It’s now been nearly 7 months since we purchased and moved into our vintage bus. We thought this might be a good time to answer some questions we keep getting, such as:
- Do you like bus life?
- How much have you spent on your bus projects?
Bus Life vs. Travel Trailer Life
First of all, we are absolutely loving traveling and living in a larger home on wheels. The space feels absolutely divine and indulgent after so many years of living in micro tiny spaces. And driving the bus hasn’t been nearly as challenging as we feared.
Chris interjects: I actually never feared driving the bus – I’ve always been comfortable with a range of vehicles (even airplanes!) and enjoy the new challenges that each brings. The bus has indeed been a little tricky, but so far not nearly so much as parallel parking with a trailer on a hill in San Francisco traffic (T@b days), or backing into an extremely narrow urban driveway with just inches to spare (Oliver). The nice surprise with bus driving is how visible you are – people actually get out of your way. The biggest challenge so far is jumping up on curbs when making tight right turns. I miss having a pivot point in the middle!
More space!
For reference of our nomadic homes so far:
- 16′ T@b Clamshell Trailer: 45 sq ft / 7 months
- 17′ Oliver Trailer: 80 sq ft / 3 years
- Virgin Islands Cottage: 450 sq ft / 5 months
- 35′ GM 4106 Bus: 280 sq ft / 7 months.. and counting
Having two separate living areas has been a huge improvement in our quality of life. This is serving our slightly off-set sleeping rhythms well, and giving us a touch more sense of privacy and independence. Chris can now be up on his computer into wee hours of the morning, and I can get a good night’s sleep… and then get my most productive morning hours done while he’s sleeping in.
That is of course, assuming Kiki allows us either of us to sleep through the night.
We love having space to entertain and have friends over for dinner. We’ve even had a couple of overnight guests on our single pull out couch, which has worked out remarkably well.
We are very happy with our modifications, especially our dual desk set up. We’re able to be seated at our computers, while not blocking the aisle way – and hardly ever feel in each other’s way. This is impressive for a motorhome that is only 96″ wide (most made today are 102″, plus slides).
Driving our Home vs. Towing it
Traveling in our home, as opposed to pulling our home has been awesome. We really never quite got the appeal of it until we experienced it. Not having to get out of our tow vehicle and move back to the living space is so convenient. We now pull in, and simply shut the curtains if we like. And while underway, we have access to everything – beverages, food, bathroom. Kiki is loving having an inflight litter box. And the passenger never feels crammed in and immobile, like I often did in our truck or Jeep.
I’ve even been able to do yoga, take a shower and clean house while Chris drives. It helps make our driving time feel more productive than just making miles and site seeing.
Before we added the MINI as a toad, we were actually shorter than our truck & Oliver combined – which made pulling into parking lots a (relative) breeze. But now with the MINI following behind, we are longer and have to think differently about approaching a parking lot. We’re slowly gaining the experience and confidence to know what is possible. We can only back up a couple of feet with MINI attached, so we do have less maneuverability than we were used to. But it has been fantastic having a small vehicle to get around town in once we’ve got the bus parked.
We’ve not yet encountered problems with finding campgrounds that can’t accommodate the bus – but we are sure that there will come times when we dearly miss having a tiny little trailer to find room for. So far, no RV Park or “Resort” has turned us away for the age of our RV or that it’s a bus (which we are fully expecting will happen at some point.) We already know that staying with some friends in their driveway across the country is now not possible for us because of our size. And we will not feel confident wandering down as many small roads as we once were.
Fuel Economy
Obviously, a big change is the fuel economy. Here’s a run down of what our past mileage has been:
- Diesel Jeep Liberty towing T@B : 16 – 18 mpg (Liberty not towing: 24 – 26 mpg)
- Toyota Tundra towing Oliver : 12 – 13 mpg (Tundra not towing: 17-19 mpg)
- Bus towing MINI : 7 – 7.5 mpg (MINI: 30 – 40 mpg)
One of our reasons for switching to a bus has been to have a more comfortable living space for extended stays in one spot. We really felt the small size of the trailers when stopped for more than a few days, and that generally fit us fine – as we were hyper mobile traveling 12-13k miles a year. However, especially with the Tundra/Oliver combo – we were stuck with a gas guzzling local transport vehicle.
With the bus, it’s our intention to slow down the pace to 8-9k miles a year (we’ll see how it actually works out), and being parked in one spot for weeks and months at a time. We use the very fuel efficient MINI for local transport, hopefully balancing out our overall fuel expenditures while providing a very comfy apartment on wheels.
Life in the Slow Lane
Our bus was built in 1961, and has her original Detroit Diesel two stroke 8v71 engine. In its day, the 4106 was considered the ‘sportscar of buses’ with it lightweight aluminum build. While she’s a bit zippy, she’s certainly not a sports bus by today’s standards.
Traveling between 55-60 mph is her sweet spot while flat, and going up long inclines – we drop to 25-45 mph. We just get used to life in the slow lane – which is no problem, we’re not in a hurry. We are still calibrating for how long it takes us to get somewhere. With no cruise control, no power steering (just power assist) and a being a big wind sail – driving can be tiring. So we simply don’t try to cover as many miles in a day, and take breaks. In in our old setup – a 600 mile day was possible if we really pushed it. Now, we question anything over 350 miles in a day, but definitely prefer less.
We are building even more time and flexibility to our arrival estimates so that we don’t feel pressured to be on time and push ourselves.
Cost Log
After we bought our bus, we shared what we paid – $8,000.
Since then, we’ve had a lot of requests to share what we’ve spent since. So here it is .. a generalized list of the costs we’ve incurred to bring the bus up to date on maintenance and start making her our ideal hi-tech home on wheels:
(For those reading on RSS or e-mail, you may need to click thru to the full post to see the embedded spreadsheet.)
All and all, we’re happy with the costs and they’re right in line with what we were anticipating when we headed off on this adventure. Our offering price on the bus was factored around needing to bring her up to date on 15 years of neglected maintenance (which we have pretty much done at this point, including passing an unofficial DOT inspection). These will be ongoing costs, of course – and we’re factoring in a couple grand each year for maintenance. And we do have a significant amount of cash set aside for anticipated breakdowns and major repairs.
At this point, we’ve paid less for our bus than we paid to have our Oliver custom built for us new. And we feel we’re way ahead of the curve had we opted instead to buy a slightly used generic Class-A motorhome worthy of our full timing in (which would have easily been $60 – 100k+). Instead, for under $30k, we have solid bus bones as our foundation, and a totally one-of-a-kind, completely ‘us’ living space.
We do have some pricey projects planned in the coming year as we concentrate on making our home optimized for being propane-free and off-grid able:
- Solar Panels (we’re aiming to get 700+ watts on our roof)
- Adding another 500 aH of Lithium Ion batteries
- Replacing all interior lights to energy efficient LEDs
- Installing a diesel burner hydronics heating system for water, house heat and engine pre-warming
- Converting all our propane systems to electric (Planning on a Novacool DC fridge and replacing the oven/stove top with a convention microwave & portable induction cooktops)
- Adding a leveling/stabilizing system to the coach
- Possibly replacing or substantially modifying our generator
- Rewiring and/or replacing our roof air conditioners…
We would not be surprised if in a year we’ve put another $20-25k into our bus. And we’ll still be under what we sold our Oliver for.
Overall – our first seven months have been great!
For a full tour of our bus, including pictures and a video walk-thru – click here.
Great post, succinctly reviews costs and upkeep. I’m enjoying going through your writings. Thanks for sharing so well.
Jim
If you are ever in Florida and are in need for some repairs, or just want to camp for the night stop at our facility and well take care of you.
http://www.millenniumluxurycoachesblog.com/services/
Thanks so much for this post and your other blogs/info pages! We are currently searching along the exact same lines- 35′, queen walk around, probably a 4104 or 4106 or MCI-5 though I REALLY like the looks of a VL 100. Your insights and info have been both a great help and an inspiration. We’ve come close to a couple purchases, but nothing so far. We’re only a few weeks into serious searching and it’s encouraging that we’ve looked at the exact sites you’ve mentioned and made similar discoveries. We’ve even made contact w some of the same rigs!
Keep the updates comin’ !!
Peace,
Chuck
Hey guys.. thanks for stopping by! We fell in love with the VL 100 too, such a sweet looking bus. I’m glad we ended up passing on them for now, as I think it would have been more of a challenge considering we’re complete novices at buses.
Best wishes in your search, and if we can help answer any questions..feel free to be in touch!
Good round-up of your 1st 7 months (can’t believe it’s been so long already!). I’ll be interested to see how your diesel-hydronics heating conversion works out (if/when you do it). We’re insanely jealous of everyone that has that system (one thing we really wish we’d gotten on the rig in retrospect), and have done a few preliminary inquiries on it, but were told that the conversion is quite a massive one and may not be possible for us. Haven’t given up yet, tho’…
Nina
Cherie –
Great post, very informative.
When family things settle down, have Chris give me a call (five five nine, 260, four one zero six) and I’ll share with him some tips to avoid curbing the RR tires (and possibly crunching a baggage bay door!) I’ve trained over 250 bus drivers during my industry career, he should find the info helpful.
Oh, one other minor little point to reduce any misunderstandings by your non-busnut readers: The PD4106 is/was considered a highway coach, designed for hauling passengers in comfort from town to town, city to city along the open highway. Transits are the opposite – designed to drive a block and stop, drive a block and stop and drive a block and stop, all at low speeds within the city limits. Highway models (think Greyhound) lend themselves much better to RV conversions than a transit coach, primarily due to the availability of basement storage space and highway gearing.
You & Chris have a great coach, it’s going to give you years of good service, especially since you’re preventative-maintenance oriented!
FWIW & HTH. . .
RJ
🙂
Thanks RJ! You’re such a sweetheart to offer so much help and guidance in keeping us safe on the road! The busnut community totally rocks!
Good post. I like how you listed your spectrum of living experiences. Interesting.
I’m disappointed in the low fuel economy you experienced towing your Oliver with the Tundra. My 19′ Scamp “fifth wheel” is bigger and heavier. Even with a motorcycle on front of the truck I’m getting 15 +/- 2 mpg depending on conditions. Being a putz helps. I’ll offer my rig as another data point that some might find interesting.
* 19′ Scamp trailer: 100 sq ft / 5 months and counting
* Toyota Tundra towing Scamp & motorcycle: 15 +/- 2 mpg (motorcycle 85 +/- 10 mpg)
Your battery and solar budgets are unbelievable!
You’re going to love the Nova Kool fridge. I installed a Dometic Tundra in my Scamp 5 years ago. Different brand but same Danfoss compressor. Performance blows away conventional ammonia absorber units. Thermal recovery takes minutes not hours!
Regarding lights, after due research, purchase and experiments I found a portfolio of RV lighting worked best. Conventional incandescent bulbs use more juice but are cheap, durable and already there. Where only used occasionally they work great. LED are the frugal power champs but expensive and light quality is a trade-off between intensity, directionality and harshness. I value serendipity too; the LED porch light bulb doesn’t seem to attract bugs! Add to that mix 12V fluorescent lights. I places them in between incandescent and LED on the technology scale. I have all 3 types in my trailer. They all have respective sweet spots.
Rock on, guys!
Looking at Scamp’s specs, the 19 ft 5th wheel weighs only 2000lbs dry?
Our Oliver weighed about 3500 lbs dry (remember, Olivers are double hulled), and loaded up we were probably closer to 4500. So there is a considerable weight difference. Our Tundra was 2006 double cab with camper shell (more weight)… so there might be some differences there as well. A fifth wheel hitch also changes around the weight distribution a bit – to be more part of the truck & axle, versus bumper pulling. The difference in fuel economy doesn’t surprise me, actually.
I imagine we might end up with a mix of lighting – some that are only used when shore power is available, and some optimized for off grid. However, our Oliver was completely LED and we loved it.
I didn’t realize your Oliver was so heavy. I would have expected a 3500# GVWR. Maybe they used a bigger axle than other “eggs.”
I don’t trust “dry weight” numbers from ANY manufacturer. Folks who take their RV to a scale are invariably surprised. (Maybe that’s why many don’t; hmmm.)
I should add that my Tundra and Scamp have gap fillers between truck and trailer. That reduces drag in cross winds (lee side turbulent wake). They behave more “as one” than a stock marriage of the two. (synergy not serendipity)
Oh yeah… Oliver over engineered everything. Most everything on it was different/bigger/better than other eggs. They took a look at everything in the fiberglass egg industry, and made it luxury class. Each one probably had easily a $100-250k invested in it (thus why only 45 were made – because trying to sell them at even $30-40k was tough when at a quick glance, they look like any other egg).
The axle was rated for 5200 lbs.
I can’t imagine being able to do yoga while inside a moving vehicle. You are living the high life now!
The bus rides incredibly smooth.. it’s amazing. Well, except when Chris is going over potholes or curbs.
Really interesting post, and I would LOVE to see a vid of you doing yoga while Chris is driving! Guru Cherie… 🙂
You are missed.
Hahah! I got the idea from Karen after she said she did yoga while underway. Maybe we need a bus-babes yoga series? 🙂
Missing you guys too… wishing we could be out in SD with y’all for the Camp Nomadia rendezvous!
I sure hope Cherie is never in the shower when someone cuts Chris off causing a serious accident. Trains are the only moving vehicle I feel safe moving about in since you don’t have so much worry about the “other” driver.
I’ve actually only done the shower thing once, more for the novelty of it than anything else. (But if it’s sweltering hot and I need to cool off, I’m taking a quick rinse – we have no A/C underway).
I wouldn’t say trains are all that reduced of risk – did you not see the California Zephyr getting de-railed this summer when a truck hit it? Buses are constructed to carry dozens of passengers, and like airplanes & trains, allowing them to move about to the facilities. In the event of an accident, regardless of where someone is seated or standing – they’re at risk of injury, period. Simply from things flying about, things coming through the windshield, etc.
Life is full of risk. If we’re on straight away with little traffic, I’ll darn well get up and refill the driver’s beverage so he can stay alert.
Very interesting stuff here…as a former RV owner I had always wondered how much it would cost to buy one of the vintage models and then bring it up to date. Thank you for sharing. I am going to share this on twitter and my Facebook page.
b
Blog: http://www.retireinstyleblog
Twitter: barbblogtwits
Thanks for the sharing!
Just a point of technicality – ours is a vintage bus that has been converted to an RV. It was originally a seated passenger highway coach. I don’t think most vintage RVs (ie. those made to be RVs from the beginning) would incur the same sorts of costs as bringing a heavy duty service vehicle back up to date.
I was wondering how your fuel usage/costs have changed since transitioning from a trailer to a v-bus. What kind of MPG did you used to get and what do you get now?
Ben.. we covered the fuel stuff in this post a couple months ago:
https://www.technomadia.com/2011/11/a-mini-adventure/
The short of it is:
Tundra towing the Oliver: 12-13 mpg
Bus towing MINI: 7 – 7.5 mpg
Overall, we think it’ll average out about the same – as we’re no longer driving around a gas guzzling pick-up for local transport. And intend to slow down the overall pace.
I added a section to the post addressing this.. thanks for reminding me it’s part of the change!
Oh, thank you for sharing all of this valuable info with your readers…these numbers are encouraging. I imagine a solid amount of time and effort went into them being so reasonable and am seriously impressed. Paul and I are loving our little rental here in Portland, OR but I do envision us in a road home of our own one day. Can’t wait to show him this latest post! Thanks again,
V
Actually, some of the costs are probably higher simply because we had to make do with what was around when we needed a service. For instance, had the tires been in drivable shape, we could have extended our shopping radius to find more affordable options.
That’s great! I wish we were as confident as you are in our ability to do the mechanical work, but I suspect that’s something that will come with our second rig or beyond, not our recently-acquired first. As always, thanks for sharing the details of your own journey–the bus looks like a great way to live and travel!
We’ve actually only done a little bit of the mechanical stuff ourselves. We took the bus to various diesel & truck shops for things like the wheels/tires, air bags, brakes, adjustments, fluid changes, etc.
We’re still learning and building our confidence to take more and more of it on ourselves.