Ever bought a GOV auction car?

Gunbuggy · Oct 3, 2022

Have a chance to buy a super low mileage f250 from a seller. When I say low I mean scary low. 9.8k miles on a 2009. To me that's a lot of sitting. But seller has proof and auto auction receipts. Says car is immaculate. Yeah yeah.

Carfax only shows "shipped to original dealer" then says 9,981 k miles purchased from auction" so ZERO history on rig.

Anyone buy a low mileage car from government auction? Should I jump on this deal or is it too good to be true. My spider senses are tingling but I also don't want to miss out on a good truck I've been looking for for a year

ilikegunspdx · Oct 3, 2022

Gunbuggy said:
Have a chance to buy a super low mileage f250 from a seller. When I say low I mean scary low. 9.8k miles on a 2009. To me that's a lot of sitting. But seller has proof and auto auction receipts. Says car is immaculate. Yeah yeah.

Carfax only shows "shipped to original dealer" then says 9,981 k miles purchased from auction" so ZERO history on rig.

Anyone buy a low mileage car from government auction? Should I jump on this deal or is it too good to be true. My spider senses are tingling but I also don't want to miss out on a good truck I've been looking for for a year

Yes. Everything depends on what agency. If forest service they don't care what happens to the person but they do care about the vehicle. They are very well maintained. Some of the others have horrible maintenance. Some others vary by individual field office.

Sounds like you are buying from an individual or lot not a government auction? If so there is a 99.9999999999% (ok, it's actually 100%!) chance those are not actual miles. I've had over 500 cars and there are people (especially certain ethic groups I won't name other than to say "Slavic") and the first thing they do is check carfax to see last reported mileage and then add onto that whatever they think they can get away with. It takes minutes for them. And it changes apparent value of cars by thousands of dollars. I avoid those like the plague cuz if you know they are lying to you you can't trust anything else regarding the vehicle. I prefer people to be honest and I don't waste my time dealing with bottom feeders. Note I know nothing of the truck or person you are buying from so don't take it to mean an attack on them or it. Just be extremely wary of too-good-to-be-true mileage.

If you can talk to the original owner (or in this case call the maintenance manager for the government agency with the Vin who can give you detailed history) then you have a chance of getting the straight scoop. I'm most cases there is a MASSIVE amount of money to be made for them for very little work (in most cases no work because specialist come around and roll back odometers of their cars all at once).

A couple months ago I saw a classic Mercedes for sale at a major dealer for over $10k. Dealer ad said it had 87,000 miles. I used to own that car (it has some unique features - one being a small dent in an unusual location that I put there- that make me 100% sure and there are only a few of them around). I bought that car for $1600 and it had 267,000 miles on it when I bought it. Interior was like new. This was one of the largest used car dealers in Portland. They all do it. These guys even removed the 100,000 badges from the grille and you could see the outline in oxidation on the grille from where they used to be. I compared it to my pics when they were still on there and they were in exactly the same place! For newer computerized cars there are scanners that can tell you the actual mileage that is different from the digital odometer.

Gunbuggy · Oct 3, 2022

ilikegunspdx said:
Yes. Everything depends on what agency. If forest service they don't care what happens to the person but they do care about the vehicle. They are very well maintained. Some of the others have horrible maintenance. Some others vary by individual field office.

Sounds like you are buying from an individual or lot not a government auction? If so there is a 99.9999999999% (ok, it's actually 100%!) chance those are not actual miles. I've had over 500 cars and there are people (especially certain ethic groups I won't name other than to say "Slavic") and the first thing they do is check carfax to see last reported mileage and then add onto that whatever they think they can get away with. It takes minutes for them. And it changes apparent value of cars by thousands of dollars. I avoid those like the plague cuz if you know they are lying to you you can't trust anything else regarding the vehicle. I prefer people to be honest and I don't waste my time dealing with bottom feeders. Note I know nothing of the truck or person you are buying from so don't take it to mean an attack on them or it. Just be extremely wary of too-good-to-be-true mileage.

If you can talk to the original owner (or in this case call the maintenance manager for the government agency with the Vin who can give you detailed history) then you have a chance of getting the straight scoop. I'm most cases there is a MASSIVE amount of money to be made for them for very little work (in most cases no work because specialist come around and roll back odometers of their cars all at once).

A couple months ago I saw a classic Mercedes for sale at a major dealer for over $10k. Dealer ad said it had 87,000 miles. I used to own that car (it has some unique features - one being a small dent in an unusual location that I put there- that make me 100% sure and there are only a few of them around). I bought that car for $1600 and it had 267,000 miles on it when I bought it. Interior was like new. This was one of the largest used car dealers in Portland. They all do it. For newer computerized cars there are scanners that can tell you the actual mileage that is different from the digital odometer.

Thanks dude lot of great info here. I'd like to pick your brain. So yes it shows on the Carfax it was sold by auction. The lot who has the rig told me which auction it was bought from so ill call them next. All I have as far as proof of mileage is what the Carfax says and what the photos of dash show in the dealer photos which match. You're saying you think (or at least there's a possibility) that milage could have been altered?

I'm gonna copy the link and I want you to let me know what you think.

2009 FORD F250 SUPER DUTY Alpine Motors | Dealership in MILWAUKIE

We've just added a new vehicle to our inventory and it is now available to purchase. For more information please, visit our website or call us @ (503) 850-6946

www.alpinemotorspdx.com

And just to be clear I'm not a sucker who believes everybody and trust dealers. I'm just a guy who has new vehicles that also is in the market for a used older truck so I'm not in any rush and there's a reason I've been searching for over a year. I'm pretty picky. But this one seemed to be a good match

ilikegunspdx · Oct 3, 2022

Gunbuggy said:
Thanks dude lot of great info here. I'd like to pick your brain. So yes it shows on the Carfax it was sold by auction. The lot who has the rig told me which auction it was bought from so ill call them next. All I have as far as proof of mileage is what the Carfax says and what the photos of dash show in the dealer photos which match. You're saying you think (or at least there's a possibility) that milage could have been altered?

I'm gonna copy the link and I want you to let me know what you think.

2009 FORD F250 SUPER DUTY Alpine Motors | Dealership in MILWAUKIE

We've just added a new vehicle to our inventory and it is now available to purchase. For more information please, visit our website or call us @ (503) 850-6946

www.alpinemotorspdx.com

And just to be clear I'm not a sucker who believes everybody and trust dealers. I'm just a guy who has new vehicles that also is in the market for a used older truck so I'm not in any rush and there's a reason I've been searching for over a year. I'm pretty picky. But this one seemed to be a good match

I'll tell you what I would do if it were me and I was really interested in the truck. Call either a good independent shop (ideadly one that that specializes in Ford trucks or at least fords but note that most anyone can work on fords so specializing is probably not that critical) or a Ford dealer and ask them if their scanner can get the actual miles, even if the odometer has been changed.

You want to get detail here on the scanner and/or scanning process and be convinced they can do it and have done it in the past. Some shops will say they can just to get the job. An honest shop will tell you if they can't.

Once you find one that can do that, pay for a pre-purchase inspection. It's a lot of $ for the truck so it's a small amount of $ for the inspection and $ well spent imo. The pre purchase inspection will likely catch any other wear items that don't match the mileage. You might hear: "I've been working on these for years and it looks like it has x miles to me", or "the wear on component X shows there's no way it's 10k miles" etc. So that way you are relying on both an experienced mechanic and the scan tool. Imo that will leave little doubt one way or the other. Also if any hidden gotchas exist a good shop will find them.

If I had more time I would dig up a YouTube video where the mechanic used a high end scan tool to get all the info from the computer and it showed on the computers deep memory 130k or whatever as the actual mileage and the odometer said 81k as I recall. I bet $ if a person pulled a carfax on that car it would be a bit less than 81k. A lot of times the dealers have these scan tools, or again knowledgeable independent shops. You don't want basic scan tools to get this info. I don't know specifically about ford in those years how the data is stored or anything like that but the dealer or good indy shop should tell you if they can get the real mileage or not. Cheers!

Flopsweat · Oct 3, 2022

Many years ago I bought an EPA car at auction. It's probably the best deal I've ever gotten on a car. It had clearly been maintained well and was in great shape for its age. Nobody was bidding on it, probably because of the color and some spray paint up one side of it. I paid $350 for probably a couple thousand dollars' worth of car. The spray paint came off easier than I expected.

Gunbuggy · Oct 3, 2022

ilikegunspdx said:
I'll tell you what I would do if it were me and I was really interested in the truck. Call either a good independent shop (ideadly one that that specializes in Ford trucks or at least fords but note that most anyone can work on fords so specializing is probably not that critical) or a Ford dealer and ask them if their scanner can get the actual miles, even if the odometer has been changed.

You want to get detail here on the scanner and/or scanning process and be convinced they can do it and have done it in the past. Some shops will say they can just to get the job. An honest shop will tell you if they can't.

Once you find one that can do that, pay for a pre-purchase inspection. It's a lot of $ for the truck so it's a small amount of $ for the inspection and $ well spent imo. The pre purchase inspection will likely catch any other wear items that don't match the mileage. You might hear: "I've been working on these for years and it looks like it has x miles to me", or "the wear on component X shows there's no way it's 10k miles" etc. So that way you are relying on both an experienced mechanic and the scan tool. Imo that will leave little doubt one way or the other. Also if any hidden gotchas exist a good shop will find them.

If I had more time I would dig up a YouTube video where the mechanic used a high end scan tool to get all the info from the computer and it showed on the computers deep memory 130k or whatever as the actual mileage and the odometer said 81k as I recall. I bet $ if a person pulled a carfax on that car it would be a bit less than 81k. A lot of times the dealers have these scan tools, or again knowledgeable independent shops. You don't want basic scan tools to get this info. I don't know specifically about ford in those years how the data is stored or anything like that but the dealer or good indy shop should tell you if they can get the real mileage or not. Cheers!

Great info. My local guy in my less than large town is a Ford guy and he wrenched on My ranger and on My b2300 Mazda (same motor as the 4cyl ranger) and I already have a voice-mail with him. For this specific vehicle milage fraud doesn't seem to be an issue but we will see. My main issue is service and maintenance. If this same truck for the same price went for sale with 150k on the clock, with detailed carfax, I wouldn't even be posting this. My real main concern is being 12 years old with no history and only 1 year worth of miles lol.

ilikegunspdx · Oct 4, 2022

Another indicator you can look at fwiw is the tires. Date code should be 2009 and should look like correct amount of wear. Mechanic can look at brakes pads and other stuff of course so that's great that you are getting the inspection.

https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=11&ef_id=CjwKCAjws--ZBhAXEiwAv-RNL6fqXg-AUqmCSgR9khpLuz9PtW060bFi7OOvSr64uTlXwCQfgsoaihoCwnQQAvD_BwE:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!3756!3!354820920605!e!!g!!tire%20age%20code&gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=CjwKCAjws--ZBhAXEiwAv-RNL6fqXg-AUqmCSgR9khpLuz9PtW060bFi7OOvSr64uTlXwCQfgsoaihoCwnQQAvD_BwE

Gunbuggy · Oct 4, 2022

ilikegunspdx said:
Another indicator you can look at fwiw is the tires. Date code should be 2009 and should look like correct amount of wear. Mechanic can look at brakes pads and other stuff of course so that's great that you are getting the inspection.

https://m.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=11&ef_id=CjwKCAjws--ZBhAXEiwAv-RNL6fqXg-AUqmCSgR9khpLuz9PtW060bFi7OOvSr64uTlXwCQfgsoaihoCwnQQAvD_BwE:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!3756!3!354820920605!e!!g!!tire%20age%20code&gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=CjwKCAjws--ZBhAXEiwAv-RNL6fqXg-AUqmCSgR9khpLuz9PtW060bFi7OOvSr64uTlXwCQfgsoaihoCwnQQAvD_BwE

Makes sense so I'd assume what you're getting at is if the date code on tires is like 2015 there'd be concern of milage tampering yeah? Like why did you need new tires in 2015 when the car has less than 10 miles

CamoDeafie · Oct 4, 2022

Gunbuggy said:
Makes sense so I'd assume what you're getting at is if the date code on tires is like 2015 there'd be concern of milage tampering yeah? Like why did you need new tires in 2015 when the car has less than 10 miles

Could be 2 things. 1. Dry rotted tires (happens more than you'd think in PNW). 2. Something happened between old set of tires (stolen? Swapped wheels? Slashed?) And thus new set of tires put on.

Flopsweat · Oct 4, 2022

CamoDeafie said:
Could be 2 things. 1. Dry rotted tires (happens more than you'd think in PNW). 2. Something happened between old set of tires (stolen? Swapped wheels? Slashed?) And thus new set of tires put on.

If they're newish but the tread is halfway down, look for other signs. I've had salesmen tell me a car has 80,000 miles on it and then hand me a key that's nearly worn out.