Truck for sale ad waste of time

Imo, the good part of buying used private party, is dealers will polish up a turd and try to hide the issues. Some owners will too, but better chance that if they trash their vehicle and were too lazy to they'll be too lazy to clean it up for sale making it easier to spot a pos.

AJBert wrote:
You folks do realize that most dualies are bought as WORK trucks, right?

Or to haul an eleventy billion pound stock/horse/cattle trailer to the next rodeo or cattle auction, so they have been ridden hard and put away wet. At least that was my experience with the one and only used dually I looked at back in 2009. A few days later I bought a new one.

Darn thing still stinks like a new truck inside! I hardly drive it at all. It will probably hit 43k miles in about 2 weeks. It's at about 42,600 now.

The reasons I went to look were these. Florida truck, the guy even had a FL cell #. He only used it to tow his 5er, and it was 15 minutes away. I figured a fellow RVer would have more pride. I'd hate to see the camper he sold first.

I just completed a three week cluster to find my tow vehicle. Lol I hope I don have to go through that again for quite some time. When I do .... I hope I'm in a position to buy new.

I'll walk away due to just cosmetics. I figure if they can't take care of the visible parts, then they sure didn't take care of the stuff you can't see.

I would never buy a used truck from the rust belt. Some times you can find great deals in Texas, just make sure it wasn't in a flood.

After my 2005 F-250 was totaled in an accident, finding its replacement was an ordeal that took me across five states and took three months. Local dealers had absolutely trashed trucks that were priced considerably over Blue Book. One truck looked good in the pictures but upon seeing it in person, I found the interior reeked of cigarette smoke, the leather upholstery was torn and cracked, the carpet threadbare, and the engine compartment a muddy mess. Yet this Ford dealer tried to tell me it was in excellent condition and the truck was priced as it was due to strong market demand. I passed on that and other trucks that local dealers insisted were great buys but had clearly been rode hard and put up wet.

I had to go to rural Indiana, a four hour drive from my Tennessee home, to finally find the truck that I now drive. The truck had a complete service record, was well cared for, and while it had high mileage, everything worked except the radiator had a leak. The dealer fixed that issue. I am very happy with the truck.

Craigslist is not the only place where the advertisement fails to live up to the hype. The other major internet sites from eBay to cars.com are also places where you should look at the listings with a jaundiced eye.

I cleaned up my F250 and priced it close to dealer retail. I knew we would dicker a little on the price, but I was still able to sell it for more than typical private sales.

the drw I looked at wasn't a base model, it was a king ranch which was what shocked me seeing that someone would spend that much money and not care for it.

After 2 mnutes it was obvious it had been owned by a business to plow, driver window switch was all worn, plow mount, bed had a sander bracket stil in it. The dealer made no attempt to clean it up, just kept telling me about how they will go through it after. I just looked, laughed and drove off.

Vehicles are expensive. Period. I don't understand why some people just trash the **** out of their trucks, whether they use them for work or not. I've seen some contractor work trucks that are just mangled. I don't understand how you can bang it up so often and treat it like ****. You depend on that for work and your company's name is on it or tied to it. If you treat a vital asset to your job like that, how do you treat your workmanship? Do you cut corners on that as well? I've always wondered this and yes I understand that a work truck will probably get banged up and not cleaned up as often as it takes time away form actual work. But at the same token, that vehicle represents you and/or your company.
I've also wondered, that at times some dents and fender benders that happen "on site" aren't fixed because that'll lead to questions being asked and eventually lead up to how many barley pops you consumed at your "lunch break". Not trying to paint a broad picture here but at a lot of sports bars you'd be surprised to see how many banged up contractor trucks are in the parking lot.
I'm just saying that if you use your vehicle for work, try to respect it as it probably is vital to your operations and has your company name/logo attached to it. If it's a piece of ****, then price it as such when it comes to selling it.