Maximum Mileage of Long-Distance Coach

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Fri 3 May 2019 14:57
Maximum Mileage of Long-Distance Coach - Pierce1

Hi there. I was wondering what a realistic estimated life expectancy for a very high mileage coach would be?

Imagine a coach is running around 1,000km per day or about 350,000km per year, almost entirely on the motorway. Some of the more extreme National Express/Megabus routes might have this kind of profile.

Would you expect the coach to die (or become uneconomic) after 2-3 years, perhaps hitting a million kilometres, or would it likely just keep on going? Would you expect a big difference between coach brands in terms of ability to run to high mileages, for instance between the Yutong TC12 vs. Volvo 9900?

When it did break down, what would you expect to go wrong? Engine? How realistic would it be to do a full refurb and then run it for another few years?

Obviously, there's no exact answer but I was wondering if anyone could share any experience they have from other operators that cover a very high mileage per year?

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Fri 3 May 2019 15:55
Maximum Mileage of Long-Distance Coach - badbusdriver

Aren't there bus/coach forums better placed to answer this?. As an ex bus driver, frankly i have no idea. I didn't own the bus, as long as it worked, and completed the run i was supposed to be doing with it, i couldn't care less what the mileage was. Looking at the odometer is something i didn't make a point of doing, but i do seem to remember driving buses with 400k plus, though i couln't say if this was miles or km's. There is at least one other bus driver on the forum, and a couple of truck drivers that i know of (mechanically similar i guess?), that might have some input, but otherwise, i'd suggest you look for a more relelvant forum.

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Fri 3 May 2019 17:35
Maximum Mileage of Long-Distance Coach - efad2

I m not sure about milages but the Arrival buses used to run 18hrs a day 6 or 7 days aweek for up to 15yrs with the odd engine or gearbox exchange mind they used to rattle a bit in their latter days . Odermeters rarely worked till the end or were replaced so it was difficult to know the mileage

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Fri 3 May 2019 17:50
Maximum Mileage of Long-Distance Coach - galileo

I once read that when a passenger asked a Greyhound Bus driver how old the bus was the reply was " it's practically new, only done 400,000 miles".

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Fri 3 May 2019 19:31
Maximum Mileage of Long-Distance Coach - Pierce1

Thanks. I've posted something on the Bus and Coach thread of Rail Forums also. I just posted here because I'd come across some other informative threads here with contributions from bus and coach drivers

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Fri 3 May 2019 20:39
Maximum Mileage of Long-Distance Coach - SLO76
Our express coaches do anywhere between 70-100k per year with several older Volvo Astromega’s having well over 1.5m miles up and still running well enough to be kept on, usually as reserve buses. I regularly drive Volvo Elites with 500k up and other than a little jerkiness from the clutch pack as the automated manual box takes up drive and noisy power steering pumps they still drive well.

Typically our depot offload coaches around 10-12yrs old with 1.5m miles or so. They’re always snapped up by other smaller operators. Aluminium bodywork and heavy gauge steel ladder chassis all lasts well as does the engine and gearbox. It’s the compressed air systems and electronics that become too troublesome for service work eventually.

It’s the local buses that do the real hard work though with constant stop start, flat out acceleration, jumping on the brakes, constant speed bumps and knocks and bumps from the obviously less wonderful than I drivers. Again they’ll usually see a million miles before retiring to some small operator as a school bus. Generally very robust things especially the old Volvo deckers and small E200’s. There’s loads of our old Volvo’s still running around here which date from the mid 90’s and must have huge mileages now.

Edited by SLO76 on 03/05/2019 at 20:44

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Fri 3 May 2019 20:52
Maximum Mileage of Long-Distance Coach - dan86

If maintained commercial vehicles (not vans) are like commercial air liners and as long as parts are available can be run for a very long time up to very high mileage. Our old trucks are offloaded at 10 years old and are normally sent to Africa to carry on working hard. Some of our older buses were sent to Africa and a few to Malta to carry on providing service to their new owners.

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Fri 3 May 2019 21:27
Maximum Mileage of Long-Distance Coach - Pierce1
Cool, thanks for all the insight. It sounds like aiming to get at least a million kilometres out of them without crazy repair costs is reasonable and it’s possible they’ll last much longer.
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Fri 3 May 2019 21:49
Maximum Mileage of Long-Distance Coach - gordonbennet

Distance coaches have similar engines and gearboxes to artics, but run around at less than half the weight, ensuring a long and relatively easy life.

1.5 million kms should be the minimum before an engine rebuild and considerably more quite possible given the easy running.

Gearbox reliability is in a completely different league to the rubbish some car makers stick in their products, but then commercial operators arn't swayed to the same extent by badges, yes some makes are better thought of but only because they make a better product and/or have better back up, the badge is irrelevant.

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Sat 4 May 2019 00:08
Maximum Mileage of Long-Distance Coach - bathtub tom

I sometimes use the X5, Stagecoach bus between Oxford and Cambridge. I suspect it must be the worse type of usage. Not continuous stop-start, but stops every few miles without the long, continuous runs other coaches get.

I've heard horrendous noises emanating from some of these. The worst was from a back axle and as it turned up I could see one back wheel behaving very oddly. I told the driver, but he just shrugged his shoulders. I refused to board, deciding to wait half-an-hour for the next one. Don't know what happened to it.

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Sat 4 May 2019 21:29
Maximum Mileage of Long-Distance Coach - retgwte

They generally do get refurbished these days. You see a brand new coach needs a disabled lift and associated hole in the side, so this pushes the cost up a lot. So it's cheaper to take a coach built before those rules, strip it back to a bit of metal with a chassis number on it, and do a complete rebuild.

Coaches when they are completely knackered and not a kind that justifies a rebuild get sold to places like Malta where they keep them running much longer, although they constantly break down in ways that would not be tolerated here.

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