Tips & Tricks to Find a Shuttle Bus Perfect for a conversion
So you’ve made the decision to find a shuttle bus and hit the open road. You’ve watched all the tiny living tour videos on Youtube and decided that a shuttle bus is the right vehicle for you. Hey, we agree! We may be biased but we also think shuttle buses are pretty great.
Maybe you’re going to sell your all your belongings, put your house on the market or choose to not renew your lease. Congratulations! You’ve made a huge step in your journey to becoming nomadic and living bus life. But before you give your two weeks notice at that job you’ve been itching to leave, you need to find a bus.
This can be a really lengthy and frustrating process depending on the market. The used vehicle market, and consequently the shuttle bus market, is currently quite inflated. Never fear, there are still buses out here to be bought and converted.
Let’s look at some of your options.
Decide what you want
Size matters
Size matters when it comes to vehicle conversions. Will you be comfortable driving a 32ft bus or would you prefer to the bus to be 23ft? Is it a necessity to fit in a parking spot or have more living space inside the bus? Do you need room to mount car seats for the kiddos or floor space for a dog bed? All of these things are very important, personal decisions you will need to make before even searching for a bus.
In general, bigger buses are cheaper. This might not make sense at first glance. More bus should cost more money, right? Well, no. The short shuttle buses can be more expensive due to less of them being produced. We paid more for our 23ft shuttle bus than another 32ft bus sitting on the same car lot. They were even the same year and similar milage. There just isn’t as many short shuttle buses and sometimes you’ll usually pay more if you find one.
The elusive passenger seat
One non-negotiable criteria was had for our bus was a passenger seat. We preferred that one of us didn’t always have to ride in the back of the bus both for safety and social reasons. Chatting during long drives is one of our favorite ways to pass the time and we didn’t want to give that up. We also felt it could potentially be unsafe for one of us to always be in the back of the bus and not near an air bag should an accident happen.
Finding a shuttle bus with a passenger seat is very difficult – Less than 5% of shuttle buses have a passenger seat. It’s not impossible to find one, but you will search much harder for much longer to come across a co-pilot bus. Don’t be discouraged! We found two that were worth converting and you can too! It will just take a little bit more time, persistence, and effort.
Year, Mileage, and general condition
The lower the mileage and newer the year, the more expensive the bus! That is how it works with most used vehicles. If you have a smaller budget you might need to compromise and buy an older bus or one with higher miles. Just make sure you are buying a bus that still has a lot of life left in it. If you’re going to spend time and money converting a shuttle bus, make sure it’s as mechanically sound as your budget will allow. You are building your house in a vehicle after all. Vehicles are unpredictable so give yourself the best chance of success! Be sure you inspect the bus for rust, leaks, mold, and electrical issues
Tip: Have a professional look over the bus you’re considering purchasing. Call ahead and schedule an appointment with a mechanic local to where the bus is located or hire a service like Lemon Squad to inspect the bus and write up a report. This can save you a lot of headache!
Gas or Diesel?
This is personal decision that may be influenced by past vehicles you’ve owned. We never made a conscious choice on this and let the vehicles decide for themselves. Through our search we found the most ideal bus for us in all other ways and went along with whatever fuel type it was. We ended up with two gas buses.
In general, diesel engines will run longer but cost more in fuel and repairs can be more costly when they do pop up. Gas engines will run less miles but cost less in fuel and repairs. This is of course a generalization and exceptions do occur.
HOW DO I START MY SEARCH?
When searching to find a shuttle bus, we mentally committed for the long haul. This means you need to be prepared to spend several hours a day for weeks or months searching for your bus. Every morning we’d sit down with our cup of tea or coffee and open the computer to refresh all the tabs of vehicle purchasing websites.
A daily search to see what new listings have popped up gives you the greatest chance of being able to find a shuttle bus and jump on the best of what is available. Buses goes fast and desirable buses (like the smaller ones with passenger seats) go even faster. It’s pretty rare that a bus worth purchasing will sit around. You need to be staying updated with a daily search so you can get the best bus for you. Persistence is your greatest weapon!
GOOGLE SEARCH TERMS
Specifically start by googling exactly what you’re looking for: “shuttle bus passenger seat for sale”. You’ll then scroll through pages and pages of websites. Sometimes you’ll need to scroll through 25 or 30 pages of google, clicking on each link and combing through each page. This is time consuming but worth it and exactly how we found both of our buses. There are a lot of shuttle buses hidden on tiny dealership websites all across the country that never get listed on social media or classified ad sites. Once we exhaust that search term, we then start searching by state, “shuttle bus for sale Florida” and then “shuttle bus for sale Georgia” and so on.
Tip: Only search states that don’t salt their roads and are most likely to have buses without rust.
CLASSIFIED AD SITES & SOCIAL MEDIA
These are all great websites to start with to find a shuttle bus:
- Ebay
- Facebook Marketplace
- Commercial Truck Trader
- Craigslist or Searchtempest.com
- truckpaper.com,
- carsforsale.com
If you’re using craigslist, do yourself a favor and use one of the National Craigslist search engines such as SearchTempest.com. Searching nationally by state will save you a ton of time in the long run.
When using search engines like these daily, always remember to filter the searches by “Newest Listing” to make sure you’re not wasting time scrolling through vehicles you’ve already seen before. Facebook Marketplace has a nice feature where you can show listings posted within the last 24 hours. I usually refresh that page every morning and jump around cities throughout the U.S. to see what has recently been listed.
HOW LONG SHOULD I EXPECT TO SEARCH before i find a shuttle bus?
We searched for 4-5 weeks with both shuttle buses we purchased. However many people search for 4 months or more to find a shuttle bus.
This really depends on your requirements for your bus and how flexible you’re willing to be. Do you absolutely need a passenger seat and are unwilling to compromise? Is your budget very small? You will most likely have to look longer to find your perfect bus. Of course, there are many buses that are ideal for conversions just waiting to be found!
BUYING A BUS
We recommend that you find a shuttle bus used even if you have a large budget. Not only can it save you money, but there are many extremely low milage buses on the market. We frequently see buses being sold with less than 50,000 miles on them because they drove very short distances in their working life before being sold. Many buses don’t see a lot of miles shuttling people back and forth from the airport or to sporting events. These buses make great conversion and still have a lot of life in them for a home on wheels.
When buying a used bus you have a few options:
BUYING FROM A PRIVATE SELLER
Regular people selling vehicles on the internet are more open to negotiation and you may be able to talk the price down quite a bit. This is compared to a dealership where they are they are unfazed by haggling and often won’t budge on price.
The downside to buying private is that if the seller decides to lie to you about the condition of the vehicle, you most likely won’t hear from them again and are unable to get any kind of refund or warranty. Be sure of what you’re buying before you hand over your money.
If you have a tight budget and are willing to compromise for a little bit older bus with maybe a few more miles on it, you can find some great deals within the private seller market.
We always try to buy from a private seller first. These types of sales can be found through websites like Ebay, Facebook Marketplace, Commercial Truck Trader, and Craigslist. You will most likely need to pay cash but can generally negotiate to get a deal.
BUYING FROM A DEALERSHIP
If you have a larger budget and are looking for a very new bus with low miles this might your best course of action. At dealerships you can find shuttle buses that are new (or almost brand new), however you will pay for the low miles and nearly new condition.
Of course you can always try negotiating for a lower price but sales people at dealerships are frequently unwilling to engage in haggling of any kind. They know they have a lot of customers and if you don’t buy the bus, someone else will. This means you may feel under pressure and end up paying more for a bus than you would in a private sale.
Some dealerships offer financing, which you won’t find with a private sale. If you’re willing to make payments on a new or nearly new bus, this might be the right option for you. In the end, dealerships are situational and prices vary greatly from state to state. We’ve found that buying a vehicle from the South East U.S. will often give you the cheapest price options.
BUYING FROM AN AUCTION
Finding a shuttle bus at a government auction can be extremely risky. You will often end up buying a vehicle completely blind without a pre-purchase inspection or test drive. Many auctions will say they inspected the vehicle before they put it up for sale, however this is usually not a thorough inspection. Buses bought at auction are very unpredictable and can come with a lot of hidden issues – usually mechanical. After the cost to fix all the hidden issues, you may have been better off purchasing an initially more expensive bus but with less mechanical issues.
Be Patient
The reality is that there is no “perfect” bus. You will likely have to make compromises due to your budget, mechanical abilities, and skill level. The key is making compromises in the right areas that still allow you to have a quality platform for your conversion. We can tell you from personal experience that the “perfect for you” bus is out there. It just may take time to find it!