Salt, Rust, and the value of a diesel engine

valhalla360 wrote:

ShinerBock wrote:

Perrysburg Dodgeboy wrote:


If you find a super clean truck you can be sure the owner also took care of it mechanically also.

This is not always the case. The contrast between my brother and I is a prime example of that.

He keeps his truck spotless at all times both inside and out washing every week and even sometimes twice a week. When it comes to maintenance, he will constantly go over the recommended interval and use the cheapest thing possible. He does not care about the mechanical side because he usually trades his trucks within 100-150k miles in before the problems from neglect arise. All he cares about is how pretty it looks in the mean time.

Heck, he even had a clamp missing on the intake box after the filter when I looked at his engine on one of his old trucks. I asked how long its been like that and he said for at least the past six months. I immediately went to one of my parts stores and got a new clamp for him thinking he will put it on. Nope, it was another month until I put it on because it bothered the heck out of me even though it was not my truck.

I, on the other hand, will go months without washing my truck, but you better believe that everything mechanical is in tip top shape and I am strict on maintenance intervals. I keep my trucks for the long haul, and being a utilitarian I care more about usefulness of material things than how they look. I feel sorry for anyone buying his truck paying extra because it looks clean thinking he took care of it.

Buying from a stranger, you never really know, so you use this type of info statistically to suggest someone who takes care of the body and interior is more likely to have taken care of the drive train.

While there may be exceptions, the truck that looks really clean is more likely to have been maintained.

Not from what I have seen.

Though not as bad as my brother, most of the people I know who like to keep their truck spotless spend more time doing that than taking care of the maintenance in my opinion. Mainly because they don't plan on keeping it past a certain mileage anyways so they don't care about maintenance just as long as it looks clean enough to get a high resale/trade-in value.

When I worked at a few Ford dealerships a long time ago. We had many trade-ins with 30-60k on them still running the factory oil filter, air filter, fuel filter, and so on, but they were spotless inside. They were mostly decked out vehicles with all the options on them from well off people who traded their vehicles in every other year. Working at several dealers since then, I can tell you that it happens more often than you think.

The ones that do keep them clean AND take care the maintenance generally are the ones that will keep them until the wheels fall of so they are not for sale anyways. This is just from my experiences.