Why Bus Renew?

We saw a need to help rural Arizona school districts with their transportation needs. Rural school districts are typically running buses that are over 15 years old and often well over 500,000 miles. While that isn't really news to anyone, what may be news is the amount of maintenance costs districts spend on old, tired, overused buses. But there are only a few options open to districts.

  • Buy new equipment at over $160,000 per unit that has a new equipment warranty using expensive capital budget money.
  • Buy a used bus with much less mileage, but without a warranty and finally,
  • keep running old costly equipment. 
Most districts would like to run newer equipment, but buying often means taking precious resources away from teaching budgets. For cash strapped districts it's a difficult problem, balancing the requirements to carry children safely and give them a good education at the same time.


We went to work trying to find  a way to solve this problem and we think we have a solution that benefits schools, and our local communities. 

Keep a larger portion of the cost of purchasing transportation units in the region. Right now when a school purchases a bus all the hard cash leaves the district and most leaves the state, we thought if there was a way to keep some, or most of the money in the community then others would benefit from the spending of the local district and help raise the livelihood of at least some of the local residents. 
How do we provide a better allocation of precious capital for a highly depreciating transportation asset. To solve that problem we determined we could provide a good, safe and economical solution for significantly less than new equipment. To find the cash to pay for the new asset we found that the State Auditors and the Administrative Rules allows districts to make an adjustment to their annual budget reallocation from operation funds to capital funds. We know that better equipment will have less maintenance demands, and so cost less to operate. We found that a refurbished unit costs less to buy and operate than to keep maintaining the old equipment. So, transferring part of the maintenance costs currently being spent on an old bus can now be used as a capital distribution for refurbished equipment and that would be a benefit to the district and the students.

Bus Renew Solution

Create a local business that refurbishes mid range-mileage buses for use in rural districts  and provide a warranty service along with a backup replacement bus program when the unit needs infrequent warranty services. We take units from urban districts (Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal) and place those refurbished units in the other rural counties where the buses continue to serve their new communites for years to come.

A Local Support Network

Classrooms Supported
              by local business

Local lenders support schools with programs that lease buses to schools for shorter terms while supporting local businesses and their employment.
Local parts suppliers and specialty vendors that provide support services to Bus Renew and in turn our most precious asset, children. 

What can you expect?

All our options return the buses to our control at the end of your use. We believe in our units and want to keep them safely rolling for as long as is reasonably possible. When a  unit comes back it is refurbished once again and possibly repowered to go back out again for even longer service. We know yellow school buses can serve for as long as over 20 years and up to a million miles, if they are properly maintained and upgraded. When you stay with Bus Renew you always have a safe, reliable and updated bus to transport your community's most valuable asset in.



Bus Renew offers two options to acquire our units

Lease: A typical 36 month lease is about $1000 per month with a $3000 down payment and minimal closing cost. The unit is registered and insured in your name and we take it back at a $1 cash value at the end of the lease. There is an option to extend the lease for an additional 12 month period.
Purchase & Buy Back:
This option has a little higher initial price since we are going to have to purchase it back again. We offer to purchase the unit from the district after three years for a fixed price, normally no more than $2,500. Often your initial purchase price is around $40,000.

Warranty:
All our units, regardless of how you purchase or finance them, come with a 36 month unlimited mileage warranty on all drive-train and suspension components. If you do have a warranty problem with one of our units we provide a replacement unit at no additional cost while we correct the problem. That's an exclusive and unique warranty in the school bus industry.

Local Employment

Bus Renew is a rural employment program. Leveraging local talent and skills to create sustainable jobs. Almost 100% of all labor and a majority of all parts are purchased from rural markets. When rural Arizona communities support each other we all win.

Local Procurement

When rural school districts purchase a Bus Renew unit, that pushes tax dollars back into the local Arizona economies. This strengthens our Arizona rural economy and benefits everyone in the community. For Bus Renew units that's nearly 85% of the unit cost.

Local Control

Local districts and towns gain more control over their communities when they purchase more goods and services from within their communities. That means more economic activity for other businesses through wages being spent several times.