Buying used buses in SF

[monkey_mega_phone]

Hey, There's a group of us (about 10 and rising) flying in from ukland to frisco, and I really think we should save spending loads of money on hire, and buy a used mini bus, or ideally a school bus for our trip...anyone know of anyplaces in the city where I could pick one up, and have any idea of costs, and how easy it would be to sell it afterwards???

[theCryptofishist]

Um, I'd research about liscencing and all that. You may have to have an instate address for the DMV and make sure it's smogged and all that.
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/
You can at least have a look around on http://www.craigslist.org/ to get an idea of prices and what's available, but I'm not sure I'd rely on that to do things quickly after you hop off a plane. Try the Yahoo yellow pages for San Francisco maybe.

[Chai Guy]

I think that the registration/licensing/insurance problems might be a bit much to overcome with out spending some considerable time before and after the event. You might want to contact Green Tortoise about their services (they run a charter bus tour to Burning Man from S.F.)

http://www.greentortoise.com/burning.man.festival.html

If GT isn't to your liking, you might want to look into chartering your own bus. Just google San Francisco Bus Charters. They are actually very reasonable (though the logistics of being dropped off and picked up at Burning Man would have to be dealt with).

[HughMungus]

What about just renting a number of SUV's or even vans right at the airport? Not as fun as a bus but I can't imagine it being easy to buy a bush then try to sell it again within such a short time span.

Hey, There's a group of us (about 10 and rising) flying in from ukland to frisco, and I really think we should save spending loads of money on hire, and buy a used mini bus, or ideally a school bus for our trip...anyone know of anyplaces in the city where I could pick one up, and have any idea of costs, and how easy it would be to sell it afterwards???

[ThePikey]

This won't help transport *bodies* very well, but a Ryder truck or U-Haul can schlepp an awful lot of gear... one of those + minivan ought to do you up pretty nicely I'd imagine.

(And don't forget, us Yanks drive on the *right* side of the road here.)

[HughMungus]

On that note, if you do rent an SUV, you could also rent a trailer over at U-Haul for your stuff.

This won't help transport *bodies* very well, but a Ryder truck or U-Haul can schlepp an awful lot of gear... one of those + minivan ought to do you up pretty nicely I'd imagine.

(And don't forget, us Yanks drive on the *right* side of the road here.)

[TomServo]

you can get em pretty cheap at auction...and if you have more than 10 passengers, youll need a class A driver with passenger endorsement. I happen to be a class A holder, so if you ever get that bus.... I dont have passenger, but its simply a matter of taking a test. good luck