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Tool Man, I understand if this needs to be moved.



I'm gonna offer some advise and vent a moment. We've been looking for a 95 to early 98 for my wife. Miles aren't really a issue, just needs to be priced for what it is.



Well, we found the perfect truck in Fort Worth, a 97, turquoise 2500 2whd, club cab with 3. 55s. We were high bidder on E-bay, but didn't hit the dealers reserve so we made a 400 mile road trip (1 way) last weekend to check it out and buy it.



According to the E-bay dealer, it was in good shape no problems even-though it had a little over 230k miles. I asked if it had been painted, "doesn't look like it", I bought a 30day Carfax and it checked out great.



The truck did look great, a little too nice, as we got close it was a decient repaint, not a problem, body looked fine, just new basecoat/clearcoat.



But, the passenger mirror was broke, the batteries were old, turck would not start, inner fenders had much acid damage, the air cleaner housing had a lot of dust on the clean side, and the glove box didn't have a door. Oh, the tires were all on the tread-bars.



Turns out it was a ranch or farm truck that had been road hard and put up wet it's whole life.



The dealer would not deal at all after we got there, said he could sell it to someone for his price (ebay $9900), he did drop down to $9400 before we drove down.



The E-bay photos were very skillfully taken to hid the flaws. So my message is "BUYER BEWARE", always have someone check things out if possible.



Perhaps I expect to much. The weekend wasn't a loss, the Chris LeDoux concert at Billy Bobs was great.



There, I feel better.



The truck is back on EBAY if anyone is interested.
 
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If you are a US citizen don't buy one in Canada unless you really really hate yourself. If you go this route, let me know as I just went through it... ... ... :mad:
 
Post Purchase Limbo...

Originally posted by Headshot zod

If you are a US citizen don't buy one in Canada unless you really really hate yourself. If you go this route, let me know as I just went through it... ... ... :mad:



Let's hear about it. :--)
 
I've purchased a boat and my '99 CTD out of state through the 'Trader. When I bought the truck, I only had one picture to go off of since the guy didn't have his own digital camera. To make up for this, I spent a long time on the phone with the seller, asking a LOT of questions before I made him an offer sight-unseen. The only thing that wasn't as I exepcted was the rubber floor instead of carpet on an SLT. Turns out, I'm VERY happy this happened and wish I could order the rubber floors on my '05. I'll ahve to settle for the Husky mats. Anyways, I would have called that seller before driving 400+ miles and asked him EVERYTHING. Specifically, I always say to the seller "I'm looking for a truck that is cosmetically perfect. Since pictures don't show everything, please tell me about EVERY scratch, dent, rip, tear, and imperfection the truck has". In my case, he told me there was a few scratches on the tailgate, a small dent near the bed rail, but insisted that overall the truck looked newer than it actually was. I wasn't disappointed. Just remember there's nothing wrong with "wasting" an hour of a seller's time on the phone in order to save you 8 hours of driving, or in my case a plane ticket and 3000 miles of driving. If I wasn't set on a brand new truck this time around, I'd buy out of state again in a heartbeat, as long as I felt after a long conversation with the seller I could trust them... oh yeah and I'd ALWAYS prefer a private seller to a dealership.
 
i purchased my 96 thru autotrader back home in texas. its kinda funny, the guy sold it to me so he could get a new furd superduty. he saw the truck again before i moved to PA and made the comment "geez, it never looked that good when i owned it!" i say i found a "diamond in the rough"
 
Jeepdude, you're right about the phone call, you gotta do that if you're serious. I did talk to the seller, but did not cross examine him well. Next time we'll have a much longer discussion.
 
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