LM church buses

On a road trip in the minivan and planning on doing more in the next year or so, weekend trip things, wishing for more space. Think airport shuttle bus or church bus.

For the past couple years I’ve wanted something like that- the kind with a van front and big rear end. That’s how I got into my $600 “wobbly behemoth” v10 van mess that lost me $1,200. 

How bad are they to own/operate? CDL only if seating for 16+? Also if not loaded down with weight how do they ride in the back?

My price range on this theoretical vehicle would only be like $5k. And not from the rust belt again. How MUCH is that asking for trouble?

A lot of those have fairly short gearing. Good for around town, not so hot on the freeway.  Been on a airport shuttle lately? Most I've been on are noisy rattle traps that are barely tolerable for that 10 minute ride from the terminal to the parking lot. Not meant for long distance travel.

How many people do you need to seat?  A "regular" van or van conversion would be far more comfortable. Since its for private use, CDL shouldn't be a factor.

Doesn't Toyman have a former airport shuttle? He would be the guy to ask.

There are buses like these that are setup with highway driving in mind however. For example Brewster bus here in Alberta has these go from Calgary to Banff national park.

I can't see a $5000 dollar one being much more pleasant than what you have. My father's church has two ford E-450s.  They're not bad but they were well north of what you're looking to spend. I'd expect anything in that range to have some serious issues like pieced together wiring and neglected maintenance. How many times could you rent a full size van before buying an old bus became a more sensible option? 

In reply to P3PPY :

Well it depends on your state.  Minnesota buses can't be used for school children after 10 years unless the school district is willing to allow a 5 year extension.  
Some states are less some are more, and a few don't care.  
A 10 year old bus in the rust belt has marginal floors. The seats actual come loose.  Steps that are near the end of their life and the whole bus needs regular repairs to keep going.  
 My company retires all buses big, small, and vans after 5 years. One of the reasons I work for them. My last company drove those 15 year old buses and at least twice a year the brakes go out or some other really serious defect happens.   The prime reason I quit  them is because. I stopped once and the bottom rear window fell into the bus. The door was that rusted. So I walked into the shop with the window  under my arm and asked them to fix it.  They did with duct tape.  Next year when I went back there was that duct tapped window but the duct tape was painted the same color as the rest of the bus. 

In reply to frenchyd :

With regard to a CDL. Most cops don't care as long as you obey the laws. Most don't really know either. 
Highway patrol may or may not know. But for non commercial use such as a church may not give you a ticket. 
    I can buy a bus and use it for personal use without a CDL but for commercial use with the same bus I'm subject to a ticket. 
Air brakes are a different matter. Any vehicle with air brakes requires an air brake endorsement even for personal use. That's a separate test so I suppose it's possible to have air brake endorsement without a CDL  Come to think of it, so is the bus endorsement..   I don't think you can get a bus endorsement on your regular license. 
   Motor coach license is just a class B CDL but if the Coach has an extra Axle it's then a Class A CDL   With a bus endorsement and air brakes. 

In reply to Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) :

The gearing every bus I've driven is fine on the freeway most will go 70+ mph or are limited to whatever the governor restricts it to. 
     You need relatively deep gearing to haul people and their luggage around. So a 40 foot school bus will get 10-12 mpg on the highway if it's the newer Cummins diesel with an Alison While the short buses ( we call them Sped buses for special needs. )  get about the same in gas mileage.  
 

The "white"  non- bus buses ( no upper flashers or stop arm  to stop traffic)  get slightly better mileage because they have single tire on the rear instead of duals they are a little narrower a little lighter and nowhere near as stable. High gusty winds are scary. 

Our church has the full sized bus that is a money pit to where we are looking to dump it and rent a bus instead when needed.  

It sits too much - not used like in the 60's-70's when people would load their kids onto the church bus on the south side of Chicago (Ashburn area) and send them to Sunday School and church.  

In reply to P3PPY :

The whole idea of spending serious money to buy what schools consider worn out gives me the creeps. 
While you might get lucky,  reality says otherwise. 

I suspect if you have any interest in purchasing a shuttle bus from any potential seller, that now is most definitely the time to buy. 

In reply to frenchyd :

The cops here generally know the laws and will ticket church buses for not having CDLs.  When they bought their first bus I helped a few guys get their licenses. Then I still ended up doing all their longer trips because supposedly no one ever got comfortable with the 40ft bus they bought.  I suspected it was also amusing for dad to ride along as I usually lost whoever was following me in their van on the way out of the city. There was a joke that nothing is faster than a youth pastor in a church van but none of them can keep up with a professional maniac in a bus lol. 
 

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to frenchyd :

There was a joke that nothing is faster than a youth pastor in a church van but none of them can keep up with a professional maniac in a bus lol.

I suspect you have a higher opinion of cops than my experience has taught me.  I'm not saying they may not have been taught the distinctions.  I'm saying that seldom used applications may have been forgotten.  
They know probable cause backwards and forward but if you're obeying the laws, they don't have probable cause to pull you over just to see if you have the proper endorsements. 

 With regard to getting a license. Nearly any school bus company will gladly teach you everything you need to know and will pay for your license.  Even your medical. Generally they will even pay you while they train you.  My company offers a $1000 bonus.  They are that desperate to get drivers. The average bus company loses 1/3- 1/2 of their drivers every year. 

frenchyd said:

In reply to frenchyd :

With regard to a CDL. Most cops don't care as long as you obey the laws. Most don't really know either. 
Highway patrol may or may not know. But for non commercial use such as a church may not give you a ticket. 
    I can buy a bus and use it for personal use without a CDL but for commercial use with the same bus I'm subject to a ticket. 
Air brakes are a different matter. Any vehicle with air brakes requires an air brake endorsement even for personal use. That's a separate test so I suppose it's possible to have air brake endorsement without a CDL  Come to think of it, so is the bus endorsement..   I don't think you can get a bus endorsement on your regular license. 
   Motor coach license is just a class B CDL but if the Coach has an extra Axle it's then a Class A CDL   With a bus endorsement and air brakes. 

Almost all of that is just slightly off from being correct. But said with conviction. Follow that advice if you want to get arrested, or take the time to actually look the laws up. 

We bought a 2003 E450 with a 7.3 to be a race hauler. We stripped most of the seats out of the back, installed a cheap toilet/sink and registered it as a motorhome. It had a wheelchair lift which made loading all our tools/supplies super easy. It drove fantastic, both around town and on the interstate. We'd set the cruise at 80 on the interstate and just fly.  After our first trip of sleeping on mats in the back we bought two RV couches and an RV dinette. How lovely were they!? I don't know, because the last time we used the bus I drove while all my teammates(who had work first thing in the morning) slept.

Why did we get rid of the bus? Every time we drove it it broke. First trip from SC to FL we lost the Ford alternator(there are two). Second trip we lost the CAS(common failure on 7.3 supposedly). Third trip we got to Sebring fine but we lost an injector coming back north. Then something happened to the wiring between the E450 and the Starcraft. I was test driving after the second alternator went out($600 part) and a whole bunch of smoke came out of the dashboard. We didn't loose too much money on it. We sold it honestly to a guy who wanted to take his wheelchair bound wife to tailgating events.

Two things so far:

i LOVE to jet ski. But I can’t rationalize the cost compared to renting a couple times a year. But then here I am at Myrtle Beach unwilling to blow $130 for an hour of jet skiing on the intercoastal (maybe on the ocean though...). So renting makes some sense, but I guess I’d need to make it a permanent budget fixture in order to USE the money. OTOH Id like to toss in some beds and whatnot. So maybe I’ll look into long-term ownership costs vs small RV rental too. It’s not just space for seating but for other things like getting the kids changed and other stuff that’s inconvenient with COVID and all  

And captdownshift, do you happen to know of any sources for these things in particular? 

Assuming no air brakes, you're not accepting direct or indirect compensation, the GVWR doesn't exceed 26,000 lbs, and the bus can carry no more than 14 passengers plus 1 driver, you're basically outside the jurisdiction of the feds and do not require any special licensing in most (any?) states.  If you make it an RV, there are a separate set of rules that you get to play under and they're generally less restrictive, although you may still need to pull out seats to stay at 15 souls.  I've watched the RV people go back and forth on this for years and never heard an actual answer, but the way I've always understood it is that if you're in compliance with the licensing requirements for the state that issues your license and your license plate, then you're good to go nationwide, even if a local jurisdiction wants to say that their state requires more license than your state does.  But, again, everything I've heard is anecdotal.

To throw up an outside opinion, though, it sounds like you want either an RV or a full-size conversion van.  If your goal is better family road trips, but you prefer to stay with friends or in hotels/condos/etc, then you're probably a good candidate for a van.  When we did road trips with small kids - and even for around-town stuff - the E150 conversions were perfect.  They eat up highway miles very comfortably, can be parked nearly anywhere, and you can open the door, stuff everybody inside quickly, and then take your time about sorting out seating arrangements.  Plenty of room for clothes changes inside and they typically have shades over the windows already installed.  You can pull your theoretical jet ski or whatever behind it without any frame extension worries or any weirdness at the boat ramp.

If you want to have more enjoyable road trips that involve staying at campgrounds, then a purpose-built RV would probably be a better choice.  A class A or C motorhome will provide a lot more comfort en route, but when you arrive you need to have either towed a car or be prepared to rent a car.  Or just stay within walking/biking distance of wherever you're camping.  You've also got another expensive set of tires, another motor, another transmission, more brakes, and all that to maintain.  A bumper-pull or fiver will reduce the mechanical parts to maintain, and trailer tires tend to be somewhat less expensive than truck tires.  Unless you have a fifth-wheel with some form of communication between the truck and the trailed, though, the whole crew has to ride in the tow vehicle and generally-speaking, the better the tow capacity, the lesser the cab space.

buzzboy said:

We bought a 2003 E450 with a 7.3 to be a race hauler. We stripped most of the seats out of the back, installed a cheap toilet/sink and registered it as a motorhome. It had a wheelchair lift which made loading all our tools/supplies super easy. It drove fantastic, both around town and on the interstate. We'd set the cruise at 80 on the interstate and just fly.  After our first trip of sleeping on mats in the back we bought two RV couches and an RV dinette. How lovely were they!? I don't know, because the last time we used the bus I drove while all my teammates(who had work first thing in the morning) slept.

Why did we get rid of the bus? Every time we drove it it broke. First trip from SC to FL we lost the Ford alternator(there are two). Second trip we lost the CAS(common failure on 7.3 supposedly). Then something happened to the wiring between the E450 and the Starcraft. I was test driving after the second alternator went out($600 part) and a whole bunch of smoke came out of the dashboard. We didn't loose too much money on it. We sold it honestly to a guy who wanted to take his wheelchair bound wife to tailgating events.

Are you one of Kevin's teammates?  This seems too close to what happened to the bus he bought to be a coincedence.

The laws have changed massively with new federal DOT stuff.  In most states, you can waltz into any Hertz, Ryder, or Enterprise and rent a 26' box truck with air brakes and 26,000 GVW regardless of what your license is.  The theater rents one 6 times a year, and it doesn't matter which one of us rents it - me with a CDL, or the boss with a regular class C.

The air brake endorsement disappeared from my CDL even though I was trained and it used to be on my license.  It went away because you no longer need an endorsement.

In most states, the 16+ passenger rule only applies if you are operating the vehicle commercially and it is registered/titled/insured commercially.  Hence why it's called a commercial driver's license and not a large-vehicle license or multi-passenger license.  In PA, I could purchase a 72-passenger school bus, leave the seats in, and transport my 52 family members on a plain old class C license.

Read up on the new laws.  They are nothing like what they were when I got a CDL.  As a very basic rule of thumb, as long as the vehicle is under 26,000 gvw and not being operated commercially, it doesn't need a CDL.  In some states, the CDL isn't even required for vehicles over 26,000.  I can walk into a Marathon coach showroom, plop down $1.5M, and drive away in a new 45' Prevost motor coach with marble floors and a solid gold toilet, but it's a non-commercial RV.  Sure, it's built on a "charter bus" but it's not for hire.

The CDL is less about how to safely operate a large vehicle and more about knowing the commercial DOT laws. The base CDL training teaches you things like railroad crossing laws, when you have to stop a weigh stations, weight limit restrictions, and max width/length/height. The passenger endorsement isn't about how to handle the vehicle with 50 people on it, it's knowing that you are responsible for only transporting X lbs of flammable liquids in the luggage compartment, or knowing that it's against the law to ask why a passenger has a service dog.  If you're not operating commercially, those laws don't apply in the same way and they therefore don't require you to get the license.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Yes, a few years ago I rented a large box truck from Penske with air brakes. They never asked about my license endorsements.

Came across this a day or two ago.

Main pic in the post below.

$6k and a a hot lookin' mess.

Now granted it's been a few years back, but I can recall being at a county auction and seeing running, driving school busses selling for less than $1000.  Dunno if that still happens.

Yeah I’ve seen school buses in the $3k range, but that’s a bridge too far unless it’s a short bus. The wife’s single song is “no projects!” But I figure impact to pull seats and toss them in the church dumpster is accessible.

The variety of experiences is helpful for me, thanks for the CDL insight, too. I’ll check laws. 

So we have a couple votes for “too high maintenance costs”

Ill say my main reluctance for an RV is that my wife gets the creeps from the thought of a used one. *shrugs* Admittedly I haven’t stepped in a conversion van since I was a kid so I’ll take a look at that. As far as our purpose, we want to keep destination costs down so yeah, camping in the vehicle is on the list. 

Retired short bus or conversion van are floating to the top, currently.