I have the unique opportunity to purchase a public bus for less than $1,000. It’s a real, regular, operational bus that, y’know, stops at the corner to pick up passengers. I do need a new vehicle, and for a smooth grand, I can’t see a way this could go wrong. Do you think this is the right purchase for me?
If you owned a bus, what would you do with it? I’m thinking I might just drive around and see who gets on.
Have you ever driven a vehicle that large?
Are you planning to take it through the restaurant drive-thru? 
Are you going to be tooling around DC in this thing?
I’d make it a bar-hopping party bus. Just drive in a big circle from Georgetown to Adams Morgan to U Street to H Street and across K Street back to Georgetown. Not sure how you’d make some of those corners, but if the Metrobus can do it, you should be able to manage.
I’ve driven a tank before, so how different could this be? Maybe I’ll just treat it like a really big taxi. You hop on, tell me you want to go through the drive-through, and off we go.
It will go wrong the first time you get a flat tire and find out how much it costs to fix it.
Parking would be a royal pain.
My brother owned a bus for a while. He’s a bus expert/professional, though, and put a lot of time into it. Are you that type?
He used it for joy rides, family outings, and once or twice it had bit parts in movies. Parking was a pain; he had to rent space in a lot. And though lots of folks tried to flag him down, I think there are rules or regulations against pretending to be mass transit when you’re not.
ETA: You need a special license, too, I think. You can’t just hop in a bus and drive it away legally.
Fuel could be a major cost. I don’t think a bus gets great gas/diesel mileage…
Then again, you could be the greatest car pool driver in the USA if you got some of your co-workers to chip in for costs. Granted, it might take you two hours to pick everyone up and drop them off each day, but still.
People have turned these into great RV campers/homes…if you wanted to go that route. But again, sort of losing that cheap factor if you do that.
As far as just using this to go to Walmart to buy milk, not so sure if this is such a wise idea. I do see going to a drive in movie theater with 35 friends would be kinda cool, although I am not sure you will still get that deal of “$5 for everyone in the vehicle.” they sometimes offer. And parking it sideways might cause some friction with other drivers in the drive in theater.
Oh…and can I watch when you take it to your local car wash?
That’s a good deal but unless you are going on a road trip or touring with a band I doubt you’ll get much use out of it. I suppose you could turn it into a cool guest house.
There’s a reason it’s only $1,000.
This is the best use of the bus IF you want to go RVing and IF you are the type who wants to DIY. It would be a fabulous project for the right person.
And yeah, you have to be able to park the beast somewhere, preferably at no cost.
You probably need a commercial license with an airbrake certification and passenger endorsement. As previously mentioned, tires are expensive ($300 each for recaps, more for virgin tires) as are brakes and engine parts. It’ll probably get less than 6mpg. Insurance is expensive. You’ll have to perform a pretrip inspection every day that you drive the thing, and commercial vehicle enforcement can harass you whenever the feel like it.
Cool idea, but a giant expensive pain in the ass. I’ll bet the bus is worth for than a grand as scrap though, if you wanted to make a few bucks.
That would be about the only use I could see for it, and only then if you live in a place where zoning doesn’t prevent you from doing that.
But if you did, then you could take out most of the seats, put a bed in the back, install some sort of makeshift divider, put curtains over the windows, etc. Turn on the bus engine intermittently when in use during summer/winter to cool/heat the bus.
+1.
I can’t imagine any of the replacement parts are going to be within the realm of affordable. Since it’s probably got a $1,000 worth of scrap metal in it, the only way I (personally) would buy it would be if you were going to park it on a vacant lot, rip off/boot the tires, tear out some seats and turn it into a makeshift trailer. THAT would be badass.
I think it’s cool, despite what OP says. I’ve known two people with buses – one an old Harvester thing she lived in and then got razzed by parking it behind our house in Missoula, and another some other kind of bus he went and maybe still is just cruising around the country and picking up people and wiring it for sound and electricity. These weren’t exactly people with straight jobs and all that.
As an RV it’s good, I should think. Take it to New Mexico.
I’m reminded of the Simpsons where Homer gets a free trampoline. After it turns out to be a disaster, Homer goes to return it and Krusty steps out with a shotgun, telling him to just keep moving.
Anyway, good luck finding someone to buy your bus for $750 should you decide to purchase it.
Yeah, there is that. I’ve seen the back/engine area of a city bus open before. Those fuckers are immense. This is not some replace the plug wires type thing in an hour, I’m guessing.
What’s a reasonable budget for one of these city buses – maintenance for, say, a year? 50K? More? Less? There must be someone around here who knows that kind of thing.
One caveat: if this was a great deal at the price, a charter bus company or some other private transportation outfit would have bought it. Even municipal public transportation agencies will buy used buses to augment their fleets.
Buy it, then start a band man.