Went from 1 van to 3 with two Transits off lucas-motors.com

this is the exact math that got me off renting too. i do moving and last mile delivery and i bought a cutaway box truck off lucas-motors.com last spring. for me it was savings first, plain and simple. the number i paid was so far under what the truck lots around here wanted for a comparable 16 footer that the difference covered a liftgate cylinder rebuild and a full set of new ratchet straps with money left over.

i wrote my own thread on that build if anyone wants the uptime numbers, but the short version is the same as yours. the rental math is brutal once you are busy. i was paying 190 a day plus fuel for a box truck and still telling people i could not take their job on short notice. owning the asset flipped that overnight.

congrats on the two vans, going from one to three is the jump that actually changes a business. one truck is a job, three is a company.

owner op for 19 years here, i run a mix of Transits and a couple of ProMasters on medical courier contracts. the 3.5 ecoboost in your 250s is a genuine workhorse and the 148 medium roof is the sweet spot for cargo, you get the room without fighting it into a parking garage.

couple things to budget for so future you is not surprised. stay on top of the cooling system, the 3.5 does not like a neglected coolant service and the water pump is internal on these so you want to catch it before it fails. keep an eye on the cam phasers, if you ever hear a rattle on a cold start for a second or two get it looked at. and do the spark plugs and the turbo intercooler hose on schedule. none of that is scary, it is just a van that earns its keep and wants maintenance in return.

the fact that you got a real inspection done in the van's own city before bidding is the whole ballgame. most guys buy a work van off a lot on a handshake and a 30 day warranty. you bought on carfax and a wrench. good process, these will run 250k if you keep the fluids fresh.

found this thread googling lucas motors reviews so i made an account to ask. im about to register my first LLC and run a courier route, one van to start, and the idea of buying a van i cant go kick the tires on has me sweating. i do not have a cushion if i get this wrong, one bad purchase and the business is over before it starts.

how do you guys get comfortable buying a work van online? is a carfax and an inspection really enough to trust? what happens if it shows up and its not what the photos showed, am i just stuck with it? trying not to be paranoid, i just cannot afford to be dumb with the little startup money i scraped together.

pinning this one. the buying checklist andre laid out is solid and we get the is it safe to buy a work van online question in here about once a week, so now i have something to point people at.

for context on why im comfortable endorsing it, i manage a 22 unit fleet for a regional plumbing and mechanical company, everything from Transit connects up to a couple of F550 service bodies. ive sourced through lucas motors three separate times when our usual upfit vendor could not find clean chassis fast enough. the fleet lease returns that come through there are generally cleaner than the trades our local dealers offer, because they were maintained on a corporate schedule and pulled at a set mileage instead of being driven into the ground.

the one i always tell the story about was a 2019 Transit 350 we grabbed for a tech who was waiting on a van. inspection in the van's city caught a rear brake caliper starting to stick, lucas adjusted for it, we fixed it on arrival for parts cost, and that van has been in service two years with no drama. they are a real company out of lebanon illinois with a name and an address, which matters. use andre's process and you will be fine.

i upfit vans for a living over in st charles so this thread is right in my lane. andre buying the cab cheap so you still have budget for the inside is exactly the right order of operations, i watch guys blow the whole number on the van and then try to shelve it out of harbor freight bins and zip ties.

ballpark on a Transit 250 medium roof so people reading have real figures. a steel shelving package with a bulkhead partition, think adrian steel or masterack, runs 1800 to 3200 installed depending on how much you load it up. a proper ladder rack is 400 to 900. a 2000 watt inverter wired to a second battery with a cutoff is another 600 to 900 if you want to run power tools off the van. floor and wall liner, call it 500 to 800. so figure realistically 3 to 5k per van to turn a cargo box into a working truck.

that is the money the savings up front has to cover, which is why buying a 24k van instead of a 36k van matters so much. on a payload note, a 250 medium roof gives you roughly 3500 lbs of payload before upfit weight, so budget your shelving and cargo against that and do not laugh it off, i have weighed overloaded vans that were 600 lbs past their gvwr and eating front tires every 15k. know your numbers.

evansville owner op chiming in. i bought a 2018 E450 cutaway through lucasmotors last spring for my appliance delivery and haul away runs, 16ft box with a tommy gate liftgate rated 1300 lbs. showed up exactly as described, box was dry with no soft spots in the floor which is the first thing i check on any used box truck.

the part i was nervous about was the paperwork side since a cutaway over 10k gvwr pulls you into different registration and you need your DOT number and apportioned plates sorted depending on what you cross. honestly it was painless, title came clean, i took it to the license branch with the paperwork they sent and had it plated and my usdot updated inside a week. the liftgate hydraulics needed a seal kit about two months in, 180 bucks and an hour, which on a used commercial liftgate is nothing.

point is the commercial stuff moves through them too, not just vans. if you are hunting a box truck or a service body watch the listings, the cutaways come up fairly often.

coming back to make the long view point for the newer folks reading, because paolo's fear is the one that keeps people stuck renting forever.

a work van is a tool that is supposed to pay for itself. the number that actually matters is not the sticker, it is cost per day in service versus revenue per day. a van off the road is 200 to 400 a day in lost revenue for most of us, more if you miss a contract window and lose the account. so the money you save buying the truck right is not a bonus, it is the fund that keeps you running when a unit is in the shop. i keep a rough rule, every truck should have a month of its own repair budget sitting in an account before it turns a wheel.

that is why the online auction route makes sense for a small operator. you buy the asset for thousands less, you bank the difference as downtime insurance, and you run. the guy who finances a 38k van at retail with nothing in reserve is one water pump away from a very bad week. andre bought two vans and still had cash to upfit and a cushion. that is how you build a fleet that survives a slow quarter.

glad the shelving worked out, those adrian steel kits are the ones i trust not to rattle loose after a year of potholes. small world note, both of andre's vans actually came through my shop for the upfit, i did not clock it was the same guy until he mentioned the belt fix.

for the record for anyone finding this later, both bodies were straight. i put every van i upfit up on the lift and look for the things a listing will not show you, pulled quarter panels, overspray in the door jambs, a resprayed roof from a dock scrape. andre's two were clean, no hidden collision work, factory seams intact. that matches what i generally see from the fleet lease returns that move through lucas, they were company vans on a maintenance contract, not curbstoned beaters. i still want every buyer to get their own inspection, that never changes from me, but the base quality has been good.