Lots of used Canadian trucks on the local Ford lots

[Mote]

We've been browsing the local car lots looking for a used truck to replace the Dodge. Saturday and Sunday we looked at two different Ford lots in two different towns. Each has some 2014-2015 white F250 and F350 gas trucks with low miles. I did a car fax on the first one and it was from Canada (Fort McMurray, AB). I thought that was odd so I looked at the others and they are all from the same area. Why would a dealer in Southern Indiana be buying truck from Canada to sell here ?

[thomasgunnar]

A dealer in my area is crying for used trucks.The line is we will give top dollar for your trade. These trades are crossing the border.

[brulaz]

The exchange rate is the main reason that it's hard to find a good older truck up in Canada right now.

On the other hand I've heard you can get a reasonable offer on your older trade-in, and the dealer just ships them to the States.

But watch the warranty. The US dealers don't honor the Canadian warranty and vica-versa. So AFAIK it's really only out-of-warranty trucks that are moving across the border, unless soemthing else is arranged.

[Mr_Biggles]

Some are private trucks. I've heard stories of layed-off employees dumping their trucks at the airports and just walking away. My local dealer keeps mailing me to buy my 2011 truck because they can flip it in the USA for much more (and put me in a new truck of course ) .

[gbw]

06Fargo wrote:

Seamutt wrote:
Low miles maybe but driven like it was stolen.

Most company work trucks in our energy sector around here have GPS systems for employee safety on remote sites/trip billing/ etc. Side benifit is they also report speed back to headquarters. The oilfield pickups are now the people in your way driving the speed limit on the public highway. Also road accidents are still the top injury / fatality category in the energy sector so driving like an a$$ is highly discouraged.

Other regions/industries may differ.

Absolutely the case where I am. They track if the ABS kicks on, hard acceleration events, etc. There are a few now that won't let you engage 'Drive' until the seatbelt is engaged. Automatic emails are sent to headquarters whenever a speedlimit is exceeded by more than 5 or 10 km/hr. If they were highway only trucks, they would be great to pick up. Its the constant offroad driving which wears out the suspension components. They aren't "beat" upon, they are just used off highway more frequently.

The field formans truck is the highly saught after rig. They are generally only highway driven and often higher optioned. Usually a forman will buy it for himself or one of the operators would buy it before a field truck.


Plywood boxliner - classic oilfield. I suspect they are used more becuase of skidding very heavy objects in the box or heavier objects are dropped into the box more often. It would really protect the box better from denting compared to a spray-in liner.

[jason26]

I'm in Saskatoon, SK, while quite far from Ft. McMurray, its not that far... Rule of thumb here is to avoid vehicles from Ft. McMurray, or the oil patch in general.

[noteven]

Seamutt wrote:
Low miles maybe but driven like it was stolen.

Most company work trucks in our energy sector around here have GPS systems for employee safety on remote sites/trip billing/ etc. Side benifit is they also report speed back to headquarters. The oilfield pickups are now the people in your way driving the speed limit on the public highway. Also road accidents are still the top injury / fatality category in the energy sector so driving like an a$$ is highly discouraged.

Other regions/industries may differ.

[Seamutt]

Low miles maybe but driven like it was stolen.

[romore]

Many of these vehicles are lease returns, the lessors buy in Canada then bring them in after two or three years and flip them at U.S dealer only auctions. A clean unit with low kilometers brings top dollar south of the line because of the exchange rate.

[Mote]

At the one dealer they hadn't cleaned up one of the trucks yet. The bed was lined with plywood on the sides and bottom. I guess that's cheaper than a spray in liner.
I'll take a close look at the hours and the under carriage for rust.

[2lazy4U]

There have been a number of articles in the Canadian papers about the situation in Alberta. Lots of people losing everything - vehicle repossessions etc. Very grim for those folks.

[jmtandem]

Used trucks don't hold their value in the oil fields. Send them to the US to sell. This has been going on for a long time.

[Colo_Native]

Have few here in Colorado and all have very rusty under carriage, from what I was reading Canada uses a lot of salt.

[IdaD]

Mike E. wrote:
Just know that even though they will have low mileage on them, those trucks were probably always running.
Nobody wants to get back into a cold truck, so they get left idling.
Maybe not such a big deal with a gasser, but diesel's sure don't like it.

Should be able to get a readout on the EVIC. Mine shows operating and idle hours.

[gbw]

Confirmed. I work in the heart of the Alberta Oil patch. There have been stories of American companies coming up with a large transport truck and taking the whole lot of fleet trucks.

A truck a few years old would fleet sell for around $20k CAD, or roughly $14K US. Huge savings available to American markets. Also, with the weak state of the economy here, you're not likely to get someone to buy the whole stock at one time. Maybe a couple sales here and there.

Its not entirely true about idling trucks all day long. I'm sure there are many cases of this but where I work, it is highly discouraged to idle, especially with the gas trucks. I think a bigger thing is trucks being prematurely worn out from driving rough gravel, dirt, frost heaved, snow filled roads for their entire life. A truck with 100k kms is probably equivalent to a 200k km truck.

[Red-Rover]

I suppose the odometers indicate Kilometers traveled?
Reminds me of a Canadian friend that traded in Indiana a Canadian auto with 25,000 on the odometer that had "rolled over". The salesman kept asking if odometer was accurate without realizing he was talking kilometers. Found out later I suppose.