Ambulance – Challenges We Have Had

Hello! I have encountered a lot of challenges with the ambulance such as getting it insured and registered, among other things, so I wanted to share a bit of what that was like for anyone who is interested or thinking about buying an ambulance of their own. All of this information is also included in my most recent YouTube video if you’d like to check that out.

First of all, one note I want to make is that everything was way more complicated than buying a normal car because my ambulance looked like an ambulance. It also came up in the system as an ambulance, obviously, and this made it a lot harder to do a lot of things. I would say if you have the option between a comparable van and an ambulance, I would probably go with the van for ease of paperwork and all that. 

When I bought the ambulance, everything happened very fast and I did not have much time to do any research about getting it insured or registered. I bought it in a town about 2 hours away from where I live, so I wanted to get a temporary moving permit before I drove it home. The DMV in this town was different than I was used to, and we had to wait quite a long time. It was also a bit more complicated for them to figure out how to give me a moving permit since it really was looking like an ambulance at the time. 

Then began the lengthy ordeal of getting it insured. This was probably the hardest part of the paperwork to do. Only one insurance company would insure me in the end, and that one starts with a G wink wink haha. Every other insurance company we called either would not insure the ambulance at all or wanted close to a thousand dollars a month. Some companies also asked for pictures of the ambulance, since it came up in the system as an unfinished chassis, and then would not insure me. 

Eventually that worked out, but it was very stressful and tedious to go through all of the insurance companies I could think of and get denied by every one. I am really glad this worked out, because if I couldn’t get it insured at that time I probably would not have kept it. 

This next challenge that I encountered is specific to my situation, and that was the previous owner of the ambulance. They had the ambulance for about 7 years and it mostly just sat in a dirt lot that whole time. They messed around with a lot of the electrical, causing some problems I haven’t even figured out today. 

Also, they never changed the title over to their name which caused a few problems when trying to get it registered. The DMV thought I bought this ambulance from the county, and wanted me to pay an extra tax because of it. We went back another time and the employee we got that time did not even mention that, so that was solved as well. I am very glad I did not have to pay that tax. 

Additionally, since the ambulance did sit in a dirt lot for about 7 years, there were a lot of maintenance issues that I had to take care of. Thankfully, when I bought it, it was running and we could drive it home, but there has been a multitude of things I have had to take care of because of the lack of maintenance. This includes things such as replacing the starter, all of the batteries, the fuel pump, all of the tires, a bunch of the lights, and filling up all of the fluids. 

I would definitely recommend bringing your new vehicle, especially ambulances, to a good mechanic so they can do an initial check over everything to make sure it is safe. It might cost a good bit of money in the beginning, but then you know you are starting with a good slate. 

That is all I have for you guys today! Thank you so much for reading. I post here on my blog every Monday and Thursday, and on my YouTube channel every Thursday. I’ll see you guys in the next one!