Mildred (The Third)

[granolaeeter]

I did the deed yesterday. Plunked down my cash for Mildred. She is still at the dealer. They are removing the seats and are changing out the tires. After that is done she will go immediately to my mechanic who will replace rear brakes, see if he approves of the tires, and check out a couple of other things. Then we will bring her home and get started. Hubby wants to work on resealing every thing first. Then we will start working on fulfilling the requirements for a change on the title.
It appears that getting the title changed here in South Carolina is going to be a PITA but we will do what we have to do. I want to do the bare minimum for motorhome requirements because I would really like to use it and get the feel of it for a bit before I commit to putting things in place for the long term. Sometimes what seems like a good idea does not always work out in practice.

I took a bunch of photos and stuck them on Photobucket. Haven't used it in a while and don't care for all of the pop-ups but it is free. I should have taken pics under the hood but I forgot - will do it later. Please feel free to comment or criticize.

http://s842.photobucket.com/albums/zz34 ... r/MILDRED/

 

[The_Stuff]

some shots for the folks. nice wide front doors on there to! Grats!

 

[M1031]

Welcome! I see you have a fur-ball on duty as well. It appears the four-legged friend is on flea patrol..... Best of fortune with your new-to-you project.

 

[dirtygoat]

Congrats on the bus...

I paid for pro on photobucket and don't deal with any of the useless crap...

But, I also crashed my photobucket before that and didn't really have a choice...

 

[The_Stuff]

I know i will be watching this thread lol.

grats on the photobucket pro lol. I had to get it, I maxed out # of pictures allowed lol

to get the images to show up on the forum like i did, use the

 

[granolaeeter]

It will be a couple of weeks before Mildred comes home. The mechanics shop had a few utility trucks come in for work and with the approaching hurricane the utility trucks were given priority. Fine by me - if I were the one to lose power I would hope they had all of the trucks they needed to respond. By the time they get work done on our vehicle I will be in Savannah working so she will just wait there til I get back. Hubby will have his hands full taking care of the household while I am gone.

The 'furball' in the above pic is at the dealership; our own furball is actually furless

and she is one of the long list of reasons that we wanted to have a motorhome. We have never had a small inside dog, I always had farm dogs outside, but Pinky has stolen our hearts and is a great companion. And when I am away working she keeps hubby company - plus chickens - he will have to collect eggs and feed and water while I am away.

P.S. Stuff - thanks for posting the pics, it had been a long day and by the time I got everything set up I was too lazy to go through and link the pics - you picked some nice shots!

 

[dirtygoat]

I'd love to have a Chinese Crested...

Trying to talk my wife into getting one...

I think our family would enjoy a friend for our Min Pin/4th child...

Keep posting pics...

 

[granolaeeter]

Sep 23 we brought her home from the mechanic. Now it is time to get started on the inside. Hubby has already started replacing the old caulking. She'll need paint but we are going to have to do a homemade paint job.

I have been looking at posts of the bondo condo and I think we are going to use the micro wave instead of propane stove to meet our cooking requirement. Our local requirement says that it has to be 'built-in'. His microwave appears to be the standard variety that you sit on the counter. I'll bet that a lot depends on the attitude of the inspector.

I want to have some sort of water tank mounted so that it can be gravity fed to the sink rather than use a pump - haven't figured that out yet -- and it will have to be able to be refilled externally - haven't figured that out yet either. Here are today's pics; Mildred in her new home and the naked insides ( along with naked dog).

 

[dirtygoat]

Pinky looks right at home...

 

[granolaeeter]

Well it's been almost a year now and I'm sad to say that we have only used Mildred twice. I just checked back into the forum to see how long it has been since I knew I posted when we first bought her.

We are planning a trip to the Outer Banks in September and then we will make our decision wether to keep or sell.

The upside is that 1. I wanted to try the bus instead of the $60,000 just in case RVing wasn't our thing and 2. We only did the very minimum to make her roadworthy for the same reason.

But, we'll see. This trip in September should make up our minds for us. We want to just travel up the coast with no particular schedule so I'm thinking the bus is the perfect vehicle for that.

 

[The_Stuff]

what did you do for stuff inside the bus? just a bed?

 

[granolaeeter]

We put in a new floor – rather I should say my husband put in a new floor and then finished it with vinyl, he made a partition to have a porta-potty in, and then we have a futon that he elevated so that we could have storage under the bed. Oh, and there is a kitchen cabinet so we can have some counterspace and storage underneath.

It is very comfortable; the last time we went somewhere we stayed at a Loves truck stop. We parked right next to the security cameras, had Wi-Fi from the Dennys’ and used their showers which were incredibly clean and large. Much better than staying at a campground.

Like I said, we just haven’t used it as much as I thought we would – we like to take the motorcycle up to the mountains, well we like to take it most places. But I do want to try the Outerbanks with it before we make up our minds. Hubby already has his eye on a vintage VW pickup truck – I told him we can’t have both – we already have five vehicles.

 

[somewhereinusa]

we already have five vehicles.

Your point being?

 

[granolaeeter]

Hello all. I posted a classified for Mildred in the classified section and we have had it parked in a used car lot for a while now but absolutely no takers. Are we asking too much? We paid $5000 and put more in getting new tires and mechanically sound and new floor. We stopped there but I'm not getting even nibbles on
5K. What do people usually expect to pay for something like that? Any suggestions?

I'm thinking of bringing her home because she needs to be driven to stay in shape - I don't want to have all of that work just sit there and deteriorate.

Have a Harley that has to go too. Things have just gone in a different direction than we had planned.

 

[granolaeeter]

Thank you for the feedback. I'll have to show these things to hubby since I don't really understand the mechanical stuff.

We're talking about bringing her home, I don't know if we'll do it today or not, but we'll have to do some serious thinking about just how bad we want to sell. I knew when I got into this that there was a possibility that I was just throwing money out the window. That is why I didn't buy a brand new RV for 60K plus. So in the end if I end up just giving it away it beats losing money on a brand new vehicle.

 

[granolaeeter]

Thanks! I think you have given us a constructive sort of reality check. I think we need to put a couple of the original seats back in it and just use it as a farm truck until/if it gets sold. Thanks again.

 

[Diesel Dan]

Unfortunately the extra $$ you spent on bringing the bus up to snuff mechanically and new tires, etc., does not really boost the potential resale price very much, so that money is pretty much out the window. I agree with timmylc that your asking price is likely what a retail seller would ask. Pricing is also affected by your local market. It could be that not many people are looking for such a vehicle and thus due to low demand your price may need to come down to adjust for that economic reality. Lastly, it sounds like you've done a partial conversion, so it's not a shuttle bus anymore, but it's not really an RV yet either. So that further limits your potential buyer market. Again, like timmylc, I would be scared off by the high miles, but if I did buy it I wouldn't want to spend more than $3,500 on it. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

 

[Accordion]

Gee, It looks grim. Apparently nobody is interested in your bus. If anyone really wanted it, they would make you an offer.
I think that the Harley has a good chance to sell, although springtime is a good time for selling motorcycles.

Unless you really need the money, hang on to your bus. You can still go on camping trips. Beats paying for hotel rooms.

Is Your husband well now? I know he was in the hospital recently.

Wishing you the best of luck with selling your bus.

I have always taken a beating when selling stuff, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

 

[Bullwhacker007]

Five vehicles? LoL..
My wife grumbles; but she deals with my "Hobby".
Bought a 25 passenger bus; conversion on hold due to injury.
Chevy S10 Truck propane powered.
Dodge Omni car.
Xterra SUV
Hot Rod BC4 Police Interceptor powered LT1 Camaro.
Lexus RX300 Her baby
BMW 2000 R1100RTP motorcycle
TWO 2003 BMW R1150RTP motorcycles.
Kawasaki ZX1100E motorcycle
Suzuki GSR1100 motorcycle
Suzuki Katana 750
Suzuki GSXR750
Two axle all steel 19' x 8' trailer
I bought the bikes on a bet gas is going to cost allot more and bikes value has gone up.
Most of them will be gone in the next 3-4 months and will keep a "core" number of vehicles.
Oh I almost forgot I just bought a big A^^ gas power air compressor 80 gallon tank; was a Navy one. Pushes 175 psi at 15cfm it runs everything I throw at it..

 

[granolaeeter]

Wow, that's a lot of vehicles - no we can't afford all of that . I am retiring in four years and we are trying t become debt-free before that time. Our income will go to about half what it is now and that should be fine as long as we don't have a lot of recurring bills. We are planning on selling my work car as well so we will only have one car, my scooter and his motorcycle. We are now growing a lot of our own food and have our own birds for meat and eggs.

The bus really does not cost that much to maintain but hubby can't do any of the work on it. He had his spine crushed many years ago and while he now leads a pretty normal life there are ups and downs. Our smaller vehicles can be cheaply towed to a mechanic if we have were to have a major problem but the bus would be another matter. We had the mechanical work and tires done by our mechanic but he did the whole floor replacement and it really took it's toll on his back. That's about the time we stopped working on it. We used to joke about leaving the handicapped lift on it for him but we took it out. Other people may not think that is funny but we can joke about it with each other.

The one car we are going to keep is a Nissan Cube. The seats are really comfortable for him, We too the back seat out and if his back hurts during a long trip he can actually lay down in the back - with his legs bent of course - and we can tow a flat bed trailer with it. It gets between 35-37mpg. That has turned in to our 'truck', work car, long trip car and when guests come the back seat goes back in super easy. His motorcycle and my scooter are both paid for and I get 80mpg - he gets about 42mpg on his bike. We have been more satisfied with the Nissan than we though we would be. If anything happens to that car I'll get another one just like it.

I do appreciate everyones repsponses, hubby and I have read all of them and now think we have a more realistic idea of the situation.