Bogus mileage part 3

A few days ago I contacted Calcasieu Parish Schools to determine the mileage of the bus. Today there was a reply in my email. It seems the person I contacted is leaving the district but passed my email to somebody else and said that Perterson Auto Auctions would have sold the bus on their behalf.

Elsewhere, somebody looked at the odometer photo and commented that on bigger vehicles the digits almost never line up. A former school bus driver commented that school bus routes tended to be 15 - 30 miles twice daily at 180 days a year. Checking my local school district calendar, the students started on August 18th (a Monday) and end on June 3rd. Again, it's emphasized that it's a 180 day calendar. Given that 30 - 60 miles daily for the 16 years the bus was in service (1995 - 2011) the mileage could be 86,400 to 172,800. The bus was in private hands as a hunting lodge from 2011 - 2013 and in somebody's yard from 2013 until I bought it.

If the mileage is genuine then the hunting lodge owners didn't get much use out of it before they sold it on. The owner I bought it off had it sitting in his yard for a year, apparently. The wavy digits make me suspicious though. In 1992 I bought a Suzuki Alto FX with 46,000 miles listed. The digits didn't line up correctly until I reached 78,000 miles. It is beyond belief that a 1983 car would have 46,000 miles when the low average mileage is 8,000 a year or 72,000 for a car of that age. I thus compare these wavy digits to my old Suzuki.

Even if the odometer has been wound back from a maximum mileage of 30 per trip and 2 trips per day times 180 days times 16 years or 172,800 miles, that is barely broken in for a commercial vehicle. I shall investigate further but as I've said before, I'm only irked about possible deception. The bus seems like it's good for a good few years yet. The body is in great shape. The engine and transmission seem pretty good too.