Who Is Going to Fix the Bus?

There are nearly 50,000 motorcoaches operating in the United States and hundreds of thousands of diesel mechanics. So why can it still be so hard to find somebody willing to work on one?

By Dhinel “Danny” Biyanwela

I've been dealing with something lately that I don't think we talk about enough in the motorcoach business: finding somebody to actually fix the bus.

I'm not talking about finding a diesel shop. There are diesel shops everywhere. I'm talking about finding a mechanic or repair facility that knows motorcoaches and is willing to take one in. I've called truck shops with a coach powered by an engine they work on every day and still gotten the same answer: we don't work on buses.

After hearing that enough times, I started wondering whether this was just something we were running into or whether the industry has a much bigger maintenance problem. So I started looking at the numbers.

THERE ARE PLENTY OF DIESEL MECHANICS. THAT'S NOT THE WHOLE PROBLEM.

The latest American Bus Association Foundation census estimates that 1,769 companies operated 49,543 motorcoaches in the United States in 2025. Most aren't huge fleets. About 87.3% of motorcoach companies operate fewer than 25 coaches, and those smaller companies collectively operate 17,373 buses.

Now look at the mechanic side. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates about 316,000 bus and truck mechanics and diesel engine specialists in 2025 and projects about 24,400 openings a year over the next decade, much of that from people changing occupations or leaving the workforce.

THE NUMBERS	2025
U.S. motorcoach companies	1,769
U.S. motorcoaches	49,543
Companies with fewer than 25 coaches	87.3%
Coaches operated by those smaller companies	17,373
Bus/truck/diesel mechanics	316,000
Projected mechanic openings per year	24,400

On paper, that doesn't look like much of a problem. More than 300,000 diesel mechanics for fewer than 50,000 motorcoaches.

Except those 316,000 mechanics aren't motorcoach mechanics. They're spread across trucking, government fleets, automotive repair, equipment dealers, leasing companies and plenty of other industries. Truck transportation alone employs 18% of them.

And that's where I think we've been using the wrong number.

The question isn't how many diesel mechanics we have. It's how many of them actually know how to work on a motorcoach.

A CUMMINS ENGINE DOESN'T MAKE IT A CUMMINS BUS

I ran into a pretty good example of this recently with one of our own coaches, a 2009 MCI J4500.

We were dealing with an ECM that needed to be replaced and programmed. We sent it to Cummins and they had the engine information, but they only had part of what was needed. To finish programming the ECM correctly for that particular J4500, they needed the MCI-specific features and parameters. The old ECM wasn't communicating, so they couldn't just pull everything from it.

We eventually figured out exactly what Cummins was asking for and contacted MCI Technical Support. MCI gave us the information we needed, we sent it back to Cummins and the repair moved forward.

Everybody helped. There really wasn't a problem getting the information once we got to the right people.

But the experience made me realize how quickly a diesel repair can stop being a diesel repair.

A J4500 may have a Cummins engine and Allison transmission, but then you get into the MCI electrical system, multiplex, HVAC, air system, suspension, kneeling system, doors and everything else built around that powertrain. A mechanic can be very good with a Cummins engine and still not know that coach.

That probably explains some of the truck shops telling us no. It doesn't necessarily mean they aren't good mechanics. They may know exactly where their expertise ends.

A motorcoach isn't just a truck with 56 seats.

THE INDUSTRY ALREADY KNOWS WE HAVE A PROBLEM

Once I started digging, I realized this isn't just something we're experiencing.

UMA President and CEO Scott Michael recently said that while driver shortages are still an issue, the bigger workforce challenge now is the shortage of mechanics, especially diesel technicians.

ABA has an entire Bus Maintenance and Repair Council, BusMARC, and technician recruitment, retention and training is one of its four main priorities. Another is improving access to OEMs, suppliers, diagnostics and technical expertise.

Then look at what it takes to actually develop somebody into a motorcoach technician.

MCI recently highlighted a technician from Hermes Worldwide who completed more than 280 online training modules and 11 weeks of in-person instruction over about two and a half years to earn MCI Master Technician status. Hermes specifically tied that investment to keeping advanced maintenance in-house and reducing downtime.

That tells me we're talking about something more specialized than simply hiring another diesel mechanic.

You can hire somebody who knows engines.

Teaching him the entire coach is another investment.

WHAT IF YOU DON'T HAVE YOUR OWN SHOP?

This is where I think the real investigation starts.

A large operator can spread the cost of a maintenance facility, technicians, training, diagnostic software, tooling and parts inventory across a large fleet. The economics look a lot different when you own five buses. Or ten. Or fifteen.

And remember, 87.3% of motorcoach companies operate fewer than 25 coaches.

Some of those smaller operators have excellent shops and mechanics who have been working on buses for decades. I'm not assuming small fleet means poor maintenance.

But what about the operator who doesn't have that?

I've been trying to find a reliable national number for how many independent repair facilities actually advertise that they will work on commercial motorcoaches. I haven't found one I trust enough to publish.

That's actually part of the problem.

Search for motorcoach repair and you'll get MCI and Prevost service centers, Cummins locations, Allison shops, RV facilities, independent bus shops, mobile diesel mechanics and regular truck repair facilities. Those aren't all the same thing.

A Cummins shop might be able to solve the engine problem. An Allison shop might handle the transmission. Neither one necessarily means you have somebody who can diagnose the whole bus.

So I'm not going to throw out a number just because it makes a good headline.

I don't think we really know how much independent motorcoach repair capacity exists in this country.

For an industry with almost 50,000 coaches, that's something worth finding out.

A $4,000 REPAIR CAN COST A LOT MORE THAN $4,000

This is also where the mechanic shortage starts becoming a financial problem.

Say the eventual repair invoice is $4,000. That's easy to measure. It goes into repairs and maintenance on the P&L.

But what if the bus sits for ten days because nobody can diagnose it?

Maybe it gets towed. Maybe another operator has to cover a trip. Maybe you're renting equipment. Maybe the coach simply misses work it could have performed.

The actual cost starts becoming:

Repair + towing + replacement equipment + lost operating time + whatever revenue or margin disappeared while the coach was sitting.

And fleet size matters.

If a company owns 100 buses and one goes down, that's 1% of the fleet.

If an operator owns five coaches and one goes down, 20% of the fleet is out of service.

That's why I think mechanic availability belongs in the same financial conversation as fuel, insurance and equipment payments. We measure all of those constantly. I'm not sure we spend enough time measuring what downtime is actually costing us.

It also changes the conversation around older equipment.

A paid-off coach can make a lot of financial sense. No big monthly payment, lower acquisition cost and potentially very good cash flow.

But there is another question that becomes more important as that coach gets older:

Who still knows how to fix it?

A bus can be mechanically repairable and parts can still be available, but if the person who understands that generation of electrical system is three states away and booked for the next two weeks, that becomes part of the economics of owning the bus too.

RIGHT TO REPAIR DOESN'T CREATE A MECHANIC

I originally started looking at some of this because of the federal right-to-repair discussion.

Our J4500 experience actually showed why access to technical information matters. Cummins told us what they needed, MCI gave us the parameters and we were able to keep the repair moving.

That's important.

But the more I looked at it, the more I realized right to repair only solves part of the problem.

You can make the diagnostic software available. You can provide the parameters. You can give somebody the service manual.

Somebody still has to know what to do with it.

And if the closest person who does is 500 miles away, having access to the information doesn't get the coach back on the road.

That's why I think this is bigger than a right-to-repair story.

It may be a maintenance infrastructure problem.

SO HOW MANY SHOPS WILL ACTUALLY TAKE THE BUS?

That's the next part of this investigation.

I want to know how many heavy-duty repair facilities will actually say yes when an operator calls and says:

“I've got a 45-foot MCI, Prevost, Van Hool or TEMSA. Can you work on it?”

Not an RV. Not just an ECM sitting on a counter. Not an engine somebody else already pulled out.

The bus.

I also want to hear from operators who don't have their own shops. Where are you taking your equipment? How far are you traveling for repairs? Are truck shops turning you away? And if you do maintain everything in-house, how difficult is it to find a mechanic who already understands motorcoaches instead of somebody you have to train yourself?

We already know the country has diesel mechanics.

We already know there's a shortage of them.

What I'm starting to wonder is whether the motorcoach industry has another problem sitting underneath that one.

We don't just need somebody who can fix the engine. We need somebody who can fix the bus.

And right now, I'm not sure we have enough of them.

About the Author

Dhinel “Danny” Biyanwela works in motorcoach and ground transportation with experience in operations, vehicle sales, finance and fleet management. Through The Motorcoach Insider, he writes about the business behind transportation and the economic changes affecting independent operators.