Used Ambulances

We are considering a used Ambulance for a tow vehicle for our non profit organization, Roll As You Are Inc (recently posted reference here: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/roll-as-you-are-inc-and-top-wrench-competition/142827/page1/

Anyone on the board currently have or previously have ownership of one?

The idea of having our logo and name painted and/or vinyl wrap would be extremely catchy and visable, especially for taking it to automotive meets and functions.

Along with all the storage compartments and towing ability. 

Being a GM guy, a Duramax is my first pick. A 7.3 Ford second and a Dodge Cummins next.

We are thinking "cube" dually model.

Based on the stories of a young paramedic who used to play with toy cars around this house, I would tend to avoid an ambulance from a major metropolitan area unless I had inside info on a particular unit or the opportunity for a really good inspection.  Yes, they're all heavy-duty, but they get pretty heavy-duty use too.  Also, FWIW, I hear the current trend is away from diesels because vibration doesn't play nice with monitoring equipment.

It can depend on who and how the unit was used.  One from a small town or company may not have that many miles but one from an urban area will have much harder usage.  I know that my nephew who is a Para/fireman told me that they see 90% idle time and 10% driving.  So a low mileage unit may not be that good of a deal. He did say that the NavStar/Ford 7.3 held up well under this kind of usage, the 6.0L not so much.

I don't think I ever saw a Dodge based unit and damn few Chevy ones.

The mid to late 2000's GMC and Chevy's are starting to come around for sale. 

The new GM's have the aircooled hoodscoop, just like the new Duramax pickups

GM

Find one that was used by a rural Fire Department.

They often have less crap in the back that has to be torn out. They can be found with stupid low mileage. A friend bought a 20-year-old one that had 37k kms. Yeah that's less than 25k miles.

The bodies can be heavy and take up a lot of the weight rating.

I hear one of the arguments against a P71 daily driver is the contaminated back seat.

I’d rather sit back there than hang out in the back of an ambulance. Talk about bodily fluids!

That being said, yes, the rural towns have ambulances that likely get used every day. They drive from my town to the next town over and back and not much else. They DO NOT sit idling even at the hospital (fumes).

So buy an ambulance from a small town with a large hospital nearby.

Hey, I'm a paramedic and I have been for 6 years.

Ignore any ambulance (in this order) from a private company, city 911, or using a Ford 6.0 Diesel. Private companies DON'T take care of their squads since their bottom line is so razor-thin sometimes, and a city 911 ambulance should be avoided since they are ridden hard and fast at all times. The Ford 6.0 is a very problematic engine when it comes to EGR Systems- remove them and you'll start fouling turbos and converters like one of my jobs found out. They had 4 squads with those 6.0 Fords and they were getting worked on constantly.

For starters, look for an ambulance from a rural department- don't worry about mileage necessarily, but pay attention to their closest hospital as that'll give you an idea of what trip it typically takes. Next, see what lights or equipment they've removed and how- hopefully, the boys will have done so with care, meaning that someone will think to remove an emergency light with a screwdriver instead of a sawzall. Sometimes they don't care and leave it all in, but having emergency lights as a civie typically brings police ire (and fines). Finally, see who the coachbuilder is and ask the department if the box's bracing or studs have been looked at. Ambulances are basically truck chassis that have a box lowered onto them with added electrical parts and components, and those main bolts have their own bushings that go bad over time a lead to the box swaying or moving. 

If you buy it, spend your first few hours cleaning everything with bleach solutions AND NEVER PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE YOU CAN'T SEE. Needles go EVERYWHERE when it's life-or-death, and while we do our damndest we sometimes miss a container or simply lack the chance to dispose of it properly. Finally, while bleaching keep all surfaces wet with the solution- 10 minutes wet is needed to absolutely kill everything, so make sure you hit those 10 minutes! Hep C can live in contaminated blood for 6 months. If you see spilled brown, soak a paper towel in bleach solution and lay it onto the stain, and only move it after the 10 minutes to keep away splatter and to kill anything potentially living.

I have nothing to add about amblience purchasing that Girth hasn't covered. I bought a used private Ford gas unit 25 years ago for towing our race Kart team around NorCal. My experience has absolutely no applicability to anything you'd be buying.

Heavy duty nitrile gloves when cleaning. And as Girth suggests: Bleach, Bleach, Bleach...

In reply to TIGMOTORSPORTS : the Chassis used in ambulances is also used in school buses. The small school buses used for special needs students. 

My company has more than a Hundred of them at any one moment and they quickly rack up miles.  However we went away from diesels to exclusively 6.0 gas Chevy’s.  Cost is lower, fuel mileage nearly the same and they stay warm at an idle something the diesels can’t do.  

Maintenance is trivial. Normally going their whole life with little more than regular work such as oil change and sheet metal repair based on the poorly skilled drivers normally used. 

Damage is easy to repair and only rarely does a driver lose their job since we seem to be in a constant state of driver shortage. 

School Buses have mandatory retirement at 10 years unless the school district signs a waivers for an additional 5 

I’ve checked out buses being sold and so far none of them give me any negative vibe like it’s about expire.  

Used ambulances are not uncommon  for use by race teams and seem to work very well for them.

ofcourse you cold also go the van style ambulance route

In reply to MotorsportsGordon :

Just ask Bill Cosby and Jack Elam

Vanubulances aren't a bad idea. Better suspension due to less weight, and because of that less engine wear. All our Trauma Twinkies were over 300,000+ Miles before having serious problems, but their "serious" issues were needing new HPOPs and other final issues for high-milage diesels.

On the 6.0 topic, as much as people say to avoid them, if you find a good running one and are willing to go through it and fix all of the 6.0 weak points (they are pretty much all fixable), I wouldn't be too afraid of it.  6.0 powered anything usually comes with a good discount, it seems.  

I would not oppose a 6.0.  I have a 4.8 LS GMC with almost 300K. The Duramax/Allison combo is the most appealing.

I saw a GM Van-Ambulance for sale recently - with a Duramax (surprised not a 6.0 in a van).

The cube style duallys are more attractive with all the storage spaces. 

All good points above, Especially where to look for one vs other areas.

I purchased a used police car (Impala) about 10 years ago for my son. It was very clean, but we cleaned it again anyway. Found a couple of bullets in the trunk. Lots of "snipped" wires everywhere to be pulled and cleaned out.

In reply to TIGMOTORSPORTS :

I think rslifkin meant a Ford 6.0 diesel, not a GM 6.0 gas 

In reply to SVreX :

I was reading Frenchyd's reply:

My company has more than a Hundred of them at any one moment and they quickly rack up miles.  However we went away from diesels to exclusively 6.0 gas Chevy’s.  Cost is lower, fuel mileage nearly the same and they stay warm at an idle something the diesels can’t do.  

I have not seen very many 6.0 gas GM models for sale. Mostly all diesel. The Allison trans in something that big, has extreme appeal.

We are going to tow with this also.

In reply to TIGMOTORSPORTS :

Duramax-powered Express vans never came with Allison transmissions.  Up until 2009 they had the 4L80E and after that you could get the 6L90 transmission.  They're detuned to 260 hp and 525 lb. feet torque due to this.  The Allison transmission is too big to fit.  I work as a fleet mechanic for an ambulance company in a large urban area and I'm surprised the abuse that the Express van based rigs can take.  We got 56 2011 Express duramax ambulances and 1 2015 Savana duramax.  Minus 4 units that have 100-150k miles, the rest of the fleet has 300k and hours inbetween 28000 to 31500.

Some of the big problems we see:

Bosch CP4 injection pump fails and puts metal through the fuel system, requiring high pressure fuel system replacement and cleaning out the fuel tank/fuel lines.  Requires tearing the engine down to the long block basically to service.  2010 was the 1st year for the CP4 pump I believe.  Every automaker using this pump has this problem, not just a GM thing.

Head gaskets failing, pushing coolant out of the surge tank.  We now replace head gaskets when replacing a fuel system if the engine has never been opened up before.

The band clamp holding the turbocharger together breaks and you can't build boost.

2010-2012 model year GMs have a reductant system that is touchy to say the least.  Sometimes our rigs will flash a "EXHAUST FLUID LOW/EMPTY" and sometimes with "SPEED LIMITED TO 55 (or) 4 MPH" message and scare the crews, to only find there is nothing wrong with the unit.  It got bad enough that GM came out with a recall to disable the speed limiter when there is a failure in the def system.  Def freezes in cold temperatures, and frozen tanks can lead to a multitude of problems.  We're in an area that doesn't get that cold so we don't see that often.

Plugged diesel particulate filters, mainly due to idling 90% of the time.  People ignoring the "CLEANING EXHAUST FILTER" message and driving the rig until it goes into reduced engine power mode, requiring a service regeneration to get it back running again.  This is mainly a personnel problem.

Engines snap crankshafts in half, normally at the #3 main bearing.  We've replaced 8 engines out of the whole fleet.

Transmissions go 75-120k miles while being treated like rental cars.  Most common failure is losing 4th-5th-6th gears.  We just replace when there's a failure.  Our rigs have a 12,300 lb curb weight and I believe max GVW is 18,000 lbs.

We've got a few new rigs, they're all Fords with V10 gas engines.  We've done nothing to them but change oil and replace tires.  They don't have enough miles on them to have any major problems so far.

ebonyandivory said:

I hear one of the arguments against a P71 daily driver is the contaminated back seat.

I’d rather sit back there than hang out in the back of an ambulance. Talk about bodily fluids!

I used an old F450 Ambulance for a couple of years, bought it with 272K, sold it with 280K.  Towed from Georgia to Mid-Ohio, Watkins Glen, Daytona, Barber, etc., only a couple of issues.  Had a mechanical vacuum pump die on the way back from Mid-Ohio, had to get Uber to get the parts & repair it.  Rebuilt the rear diff when I found some curls while doing a fluid swap.  Other than that, great.  10 mpg, 9 towing, not that comfortable on the long runs.  TONS of storage, HUGE fuel tank, but I wanted something that would be easier to carry folks around at the track.  Like someone said, if it's a rural emergency, they're usually well taken care of.  I had the receipts from the county I bought it from, within the 20K before I got it, new turbo, alternators, batteries, couple of injectors/glow plugs, they had spent several times what I paid for it in repairs.  Still had all the goodies, I had a detail shop buff off all the decals, bought some tow-style mirrors and put on it, it was great.  

I never could find a wiring diagram on it, so things like that could be an issue on some of the specialty items.  I had to make a land-line for it, I could plug into it & charge the batteries, or use the interior outlets without having to use the inverter & drain the batteries.  I also changed the light bulbs in the dome lights in the rear to LED's so that they generated less heat & drained less on the batteries.  It requires some google work, but you can find some lenses & other ambulance specialty parts out there.  

Good luck, sounds like a great program!

In reply to mjrj :

This is really cool to hear, thanks. If I can, where do you work? And do you have any experience with the Sprinter chassis's ambulances? I feel like they're just a better choice for squads in general, but that's just me.

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

I do not have any Sprinter experience.  There are some companies that provide CCT/ILS transfers that use them, I don't see too many.  I work for Paramedics Plus in the SF bay area.  Before working there I worked for Chevrolet dealerships in the central valley and in the bay area also.

In reply to HoserRacing :

good feedback thanks

The repair costs and parts findings, are one issue for us to consider