Options, Advice, Decisions Part 3

[Oonrahnjay]

I'm willing to bet the engine over heated from some problem and the driver kept on going to the next exit instead of stopping.

--Geoff

    That fits in with the "radiator issues" theory. 

[windtrader]

@RJ - Good news. One of the buses listed last week in Sacramento sold in days. I went to see it but called of off due to rain. Called today to  reschedule and learned it was sold very near their asking price. Excellent data point. The other one owned by Sean did not meet my criteria;  specifically, short ownership and no documentation on major work done.

Pursuing a couple others. Getting the inspections lined up with DD, Allison and coach pros (house systems).

May arrange trip to rally

[TomC]

I have seen Series 60's go through their cylinder liners in 150,000 miles without proper coolant protection.

[luvrbus]

@RJ - Good news. One of the buses listed last week in Sacramento sold in days. I went to see it but called of off due to rain. Called today to  reschedule and learned it was sold very near their asking price. Excellent data point. The other one owned by Sean did not meet my criteria;  specifically, short ownership and no documentation on major work done.

Pursuing a couple others. Getting the inspections lined up with DD, Allison and coach pros (house systems).

May arrange trip to rally

Sean's bus set for 10 years before he purchased it he knows very little about it and will tell you

[daddysgirl]

FWIW...
I deal with land use and housing issues for a living. There has been notable uptick and interest from the "tiny house" folks. They are beginning to see the benefits of a house on wheels, as well as the storage capacity under most buses. If the trend reports I've seen are even close to reality, ( studied 5-7 year range) the value of conversions is going to go up very quickly.
But many of us nuts have a different value perspective than most any other personal property class. There is no price I would take for my bus...but I have sentimental reasons...and an MC8 withOUT a square top 

[windtrader]

@luvrbus - Plus his bus has some non-trivial, critical service needing immediate attention. That, plus lack of history and (his) short ownership pretty much knocked that one out.

@daddysgirl - I'm with you, bus conversions remain in the shadows biding time for something viral to pop about living small in an RV, trailer, or bus conversion, then all hell will break loose. For what people are paying for basically a souped up tuffshed, it will be a stampede. Hopefully, those taking time to fully assess the implications going this way, ongoing costs much greater than a tiny house, will provide some tempering. Still, there'll be plenty who jump before the reality of bus conversion goes viral. 

[buswarrior]

If the great unwashed masses start messing with bus conversions...

They will get into trouble. The trouble will lead back to shoddy and non-existant maintenance habits.

Then the handy exemptions from DOT compliance will evaporate to clear them out.

Do you want to take your coach for a DOT inspection?

The herd needs to protect itself.

Proper maintenance and roadworthy condition without regulation needs to be this hobby's loudest noise.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[daddysgirl]

I agree with both of you.
As it is now, many of the tiny house fans (and some companies) are building houses on regular utility trailers. They build their tiny dream and very few bother to think about the weight on those "tiny" tires. Many of those trailers were never intended for that use. Only time will tell if anyone uses a bus and understands what that means. Some will...some won't.
Personally, (when I am finished with the re-conversion) I have no problem taking it for DOT inspection. I would want to be compliant...but I say that not knowing all of the regulations for conversions.
I know 99% of VDOT requirements for land use, but that's not the same arena.

[Scott & Heather]

Daddy's girl,

(what was your name btw? You mentioned it once in a post but I can't find that now) you bring up a really good thought. I also am seeing a lot more interest in the hobby at RV parks we stay at and at places we visit around the country. We are kind of private and I don't like giving tours of our coach now that we live in it, but we have been giving a fair amount of tours to people interested in doing this. Funny thing though, is that so many people are attracted to the glitz of the sexy fifth wheel interiors...so buses like ours don't always make it on their radar. No slides, not as high ceilings. It's an education process to get them to realize those high ceilings waste what could have been lower storage, and those pretty cabinets are made of cheap MDF and will swell and fall apart soon, and those slides...all leak. They all do. Unless you have an air pillow seal, they all will leak eventually. I bang my head on the wall on this over and over again. In 7 years of fulltiming we have talked to hundreds of RV with slides owners. Even brand new $85,000 fifth wheels have slides that leak and the owners have to return them to the factory to be resealed. Then theres the group that says their slides don't leak (talked to them too) and then a few years later they tell us their floors are soft and when they had the rv inspected, it turned out the slide was leaking for years and they had no idea. So yeah...I'm anti slide unless it is the air pillow sealing kind. When high winds and storms forced everyone in our 250 unit RV park to evacuate their rv's and trailers and all cram themselves and their pets into the bath house, Heather and I were snug in our bus...the storm never woke us, never shook the coach, and the next morning everyone walked by our bus and said "you two were the only ones who could ever think of riding that storm out, now we want a bus". They were half kidding but even they knew our coach was more solid than their fifth wheels. Wind knocks over 80,000 lb semi trucks so I'm not saying we are invincible but for sure we are more solid. Also, a friend who drove class  motorhomes for years drove our bus and couldn't believe how stable it was driving down the road. He kept commenting on that. I know only a small portion of the "tiny house" movement folk will actually do the research and find that buses can make pretty safe tiny homes, but here's to hoping our hobby grows!

[luvrbus]

LOL I saw a extra clean 1994 34 ft Collins fifth wheel made by Beaver the Prevost and high end MH converter sell for $41,000.00 about the same price as you could by a 1994 Prevost for and the guy thought he died and went to heaven he was so happy.There was no MDF in that one the wood work was a piece of art work 

[B_K]

Scott there is only one thing I disagree with on your last post:

Wind knocks over 80,000 lb semi trucks so I'm not saying we are invincible but for sure we are more solid.

I have NEVER seen an 80,000 truck blown over by wind. Not even a tornado.

I have however seen LOTS and LOTS of empty and lightly loaded trucks turned over by wind and tossed around by tornadoes! While it might look like a truck is loaded to capacity and blown over, more than likely the load is very light and even though it's bulky enough to fill the truck  it's considerably lighter than 80,000 lbs.

I once had a tornado pick up my trailer and whip me lane to lane several times in Ogalla, NE on I-80 as it hit me while I was deadheading to Cheyenne, WY for a load.
It scared the crap out of me, but I had no choice as it came across a field and was right there on me w/o warning and I took my chances of keeping the hammer down and hoping I could drive it out rather than pulling over and be a sitting kite waiting for lift off!
I was extremely lucky as the only damage done to the truck was a 6' "T" post stuck right thru my sleeper wall where if someone had been asleep in the bunk they'd been DEAD! I did however have to stop at the next truck stop for a shower and a change of underwear!

And btw yes you do see heavily loaded trucks laid over sometimes but it wasn't laid over by the wind. Most likely the actions or like of actions of the driver caused by the wind.
  BK 

[Scott & Heather]

Ok I stand corrected, I honestly wonder what sort of side wind it would take to knock over a parked coach. I know tornadoes are no joke but there's been plenty of high wind storms that go through parks and knock over camper trailers. So BK when we see semis going over in the wind they are light or empty? Crazy.


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[DoubleEagle]

I have had brushes with severe cross winds in tractor trailers on several occasions, and the amount of loading makes a big difference. The trucks that flop over quickly are generally empty or lightly loaded, and it seems that slowing down reduces the chances of getting in trouble. I was following a Fedex double trailer on I 90 between Buffalo, NY and Erie, PA a few years ago on a windy winter night when I saw the whole double trailer and tractor flop over in a flash. I felt the wind myself, and I fought the wheel, but I had a 53' trailer chock full to the maximum. After I stopped for the other truck, I found out that he was fairly lightly loaded, and had been sweating something like that happening. It was straight line winds coming off Lake Erie in the range of 50-70 mph. I always felt safer in winds driving a rounded heavy tanker, or a loaded bus. They are both heavy, not as high, and have rounded tops (unless it's Van Hool). I had a similar incident to Scott & Heather's in my Eagle when I was camping in Northern Michigan (Charlevoix). While we were sleeping at night, a strong thunderstorm came off Lake Michigan and did a lot of damage to the trees, canopies, and RV's around us. We were untouched and unaware of what was going on, and we were not as heavily insulated as Scott & Heather's MCI. In a really severe high class tornado, all bets are off of not noticing. Railroad cars (which weigh 40 tons empty) have been knocked over.

[eagle19952]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYubpuIe3cw

Happened 7Jan2008 on the Union Pacific railroad near Harvard IL. You can see the trees being whipped, hear debris hitting the trailing engine from which the video came, and then see debris flying through the air from the F3 tornado that blows some cars over. Then the rest of the train carried along by its' momentum smashes its' way along creating even more of a
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[Geoff]

Empty 13' trailers blow over all the time. They are usually stopped.  We had a travel trailer blow over a couple of miles down the road here in Prescott.  Funny it was for sale with the one slide out and not hooked up to a truck.  It sold for scrap.

--Geoff