A three bay steel shelving package costs $1,840 and takes three days to fit. A van lease runs 36 months. If you are on a rolling cycle, that shelving can move into its second and third van, which changes how you should specify it on day one.
The decision that makes transfer possible is the mount. Bolt-through mounts with sealing washers come out cleanly, leave sealed holes and go into the next unit. Self-tappers do neither: they corrode at the edge, cost $240 a set to seal at turn in, and rarely line up in the next body.
Steel or composite
Steel is $1,840 and 268 lb. Composite is $2,350 and 141 lb. The $510 difference buys back 127 lb of payload, which on a parts-heavy plumbing van is most of a second technician's kit and occasionally the difference between legal and overweight.
If your vans run near their rating, the composite pays for itself the first time you do not have to make a second trip. If they run light, steel is the better buy and takes harder abuse.
Capitalise it or pay it
An upfit can be capitalised into the lease. The $1,840 steel package over 36 months at a 0.00175 money factor adds about $54 a month. Paid up front it is $1,840 of capital in month one.
Which is better depends on how your accountant treats it and whether you intend to transfer the shelving into the next van. If you are transferring it, paying up front is usually cleaner: you own it outright and it is not tied to a vehicle that is going back.
- Steel shelving: $1,840, 268 lb, 3 day lead time
- Composite shelving: $2,350, 141 lb, 4 day lead time
- Ladder rack, drop-down: $1,480, 2 days, no roof penetration
- Service body conversion: $8,600, 12 days, order with the chassis
Order the long lead items with the chassis
Everything in the catalogue except the service body fits in one to five days. A service body conversion is twelve, which means ordering it after the chassis arrives adds nearly two weeks of a vehicle sitting in our bay rather than on your job.
Same logic applies to wraps if you are still designing the livery. Get the artwork approved while the vehicle is in build, not after it lands.
All prices and lead times here are sample figures for a demonstration site. The full catalogue with weights and turn in notes is on the upfitting page.
