We have the van!

[ChezCheese:-)]

We bought a 2006 Chevy Express with 90K on it at publicauction.com, from the Apache Junction School District. This van is in super condition -- serviced every 3000 miles and used to cart the mail around the school district. Never been smoked in, never had an accident, just has some of the Chevy paint cancer, but we are going to paint it blue so it is not an issue.

We drove it up to WA State and it did great.

It came with a steel divider to isolate the air conditioning in the cab, which is not needed up here so I spent some time today removing it. If anyone wants it, I'm putting it up on craigslist for sale.

Also has a perfect condition rubber mat with padding, which we are keeping. It is a perfect template for whatever floor we decide to put in, and has kept the metal floor in great condition.

Compared with the 1989 Toyota van that we have been camping in, it has acres of room. I don't even think we will need to put in a high top as we had planned. Maybe later.

Anyway, we're very happy with it. While we are not going to be living in it, I have to say the Chevy Express is a perfect size for a living /camping van. :shy:

 

[ChezCheese:-)]

I also wanted to mention that the Apache Junction School District is going to be selling off some school buses, and maybe some more vans, through publicauction.com. Their transportation service dept is quite an operation -- very systematic and thorough, so you can feel confident that the vehicles were properly maintained -- probably better than you would've yourself.

 

[rvwandering]

Congratulations on your new van!
 You may want to consider leaving the van white unless you're planning on only camping in cooler, overcast  locations. The exterior color of a vehicle makes a huge difference to the inside temperature on sunny days

 

[Minivanmotoman]

Congrats! Great stuff.
Would you be willing to share the auction price and details for all here?
Start price, bidding, final price?
Fees?
Paperwork and pickup process?
To facilitate the process for others who may learn from your experience.

 

[michelle68]

Congrats! Great stuff.
Would you be willing to share the auction price and details for all here?
Start price, bidding, final price?
Fees?
Paperwork and pickup process?
To facilitate the process for others who may learn from your experience.

Yes please [emoji120]

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

 

[ChezCheese:-)]

For me, being more visible as we drive is more important. We are going to tend to cooler regions anyway, being Yankees used to the Pacific NW. Originally I wanted to paint it construction/schoolbus yellow for visibility (hence "ChezCheese"), but getting my husband to acquiesce to that was unlikely. So instead, we're going to paint it chalkline blue -- the color of carpenter's bright blue snapline chalk powder. New van name: Blue Yonder.

As for the auction process, first I must correct the website name: it is publicsurplus.com, not publicauction. Here is a screenshot of our auction page:

They seem to contract to various public entities like school districts, to auction off vehicles and equipment, etc. It has the website platform and does the payment clearing, but when you want information about the vehicle, you contact the contact person in the auction listing, which will be the entity selling the goods (school district, in this case). For auctions which are under $4000, they take credit card, but if the price goes over that, then you must transfer payment via bank wire transfer ($25, I think). You have to register and put in a credit card for a deposit before you can start bidding, but they don't charge your card unless you default on paying for an auction you win.

In the beginning, bid increments were $50, I think, but at a certain price threshold, the bid increment jumped to $100. Like on eBay, you can set a maximum price that you will go to and the proxy system will automatically top incoming bids by the bid increment, so you don't have to sit at your computer for days. When you decide on your maximum bid, remember to factor in the auction fee (10%) and state tax (9.5% I think it was) -- so figure 20% on top of your bid. They will go into overtime bidding if someone bids in the last 5 minutes, so that people using sniping programs don't have an advantage, which I think is fair.

I had been studying available supply, condition, mileage and prices on craigslist in 4 states, and also had to estimate how much it would cost to get the vehicle from AZ to WA, including airfare for 2, motels, gas and food. Since finding a van with less than 100K is not all that easy, and most that are were priced at $12,000 and higher here in the Seattle area, I figured if, all in, we spent less than $8000 we'd be doing well, particularly after talking with the woman at the school district who described the exemplary maintenance routine all the vehicles owned by the school district go through. This was not a vehicle beat up by tradesmen or going thousands of miles extra between oil changes. There is a little rust on the roof due to GM paint cancer, but no salt rust underneath like vehicles in the snow states of the NE get. Knowing that it was properly maintained and driven made it worth going all the way to Arizona in godforsaken July heat. (How do you people stand it??)

Once you win an auction, they send you a couple of emails and you make payment as required. Then you contact the person at the selling entity and arrange a time for pick up. They were very accommodating at Apache Junction School District so that we didn't have to fly during 4th of July week, but could go a little later for a better airfare.

I noticed that we didn't have any vehicle license plate at all, so we immediately went to the local DMV and got a permit to transport the van out of state ($15).

As you can see in the image, the winning bid was $5300, plus 20% tax & fee, so we wired $6350 or thereabouts. The other costs were well under $1000 (I haven't added up the motel & gas receipts yet), so we were well under budget and got to see the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, plus gave the van a real test, driving 1700 miles over lots of passes.

 

[Minivanmotoman]

Thx for the info, am sure that it will answer the questions many have about auctions and flying in to get a rust free Southwest rig. Hopefully it will turn out to be a great experience and vehicle for you. Certainly looks like it so far at the price, miles and condition.
The only thing that I would add to be aware of would be seals and gaskets that have been exposed to summer high heat. Don't be surprised if you lose freon from the a/c or other incidentals.

 

[ChezCheese:-)]

Oh! Thanks for the top -- we wouldn't have even thought about that. Every climate has its bugaboo. Up here we get algae on cars... ?