To buy an auction truck or not? What would make it worthwhile?

325K miles and Freightliner will add a warranty to it.

 

Both trucks best years are behind them. Seems like the half a mill mark is where everyone starts having problems.

Unless the warranty on the truck at the dealer is a Freightliner warranty you may as well consider it as not having a warranty. Aftermarket warranty is more like an insurance policy and they usually do what they can to avoid paying it seems.

 

Me personally I would not buy a truck from an auction unless I am budgeting for a engine/trans/emissions rebuild right from the get go

 

Look you sound like you want an answer to make you feel good about these two trucks but reality will bite you on your butt.

If you want to enter this right, no matter what path you go down, there is a need to have capital to pay the bills. This isn’t like you take the truck to get fixed and boom they get it done fast for you. Trucks can be off the road for weeks, I have two sitting at the dealer waiting on parts for 3 weeks, can you afford three weeks of downtime?

Bills have to be paid.

Warranties do not cover everything, fact of life so what happens if you need brakes or you have a blowout and it takes out the hood? Price a hood lately?

insurance will cover the hood after the deductible is covered, but brakes?

deal with a tow, I’ve had $15000 tow bills and yes it is easily to get over $7k on a tow.

there are more trucks chasing owners than owners. Dealers dump trucks into auctions because there is something they find wrong and want to get it off the books fast. I know.

There is a lot of info missing about the trucks, the specs and especially the history.

this isn’t a car or pickup, it is a tool, it needs to have due diligence applied to making a decision a purchase.

while you could get lucky, it is all about lowering the risks involved with a used truck purchase.

how much money do you have?

I would say today you would need $60k above the purchase of the truck as a safety net.

oh and if you are doing this to get rid of problems that you are less tolerant, you will be sorely disappointed. While a driver doesn’t have to deal with crap like a dealer or shop not fixing your truck, you will have to deal with it and live with what others do. They don’t give a crap about you or your truck, they get paid no matter what.

 

Heh, he wont make it long. Never even asked my how much I wanted. Had his mind set on what he was going to do and did it. Why even ask advice?

 

What kind of ‘auction’?
Trucks at an ‘auction barn’ were units from several sources are gathered together and sold, after a certain amount those that did not sell at a dealer?
Or, an ‘auction’ that is conducted for business that is being liquidated, either because of bankruptcy, owner retiring, sudden death of owner, etc.?

 

Truth is, no one here can answer that question.

 

This is like when someone calls you on the phone and says
"My son's car won't start. Why is that?"
Nobody on here including the guy that has bought from an auction 1000 times can tell a person how it will work out. Used vehicles being sold by pros

 

If it's at an auction there's usually a reason. Either it didn't sell sitting on the lot, it's got issues that'd be noticeable if you could actually test drive it or the company went tits up and the truck's a polished turd. First thing that gets cut back on when a company hits hard times is maintenance. Unless you can pick it up for significantly less than something similar sitting on a lot somewhere I wouldn't touch it. Even then I'd be ready to sink five figures into within the first couple months.