucks".. or they have heard from one mechanic that says "this engine sucks".. .


there are engines that truly do suck.. we know the MaxxForce 7 is one of them. as everyone you talk to has run them in their real school bus fleet has had several faiklures at low miles.. so much so that IC bus even came out with a cummins RePower kit for them...



the reality is that just like the supply of purely mechanical busses has dried up.. the supply of earlier electronic busses will dry up too.. a lot of the busses coming on auctions are in the 04-06 range..



each bus needs to be taken at face value and not blanketed... are more complex engines more failure prone and more expensive to fix than their previous counterparts? I'd say the latter but not necessarily the former..



from what I hear of those in the business is that poorly done repairs of EGR and emission parts or lack of proper maintenance / operation are MUCH more detrmental to newer engines than old..



I think, like anything else skoolie owners just have to step up knowledge bank accounts to properly own and maintain newer busses..



the obvious answer is "go buy an older bus".. but the older busses are dwindling.. abd the rich exporters have also figured the same thing out.. so they buy up a lot of older units at higher prices than skoolie buyers or bus dealers will pay...

 

[o1marc]

Congratulations on your auction win. On my recent trip to Colorado to pick up my bus, I spent a lot more than I planned. I had a second driver lined up who had to return home unexpectedly due to some family issues. I drove five hours through a snowstorm to go to the Denver airport to pick him up, which caused me to miss my window to get certain information to my insurance company to get policies written for the buses. That was on a Friday, so I had to sit over the weekend while incurring hotel room chargers and rental car fees. Then I found out that there was no where to return my rental car within 150 Miles of the pick up point for the buses. So I had to spend time driving to drop off the rental car and then take a Greyhound bus back to the town where my buses were. There was no action on the insurance over the weekend, so I had to wait for them to get rolling on Monday. I finally had insurance in place by the end of the day on Monday and was set to roll out on Tuesday morning. All in all I drove nearly 1000 miyes in Colorado in rental cars and spent six days in motels or Airbnb.Thankfully the trip home in the new bus was relatively uneventful. And now I have to go back and get the other bus. So watch out and best of luck to you.

I have sympathy for those of you have issues in the beginning.
I will fly there, get a hotel room for the night. Catch an Uber to the bus. After going over the bus I will hit the road. I'm insured for 7 days under my current insurance , so no issues there. I am allowed to drive on the BOS in Ga. for 30 days. If they stop me and question the no tag, I play stupid, hand him all my legal current sale paperwork. I see no issue s other than 3 solid full days of driving non stop for at least 12 hours. Then when I get it home I will walk into my super busy DMV to handle the paperwork.

Typical day at my local DMV. This pic was taken at around 10:30-11:00am on a Wed.

 

[o1marc]

Nada.. im thuinking more of the people who have been here like 2 weeks and read of one person that had an issue so they start blasting out info to everyone that "this engine sucks".. or they have heard from one mechanic that says "this engine sucks".. .


there are engines that truly do suck.. we know the MaxxForce 7 is one of them. as everyone you talk to has run them in their real school bus fleet has had several faiklures at low miles.. so much so that IC bus even came out with a cummins RePower kit for them...



the reality is that just like the supply of purely mechanical busses has dried up.. the supply of earlier electronic busses will dry up too.. a lot of the busses coming on auctions are in the 04-06 range..



each bus needs to be taken at face value and not blanketed... are more complex engines more failure prone and more expensive to fix than their previous counterparts? I'd say the latter but not necessarily the former..



from what I hear of those in the business is that poorly done repairs of EGR and emission parts or lack of proper maintenance / operation are MUCH more detrmental to newer engines than old..



I think, like anything else skoolie owners just have to step up knowledge bank accounts to properly own and maintain newer busses..



the obvious answer is "go buy an older bus".. but the older busses are dwindling.. abd the rich exporters have also figured the same thing out.. so they buy up a lot of older units at higher prices than skoolie buyers or bus dealers will pay...

Chris, Thanks for this reply. I hear the stories, but see few actual cases of nightmares. I also notice almost no one on this site that talks negatively against them has any actual experience with the C7 issues. I see C7's with 100's of thousands of miles that have never had an issue. I believe the Beaverton crew has a great maintenance program and was reflected in the sale listings. I am not concerned about this bus at all, think I did well for $1500. The other buses I bid on I had a cap of $2k. the first 4 I let go and were won for $2050. Like you mention, the older buses are going to dwindle and we'll have no choice but to deal with the newer one.
I don't think the rust is so much a rain issue as it is a corrosion from the salt. Wet galvanized dries out. Wet with salt water corrodes. I've not seen any buses from the PNW that had any major rust.

The RE I'm interested in is already at $2300, I'd stop at $2500, knowing it's worth more and I will probably lose it. No biggie, the maintenance manager said they have more buses they are releasing in the near future.

 

[o1marc]

That was good news. Just got off the phone with the maintenance manager and asked specifically about my bus. He said the dispatcher consider #521 to be the "Princess" of the fleet. Buses were serviced every 2500 miles.

 

[o1marc]

The RE ended at $6490, a bit out of my budget. Beaverton says they'll auction more this fall.

 

[wrenchtech]

I have sympathy for those of you have issues in the beginning.
I will fly there, get a hotel room for the night. Catch an Uber to the bus. After going over the bus I will hit the road. I'm insured for 7 days under my current insurance , so no issues there. I am allowed to drive on the BOS in Ga. for 30 days. If they stop me and question the no tag, I play stupid, hand him all my legal current sale paperwork. I see no issue s other than 3 solid full days of driving non stop for at least 12 hours. Then when I get it home I will walk into my super busy DMV to handle the paperwork.

Typical day at my local DMV. This pic was taken at around 10:30-11:00am on a Wed.

The seller included a 60 day tag and I had vehicle specific proof of insurance in my possession when I rolled out. And just to cover all the bases and put authorities on notice, I had a local printing shop make me a couple stickers announcing that my vehicle is a “private coach“. Strangely enough, I felt fairly invisible as the journey progressed. It’s the same kind of feeling I used to have when I drove an 18 wheeler. You almost never arouse suspicion in those kind of vehicles because you just blend in with the work-a-day world no matter what time of day or night do you happen to be moving about.

 

[o1marc]

Good idea on the stickers. Private Coach In Transit.:Thanx: