Where to buy a bus

[steveyanwie]

Hello,
I've been looking into skoolies for about a year now and I don't think I can do anymore thinking or research without finding a bus.

I live near several Durham School Bus Services and was considering reaching out to try and find a direct in to find a good quality bus fresh from service.

Any pointers on who to ask for specifically or am I going about this the wrong way? Should I find auctions and other avenues close to me instead?

Thanks in advance for any feedback and advice.

Zach

 

[o1marc]

More than likely the school district will not be able to directly sell a bus to you. Most school districts, including where I live, list them on Govdeals.com once they decommission them. Look in the classified section here for a thread on "places to buy buses", there is an extensive list of auction sites and bus dealers. The school at least will be able to let you know when they will decommission some inventory.

 

[PNW_Steve]

Durham is a transportation contractor. As a private company they are able to sell directly.

I would give them a shot as well as watching the auction sites.

Many of us have purchased at either PublicSurplus.com or GovDeals.com

One of the busses I have here we purchased directly from First Students. They are another transportation contractor. I would buy from them again.

 

[steveyanwie]

Thanks for the advice folks!

 

[cadillackid]

some of the smaller districts seem to sell direct... for instance here in central ohio.. a dealer in chillicothe seems to buy most of their busses.. but all the big cities appear to have internal mandates to sell busses opn govdeals 422sales and public surplus.. in texas many busses go on onlinepros.com , ive seen busses on a site called purplewave
-Christopher

 

[Twigg-SKO]

some of the smaller districts seem to sell direct... for instance here in central ohio.. a dealer in chillicothe seems to buy most of their busses.. but all the big cities appear to have internal mandates to sell busses opn govdeals 422sales and public surplus.. in texas many busses go on onlinepros.com , ive seen busses on a site called purplewave
-Christopher

I bought mine on Purplewave. Very happy with the site.

Two things stand out:

1. Large number of hi-res photos takes some of the risk out of buying.

2. You only have 48 hours to wire payment before they add late fees.

 

[Whatthefak]

I went to a local transportation contractor, they had alot of busses and info on all of them. They had the in house shop records and was able to tell me what they were going to retire this summer that aren't even for sale yet so I could reserve one