- ambulance 237,198
- 4900 below average
- 3,500 great
- Richmond Hill, GA
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- ebay.com
4900 below average
Climate Control✔ Air Conditioning
First: yes, the lights work. I had all of the red lights replaced with either amber or clear lenses. In 2015 this vehicle had a legal amber light permit which allowed me to operate the emergency lights as my capacity as a service truck operator. I think the permit costs $3. The siren is there but i had it disconnected because as a commercial vehicle, it's not legal to have a functional siren and i didn't want to get a ticket. The gvwr is 20,000lbs and so with the automatic transmission, hydraulic brakes, and gvwr less than 26,001lbs, a class-c license is sufficient to operate this vehicle. This ambulance started life at the memorial teaching hospital in chattanooga, tn. It was maintained by them meticulously until it was retired from duty sometime in the 2010s. I purchased it in 2014 and drove it from chattanooga to my business in the metro atlanta area with no trouble. I purchased two of these and they were completely identical in every way except for the vin being a number different. I used both ambulances as service vehicles / runaround trucks for my septic company. I had a trailer hitch added to each so that we could pull a little trailer behind, but this guy could pretty easily tow 5000-8000 lbs every day without much complaint. It's not the most fastest thing in the world, but it drives exactly like an international 4700 with an automatic transmission. Because of the box, it drives like its got a load on, but surprisingly fuel-efficient. Adding a bunch of people doesn't seem to effect the fuel economy, handling, or acceleration either. I had a full-time mechanic that worked on my septic trucks, all my service vehicles, my personal vehicles, boat, etc - and both ambulances. Fantastic mechanic, but not the best record-keeper. I know that we put a new transmission in it in 2015 that was purchased through an official allison dealer and that it came with a 5-year warranty. Haven't had to worry about it, though, the trans has been solid. We changed the oil frequently, fixed the ac, new belts, hoses, etc. I drove it from atlanta to savannah just after christmas and was leaving my wife in the dust in her minivan. The first question people usually ask me about this ambulance is if i know whether or not anyone ever died in it. The answer is that i don't know, and i don't care. It's not haunted, it doesn't communicate, and it's extremely clean. It was clean when i got it. I've never seen anything inside of that ambulance to frighten me that wasn't associated with running a plumbing business. :) it's more like an office and less like a hospital, really, except that everything is rounded and smooth and built-in. It's got a built-in refrigerator and microwave that run off of an inverter. All the work areas are independently lighted. The ambulance module has its own complete climate control system and mood-lighting panel. Model is suction and vacuum equipped. There are little storage cabinets all over this ambulance. When i was using it as a service vehicle, i had every single thing that i could imagine stocked by the dozens. I had bins and bins and bins of little plumbing fittings all categorized and inventoried and locked into place behind soft-pull sliding doors and panels. There are lockers to put multiple people's gear into. On the outside, all of the boxes are chrome-panel lined and individually lit with great work lights. I took off all of the original hospital stickers and paid a nice man a lot of money to buff it smooth like he would do a boat, and it came out great. Air ride suspension and hydraulic brakesthe brakes are hydraulic, and in extremely functional order after i spent a bunch of money overhauling them. I even replaced the master cyl just to be safe. I believe that stopping is the most important thing a vehicle can do, and this guy is already heavy and with the option of pulling a trailer, i wanted it to be perfection. One of my favorite creature-comfort features of this bus is the air-ride rear. The suspension and parking brake are air-operated. Push it in to go after putting the transmission in drive, kinda like a big truck. The suspension can be dumped, also kinda like a big truck, to lower the load deck on the rear. This can be toggled from the driver seat but also the rear-door!! My favorite way to use the dropping suspension was to keep my trailer set up on a block so that i could back up to it with the ambulance, drop the suspension, back under the pintle hook, load the suspension, get out and hook up the chains and lights, etc, and then throw the block on the trailer and go. Say goodbye to all that running the jack handle around! A professional fabrication shop added the trailer hitch, and the way that it hides under the flip-up rear bumper is genius. The hitch is completely flush. Diesel engine and automatic transmissioninternational is king when it comes to making a medium-duty diesel engine. The dt466e engine is so famous that nearly any vehicle of this make and model from the 1970s all the way up through the late 90s will commonly be referred to as a "dt466." tons and tons of people, even many owners, are unaware of that the official designation is another number - in this case, it's 4700. The engine is just so popular that people are more familiar with its performance and reliability than they are about what international put it in. They say it makes around 300hp at 2200 rpms. I never put it on a dyno, but never felt like i needed to either. The transmission is pretty self-explanatory. Put it in d to go and p to park. I put it in brand new in 2015, filled it full of the expensive allison synthetic transmission fluid like they told me to and haven't worried about it since. I had my mechanic change it out in about a day and it wasn't very expensive, all things considered. I think when they did the air suspension at horton ambulances that they upgraded the steering and turning-radius. I have a honda that won't turn as sharply as this ambulance. I kept tires on it but for whatever reason i think we put one on the inside of the rear a while back that was kinda iffy at the time. It hasn't gotten better. The ambulance has sat in my driveway between christmas and now except for once when i drove it down the road to keep the tires from getting a flat spot, and there's only a freckle of an oil drop on the ground. I am not going to worry about it, an acorn sitting in the vicinity completely obscures it.