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What Is a Bailment Pool — and Why It Matters for Commercial Work-Truck Upfitting
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If you’ve ever struggled with chassis availability, long OEM lead times, or slow turnarounds on commercial vehicles, you’ve probably wondered how some upfitters deliver fully built work trucks while others are still “waiting on the chassis.” The answer is usually the same: bailment pools.
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It’s not a term most fleet managers or contractors use every day, but in the world of commercial upfitting and work truck builds, understanding how a bailment pool works can save your business time, money, and weeks of downtime.
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What is a bailment pool?
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A bailment pool is a dedicated inventory of new commercial truck chassis, cargo vans, and work trucks that manufacturers set aside specifically for approved second-stage manufacturers (also known as commercial upfitters).
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Instead of shipping every unit to dealerships, OEMs like Ford, RAM, and Chevrolet reserve a portion of their production for trusted bailment pool partners. These vehicles aren’t sold yet — they’re held in waiting, ready to be matched with the right work truck upfit when a customer or dealer needs one.
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In other words, a bailment pool gives an upfitter immediate access to chassis that would otherwise take months to source.
How Common are Bailment Pools?​
Not very... And that scarcity is exactly why they’re so valuable in the commercial vehicle world. Because bailment pool partners are recognized as second-stage vehicle manufacturers, OEMs only approve a small, highly vetted group nationwide. Across all 50 states, only around 30 upfitters hold a RAM pool. That means most upfitters still wait in line for truck chassis, while a bailment pool partner can start building immediately.
Who Benefits from a Bailment Pool?​
Short answer: everyone involved in commercial trucks.
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Fleet managers, dealers, retail, utility companies, and municipalities all benefit from faster access to upfitted work trucks. Instead of buying a chassis first and figuring out the upfit later, you can get the entire package in one place. Dealers can pull directly from our bailment pool inventory, and end customers can use their preferred dealer or one from our nationwide network.
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It’s turn-key from start to finish.
Dealerships:
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Larger inventory without ordering and you can floor the upfit along with the vehicle and have very low-risk options on the ground.
Retail:​
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You don't have to rely on finding the exact vehicle in dealer inventory. You can go through us and we'll work with a preferred dealer to get your truck built and purchased.
FMC's:​
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Ram opened up incentives to Fleet Management Companies so you can now pull from bailment pools.
If you're a Stellantis dealer, you can find our entire bailment pool inventory on Vast (on Work Truck Solutions). If you'd like to get on our weekly inventory emails, let us know!
BAILMENT POOL INQUIRY
CONTACT US HERE FOR A 24-HOUR QUOTE OR CALL (385) 376-3854 TO TALK TO A SALES REP!
