# 1 ton bucket truck OR van for service work



## personal (Jun 3, 2008)

Wondering how many of you have bucket trucks/vans in your fleet. I am a small company with two employees that does mostly service work for gov't & Municipalities. I could find use for a lift a few times a month but also think if I had one more work would find me. I just want a 1 ton style and am leaning towards the vans. I dont need 4wd (would be nice) would rather have the utility of the van. Looking at used, somthing in the US as there seems to be loads of them for sale on ebay or private fleet dealers. How is the maintenance on them/are they expensive to run campared to a regular 1 ton van?

Thanks!


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## mikeh32 (Feb 16, 2009)

have you tried ebay?

even some times you can find them in classifieds, craigslist


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## mikeh32 (Feb 16, 2009)

you know i just thought of another place. the government auctions, or police auctions. they always have them, and they go for pretty cheep. a lot of the municipalities will sell there old equipment at auction


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## CNC (Dec 20, 2008)

Google Richie brothers auctions, eBay looks good. I'm looking for one right now. I like the superduty utility style ones, wish I could find a dodge with a diesel


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## randomkiller (Sep 28, 2007)

A good friend of mine picked one up at an auction a couple of years back and has had good luck with it. He has the hydraulics looked at each year since he bought it. Basically he uses it as his work van and the bucket gets used maybe two weekends a month. He has a van from his regular job so the bucket is just for his side work.


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## itsunclebill (Jan 16, 2007)

It really depends on how much bucket work you do and how the other work is split up. I had a helper that worked out of a van (and I had to use it occasionally) and neither one of us liked it. The lack of outriggers bugs me, but not near as much as crawling around on your knees looking for stuff after a container of parts tips over. It's pretty hard to get enough shelving of any kind in for parts - the front of the cargo area is pretty useless except for a "pile on the floor"

The thing was great for relamping traffic signals but was a bit annoying for almost everything else. It got replaced with a truck that had a utility bed and a bucket with a squirt boom. We added a couple of boxes on top of the utility bed and had more enclosed storage than the van allowed, and had the spaces in the bed as well.

I guess I'd say that I'd rather take a beatin' than work out of a van with a bucket but YMMV.


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