So you're looking to buy a truck...

[greasytshirt]

Wouldn't it make sense to take the truck to someone who is intimately familiar with that brand and model?

I'm a mechanic. A customer showed up with a 2 year old truck that he'd just bought, and wanted us to check it out before it hit the road. I wish so much that he'd brought it to us BEFORE the sale.

The truck had been in a significant accident. It was fixed good enough that the damage wasn't evident without lots of poking around. I specialize in poking around though. I think the right front wheel hit something hard enough to break a leaf spring, sending the tire through the fender, into the DEF tank, and into the aftertreatment system. Every bracket in the aftertreatment system is bent. The DEF tank brackets are all new, but either installed badly or the frame is twisted. I can tell that the frame is a little bent, but I can't see if there's a twist. In any case, it's off just enough for the DEF gauge to be inaccurate. The right front fender has been repaired, there's white overspray on some hardware and other hardware is missing. Clips that secure wiring harness were ripped off. These can be removed without destroying them if you take two extra seconds to do it correctly. Finally there's one new leaf spring and new u-bolts.

The truck only has 80k on it, so everything looks sort of new anyway, so it's hard to tell the new parts from the almost new parts.

Luckily for this guy, everything in the aftertreatment system works correctly, and it seems to drive fine. I'm trying to chase down a couple of weird noises without success, though.

Wouldn't you rather figure all this stuff out before you handed someone money?

Make the sale of a truck contingent on it going to a mechanic and getting some sort of passing bill of health beforehand. And if the price is too good to be true, it probably is.

 

[FlyingVan]

The problem is that it is hard to find a mechanic like you.

Many years ago I went to a dealership for some reason and a guy brought a car in for a prepurchase inspection. He put the car up on the lift, had a form in his hand and he was just checking off stuff on the form without checking anything on the car. That inspection was a waste of money.


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[skyraider]

Why do folks buy a POS before checking it out,,,,,it is called ego...You see, men know everything, so we do this kind of stuff, then take it to show all our friends how smart we were and come up with justifications for the purchase. People in expediting do it all the time .....you can read it in here.

 

[brokcanadian]

Why do folks buy a POS before checking it out,,,,,it is called ego...You see, men know everything, so we do this kind of stuff, then take it to show all our friends how smart we were and come up with justifications for the purchase. People in expediting do it all the time .....you can read it in here.

And?

 

[TimesAreAChanging]

Perfect timing. I just asked about this in another post and was told to take the perspective truck to a dealer and have a computer and physical check done before purchasing it. I look at it as a $500 insurance policy protecting me from a bad mistake. The comment about taking it to a poor mechanic begs the question on how do you avoid that?

 

[greasytshirt]

Perfect timing. I just asked about this in another post and was told to take the perspective truck to a dealer and have a computer and physical check done before purchasing it. I look at it as a $500 insurance policy protecting me from a bad mistake. The comment about taking it to a poor mechanic begs the question on how do you avoid that?

I'd take it to a dealer, for one. I'd ask for a printout of everything saved in the ECU. Then if there are tests they can do on injectors/turbo/whatever, you can ask for those results.


I work on Hinos. I can go into the various ECUs and compile a big report showing all of the ECU customization parameters, the number of times it's been overheated or overrevved, the idle time, total running time, total mileage (this will tell you if odometer has been swapped), etc. Then I can look up warranty history, etc. Any person in the shop from me to the kid doing PMs can do this successfully.

I can also evaluate injector health and show this to you in graph form. If I do it wrong, it's there on the graph.

Other manufacturers have similarly set up ECUs, so making these reports are pretty simple.

The kid doing PMs gets kudos for finding questionable/broken stuff, so if he's told to be critical, he will.

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[TimesAreAChanging]

Thanks greasytshirt-Just printed your response-will take it with me when I look at a truck.

 

[geo]

most important maintenance records to, no records , no truck
you want to know what has been done to unit,
also is it using oil and does it have any leaks on ground

 

[BillChaffey]

P.T. Barnum, I think "There's a sucker born every minute"

 

[Hino123]

Had a similar situation today, cust bought a used truck and brought to us to diag a engine light/ oil leaks. I spent a lil over an hour diag and made a 2 page list. Truck needed a little bit if everything. Rusted out fuel tank took out the inj pump and injectors. Basically a complete fuel system on the pressure side and a removal and flush of the tank. Fuel pump $1800, 4 injectors $2100, truck also needed oil pan, radiator, possible turbo ($4000) (no boost) calipers, pads, abs sensors, the previous owner installed a fused jumper in the low coolant alarm and looped the coolant temp sensor. The head-gasket failed and was pushing coolant. You could see the truck was over 248 degrees on multiple occasions when I pulled the data from the ecu.
Truck was purchased... then brought to my shop to have the cel and oil leaks diagnosed. I think we charged him $160 in diag time only. Only to find the truck would need at least 10-14k in repairs to pass a DOT. People pay for home inspections yet wont for used vehicles. Dosen't make sense to me.

 

[Hino123]

P.T. Barnum, I think "There's a sucker born every minute"

Salesman at my old job..."There's an azz for every seat"