Would you buy a tractor from this guy??

My thinking right now is NO!! But.....for the sake of discussion.....

Below is a paste from a thread I started earlier this week about a Western Star that I have a chance to get for a song. There is, however, a broader question now. After going ahead and deciding to test drive the truck, I found out some more about the situation, but I am pretty scared of it.

1. The truck drives great. It's awesome. Stars are definitely now on my list of trucks to look at.

2. The guy's son originally told me about the truck. He needs it gone now. He needs to pay some bills because his father can't work anymore....he's in one of our exclusive state run gated communities for trafficking a controlled substance. No money coming in. Dad in jail. Kids and wife trying to pay some bills. Trucks have to go.

3. All the things I didn't like about the Star were mostly fixed. All the head liners were fixed. The sticky crap and velcro pads had all been cleaned. The only thing left are some holes in the dash, and most of those were actually fixed by replacing panels. The son told me he looked in the shop and had found the spare panels and decided to clean and fix the truck up on the inside. More on that in a minute.

4. The truck doesn't rattle like I was afraid it would. It looked good last night. The ECM report looked good and my mechanic, who I trust said the truck looked good to him. Maintenance records actually look good, too.

5. It's way cheap. The kid just needs to pay some bills fast. Dad's never going to be able to drive again, if he ever gets out of jail.


So here's my hang up. The original owner went to prison for getting caught with a LOT and I do mean A LOT of drugs. They caught him in his pickup truck. Apparently, they had been looking at him for some time.

I'm scared of this tractor, because I know law enforcement has had it's eye on the owner for some time. The son replaced lots of interior body panels. I have lots of spare parts for my tractor, probably more than anybody I know. I don't have a single dash panel, headliner pieces, or any other interior part that I can think of. Everybody has told me about how well their Stars have held up, and this one is tight, too. How does a truck so tight, with no rattles, end up with a sagging head liner or loose panels inside?

Why would a guy who just got popped for distributing controlled substances need extra interior panels lying around for his truck?? Yeah, not real comfy about that!

This seems like one of those horror stories you hear about in the making. Pull into a scale. Little 'ol (OK, fat 'ol) me, who's NEVER had any kind of ticket or violation in a truck, suddenly gets some state trooper with a drug dog or something barking at my cab. "Honest, Officer, I didn't know that was even in there!!" Sure. Right. Don't think so. Next thing you know I'm sharing a bunk with some guy, and I ain't talkin' about runnin' team, neither! I could be the subject of one of those "I heard about this guy" stories you hear, but don't really believe.

My only thing is, could there be a way to take the truck TO a police station, sheriff's, office, or even call out a DOT or state trooper and be honest, explain the situation, and do sort of a "preemptive strike" of some sort to get me on record as clean?. Ask them to go over the whole tractor with a fine toothed comb. Hell, bring a drug dog out. Whatever. MY wife is in law enforcement, but just deals with child molesters and rapists, so she doesn't know the first thing about things related to traffic.

I just hate to get myself into anything bad here, but this truck is a good deal, if there aren't any legal surprises down the road.

I doubt I get it, unless there is some kind of miracle that happens, but I thought I'd pose the question out of curiosity. Has anyone ever bought a truck from someone who had to do a little "unpaid mandatory vacation" and if so, did you ever worry?

Thanks again.