So I scan CL and FB Marketplace as well odd ads as I find them on trucks. WTH is up with the low life's? Late 90's piecemeal body shop rejects come up A LOT, not much paint NO matching paint most times, quotes as "engine was making noise we don't want to fool with" or "Just needs a little TLC while Road Ready" but notes needs a starter or batteries are missing. These wonky weirdos ask what would be Market Price for model year of a running top shape machine, just ignorantly stupid. My favorite of recent note, a 2000 379 Pete, 3406E, "Needs a Engine EVE, will not accelerate with throttle" odometer showing 900,000+ and asking $26500.00, not a unwrinkled section of metal on the cab.
It is like that here and on ebay too. The nice thing about ebay is you can sort things so the reasonable items come up first. I saw something I wanted built in the 1940s. Seller asking 2/3 of the price of a brand new one. I asked if he had any way to move it onto a trailer. He said no you have to drag it out. Several counties over and would have to rent a fork lift to drag it out of his weeds onto my trailer. Whereas I could just drive to the wholesaler and get a new one stuck on my trailer. I offered him what I thought was a fair price minus all my expenses. Didn't come out to much. He never responded after that. He has been dropping the price slowly but nowhere near what it needs. But the kicker is, the ad says he needs it removed ASAP.
Seen those as well Birken, "Need Gone Today" three weeks later, "Asking price reduction" where they drop $100 and STILL no sale. Called a guy on a pretty well derelict 977K, machine not been moved in fifteen years per ad, "Uncertain of issues but was stopped by a failure of some kind". Asking price $22,000, justification was weighed ~44,000 lbs and scrap would net that much. Called him on that as to scrap at $100-110/ton that being ~22 tons only worth $2100-2500 Scrap thought he added one too many zeros, He hung up. Ad disappeared but know where the machine is and still untouched.
Its not just trucks/heavy equipment - everyone wants top dollar for their junk on CL in particular. Something thats $2000 brand new, its 5 years old and they're asking $1900 firm. Who would buy something used to save such a small amount? My general rule of thumb is 40%. If Im not saving at least 40% then I'll spend the extra $ to go new. Good deals pop up every now and then but you have to be ready to pounce. Trailer and cash ready to go, make the call and go get it ASAP. A lot of people must keep a close eye on these listings and when a good deal pops up it does not last.
I like to look at CL but i have had a 98% failure rate with it.
Like @Blstr88 said, the beat deals move quick and you had better be ready to go pick it up when it pops up. All of my best finds on Craigslist have been pure luck at being the first to see an ad and being available to chase it down right then.
{Well maintained with only 145,000 miles and only 4 F@RTs in the driver seat} If it was so well maintained why is it for sale?
I did get an OK deal on one piece of machinery. But it took 4-6 months IIRC. The guy was asking about twice what I thought it was worth. I told him cash in hand at my price whenever he wanted. He declined the first time. I reminded him every couple months I was still there. Eventually he decided nobody else was going to buy it and saw it my way.
I've seen those crazy ads wanting huge bucks for large piles of rust with "just needs an engine and undercarriage to be perfect" . Having said that I've scored some amazing deals on CL and ebay. Got a hyraulic hose crimper with several hundred fittings at roughly 5% of new cost. Just ebayed a new gear reduction unit for $150 shipped. New is over 3k. Found plenty of genuine Cat parts for way under dealer cost. Deals are there but you better be ready to buy quickly.
Often times I see, for example. Mint 72 Plymouth duster. All original, numbers matching survivor. 10,000. In reality it's a beat up rust bucket with flintstone floors and a slant six. Puke yellow or babysh!t green with a purple door on one side and blue on the other. Actual value, whatever the junkyard will give you.
Guess I scored on my '86 S1900 International beverage truck for only $750. Minus needed new transmission, brake rotors were gone, rear axle wasn't splitting and GVW is 28k needing a CDL to drive. Tossed the 5 speed Spicer for Eaton 6 speed $250 Slapped new clutch on $300 Replaced both front rotors, pads, brake lines, and calipers $1500 Tossed the bench seat for air seats $400 Replaced gear splitter motor $125 New hub seals and oil seals $Unknown Added bumper pull hitch system $450 New LED tail lights $20 Rewired from cab back for trailer and brake lights $100 Last but not least cut half the beverage truck body part off made about $500 in aluminum. Still more to do though one paycheck at a time and have gotten my use out of it using as hauler for my camper on the back past 1200 miles.
We both more or less scored on the old junk Have $6900 total in mine now with steel, brakes, lumber, bed, brake tubing, also configured bumper hitch added electric brake control rewired from cab wall to back of truck, paint supplies, and replaced all the external lamps but the front t/s assemblies, with a small carload of small crap along the way. Money pits, got to have projects.
Money pits yet have paid the fraction of the price for one new. I just ran 7 wire cord for my trailer brakes and rear brake lights on truck and trailer to junction box and splits from there. Now just need to find time to actually wire brake controller up hehe. Moved from Washington state to Montana and glad I bought my tractor in Washington state. Tractors are ridiculous on price here as I seen from doing same thing as the OP does, surfing CL for old equipment. Bought a Zetor 9545 with broken frame for $3500 comes with front end loader, gannon, and post hole digger. Not a small toy to play with http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/001/7/1/1717-zetor-9540.html yet found one smaller on CL out here for $14,000 https://billings.craigslist.org/grd/d/shepherd-zetor-5245/6865124125.html Broken frame can be replaced easily with couple flat stock pieces, drill few holes and weld the mounts for the front end loader. Found diesel work trucks are cheaper in Texas too.
Because Texas is flooded with Diesel and Trucks. That said, be damned careful buying a used diesel pickup from Texas. A lot of them on Craigslist are oilfield company trucks and those trucks are religiously used and abused. I've worked with guys that never changed air filters, never checked coolant, oil changes intervals got strung out 10,000+ miles, etc. I looked at buying a couple down here because I thought the price was a deal on an 8 year old truck, and then I saw the carnage under the hood and walked away. There are some good deals, but it takes due diligence to inspect a truck properly to vet it out.
Born and raised in Texas and I can attest to that! Best to stick with medium to small towns if buying trucks from there. Another outlining problem is the dry rot from down there and all else in the south, just as the rust from the rust belt states and the problems with most windshield wiper systems in some form in Pacific Northwest states.
I need to let this one go. Not trying to make anything off of it, just need to lighten the load around here and make room in the machine shed for other toys. It currently has collector plates and insurance on it so it could be driven a reasonable distance to it's new home although I probably would not aim for every scale on the way. Looking for $2,800.00 for it. Mainly want to get it to someone who wants to spend some hours on it and restore it. There was not a lot of these Titans built in 79. I was going to use it for a toy hauler to go to shows but then my KW came into view and I switched directions. Here's a few pictures. It has a Cummins 335(?) with a 13 speed. 10 ft deck with a 18-1/2 ft dump behind that. It hauled trusses in ND for its 180,000 mile working life is what I was told. Then sat on a potato farm for many years waiting for a potato bed that never happened until it ended up on auction.
Six hundred and eighty miles from me, what a tease. Problem is I would want to strip one the rear axles off...
Come on over. I have the tools.
In that scenario I will leave mine behind and bring the beer and liquor in its place. I'm in the middle of acquiring a CDL and need to put an emergency brake on my International that will pass as actual emergency brake when I take the road test. Don't know which way to turn though I solved the speedometer problem, just buy one from Autometer with GPS antennae. When I replaced the transmission in my rig the other one I put in came without a transmission brake and digital not analog speedometer. Passed written part of the test Class A combination after 2 weeks of studying, and people go to school to get one of these why?
I still have my Hazmat on the Class A, going to let that drop this next go round. Took less than 15 minutes the last time to take the renewal test, three MSHP guys were watching it happen as I took it on Computer, one was watching me to see how I was cheating!! When done the guy at the counter asked how I did that to which I asked did what, he stated the three of them had taken the test, none took less than 25 minutes and none got as many correct as I did. Told him been taking that test for over 30 years, study up for updates and changes but pretty well know the rules by heart. Just shook his head and handed me my license.
I just love that HM test. Questions like, what section of the law code are explosives packing groups found? Possible answers are: a) 17740.2(a) b) 17740.2(b) c) 17770.2(a) d) 17770.3(a) How should I know and why would anyone besides a cop ever care? Somehow I make it through that test but it is always dicey. If they took out trick questions like that and put in more common sense maybe we would have a better caliber of driver.
Exactly. The 'New' thing as to testing is NOT testing for what you 'Know' but how well you can read the questions to determine the answer the test giver wants. Does not have to be correct to anything you have studied or perform just has to be worded such to trip you up. When that fails resort to such nonsense as what you dealt with, unnecessary and worthless. A gift from egocentric educators.
I love the question: How far do you stop behind a school bus when flashing. The follow up question should be how far is 100'? Many may get the first answer right but not have a clue what 100' is. I imagine we would get answers between 10' and a mile if we were standing on the road asking which landmark was the correct distance.
It seems the caliber of the wording of the question and correct answer (in multiple choice) has deteriorated too, in various kinds of tests. Makes it hard to fathom out the correct answer. Couple that with the new trend to not hand you back your marked up test form. If you have a complaint about a question and answer being wrong, you have zero documentation to bring to anyone, if you could find anyone that cared. Questions on things like a truck driver's license, the greater driver population should be the standard. They are the professionals, not the bureaucrats that write this garbage. But with the secret test questions and answers, all you get is "trust us, we know what we are doing."
No one stood over my shoulder as I took the test, in fact the building was empty except the receptionist who could care less what day of the week it was. Guess I should of just went ahead and took every single test and just worry about having right vehicle another day to take the road test hehe. Though they did misspelled one the words on the test that was on the computer, breaking instead of braking.
Dealt with this at the Nuke, tests every six weeks, would incorporate material from up to six months prior training sessions. I got pretty good at reading what they wanted to get as a answer and pissed the instructors off terribly. Average 20 question test took me 12 minutes, I do not and as fate would have it still CAN not read sentences, I scan them looking for key words and tricky phrases, I scan answers and pick one, end of test I go back and change two answers to incorrect to keep my Grade point less than 100% and the ones I usually picked were the Gimme Questions that everyone else would not have a problem with. They tried three different times to get me, to fail me, all three times they had the rest of my crew in for remediation and retest as they would miss one to three too many(80% to pass), I would show the instructors where the questions were wrong in procedures JUST to make them rewrite them as would inform management as to the incorrect answer issue. They were like that with myself and two others for almost 20 years.
This change in questions and answer format was the brainchild of a College professor that did not like students just regurgitating the class materials and getting great grades as told me by a dear friend in the Nuke Training department(He was one like that). This is what they base it on, and has NO relevance to real world conditions. https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/writing-good-multiple-choice-test-questions/
Sounds like a hunter safety test I took a hundred years ago. Another fellow and I were comparing tests as we each had one marked wrong. We both had the same question wrong. It was a true/false question and both answers were correct. One of us answered true and the other false and we were both marked wrong. After the class we asked the instructor which one of us was correct as we both could not be wrong. He confided that everyone is marked wrong on that question as they want to expound that no one knows it all and that you still need to think thru every occasion. As I got older I better realized the wisdom in that statement.
I took classes year ago working toward getting a certification for adult education. Basically it was to be an instructor at a community college working on re-education for adults that were surplussed out of their jobs by automation. The whole series of classes was focused on competency based education and focused on what a student would be able to do at the end of each training segment. You designed your class around a particular task, say running the rack on a Detroit, remove and install a head on Cat 3406, read a wiring schematic for an excavator or checking hydraulic pressure on any machine. Writing tests under that type of format is incredibly hard to do because your entire training session has to be written from that. So take that back to a school teacher who couldn't handle a class room and knows nothing of the trade they are writing a test for. What do they do? They go to accident reports and lawmakers for material to write the questions from. They also have to write gotcha questions that make no sense plus break all the rules of language in writing them because they have to achieve a failure rate. The failure rate makes the lawmakers look good because now they have a statistic to use showing how their program is keeping poor drivers off the road. The lawmaker is happy, the test writer is happy, the news media is happy if something actually gets there. In this state they turned all the testing over to private parties who charge an exorbitant amount of money to complete their course of instruction. They give those providers the tests so they can teach to the tests instead of the competency. Now the provider looks good as well. The exact same thing happened to me years ago when obtaining an insurance adjuster license. You could have been selling or adjusting insurance claims for years in another state but if you hadn't attended this state's provider's training course, you could never pass the test.