There's a guy near me selling well optioned late-model V8 F150's from a fleet for pretty good prices. They are 2016-2017 model years, but have 150,000+ miles on them. How does the hive feel about this? I've been thinking about moving to a fullsize truck for my 2nd vehicle for tow/haul duty, so probably wouldn't put a ton of miles on one.
Presumably such a new vehicle with so many miles would have seen a lot of highway miles? How do we feel about fleet maintenance?
Depends on the fleet. Were they privately owned or state of federal....
In my experience fleet maintenance is as good as the crew doing it. If they are organized and able to wrangle in the vehicle that needs service they tend to be well maintained. Publicly owned vehicles, also in my experience, tend to be maintained as if they will used forever because who knows when funding will arrive to replace said vehicle. Operator safety is #1 so the stuff that needs to work probably will. Replaced components are usually high quality when available.
YMMV, my .02, etc
Run a Carfax on one and see if it was dealer serviced or ?????
In reply to ShinnyGroove :
How do the prices compare to the Dodges that Fastenal is always selling off?
John Welsh (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to ShinnyGroove :
How do the prices compare to the Dodges that Fastenal is always selling off?
Wow, that's cool. I think I know where I'm buying my next plow truck!
I've had a fleet vehicle of some form or other for decades. These were cars. They are leased through a leasing company like Wheels. Some companies dictate where the services get done (Monro, Firestone, etc) while others are more open (my current Fusion gets serviced at a Ford dealer). Some lease companies are real tightwads when it comes to paying for anything outside the normal oil change and tire rotation. Service intervals also can vary; my current company is ever 5000 while the prior one was 7500. It is up to the driver to get the services done. While you do get reminders if you are going over not everyone considers it an important part of their job.
Think of these as rentals that have had one renter for most of their lives. Some people treat them as their own while others treat them like the ones in "Days Of Thunder".
Our cars are generally treated well. I personally put around 100-150 miles on mine per day. They also spend a lot of time idling running the heat or a/c.
I think off-lease is probably better than a decomissioned rental from Enterprise or Hertz.
In reply to John Welsh (Forum Supporter) :
Wow. Priced similarly but those trucks have way fewer miles. Some of them are still under factory warranty. Thanks for posting!
Yep... too much to guess.
Most fleets have religious maintenance; either because it's the only way to keep track and stay on top of it, or because it is a requirement as part of the lease agreement. You and I might have one DD and we can be a little lax and just remember that we did an oil change a while ago. We put a sticker on the window, but is that an 8 or a 9? And did I put the mileage it was done, or due? Fleets usually just plug things in a computer and when it comes back and logs a certain odometer in the database, it's automatically flagged for LOF, alignment, coolant flush, and transmission pan/filter.
So it really comes down to the fleet. Rental is usually a relatively good bet. They sell them quick so they always have the latest model and prettiest fleet to compete with other companies. Any airtime, drift time, or other abuse that drivers could impart upon them is short-lived and honestly, 90% of rental drivers are "normal" people, not GRMers. Police/Fire/Medical... hard to tell. Many of them drive 3 miles to a scene at full throttle, then sit for 4 hours idling. Mileage can be deceiving. One of the least desirable fleets I've ever been a part of was a Natural Gas company in WV. Those trucks spent 80% of their day off road... which could mean a 1/4 mile gravel road, or a clay-mud crawl up the side of a steep WV mountain, crawling over branches, pushing trees out of the way after you've cut them. Transmission and cooling system stress was a real thing. Not to mention, the layers upon layers of clay that gets built up on the underside just holds moisture and rots things super fast.
I was just looking at a retired city fleet truck from a small town in Ontario. It's job was to be a salt/plow truck in the winter and parks maintenance in the summer. After 30k miles, it looked like a tree had fallen on it and most of the fenders were gone. I'm sure the engine and trans had another 200k in it, but the truck was wasted.
Three years old with 150k sounds like DOT interstate transport of some sort. I doubt they were used for towing unless it was something like a flatbed with sheds on it. Usually transport stuff goes straight to 3/4 up to medium duty like 450s and 550s for the beefiness. Look for shadows from DOT stickers or magnets.
And (IMO) "highway miles" doesn't really mean anything in terms of modern EFI vehicles. It might have meant a very slight difference with a carb if it spent a significant proportion of its life while on-choke, but it doesn't mean squat to me these days. I would almost rather have a low-mileage church-lady car that spent most of its life between 0-15% throttle than something that spent 600 miles a day at 40% throttle fighting wind resistance.
In reply to ShinnyGroove :
Be careful with factory warranties on fleet vehicles. Typically the warranty is shorter termed with less miles allowed. This is often how companies get a break on the purchase price.
Comes down to a lot of little factors. I worked for a pretty big company with fleet F150s. I would never own one of those things afterwards. They were driven very hard, in varied conditions and maintained only when necessary. Most trucks were retired after 2-3 years with 200k+ hard miles.
ShinnyGroove said:In reply to John Welsh (Forum Supporter) :
Wow. Priced similarly but those trucks have way fewer miles. Some of them are still under factory warranty. Thanks for posting!
I'm sure it is here on GRM that I learned about Fastenal selling trucks. I then noticed that on the rear bumper of the trucks they do have some statement about "we sell trucks", similar to how Uhaul has similar. I have never bought one and never known anyone who has had one. Given the way that Fastenal lists them, it seem like it would be possible to go talk to the counter workers of that specific Fastenal branch and just flat out ask the people actaully driving the truck, "is this a good one?"
$20k-$10k for a 2-5 yr old truck with V8 and less than 50k miles seems like a good deal. The trucks seem to be low-spec but maybe not as ultra low spec as the XL trim level on the Fords which are typically crank window and no cruise control. I like my former Ohio DOT truck, The Gov't Mule for it's spartan utility but I do wish it had cruise and power windows.
californiamilleghia said:Run a Carfax on one and see if it was dealer serviced or ?????
In my experience dealer serviced doesn't mean better service than fleet serviced. The companies I've worked for that provided me with their truck took pretty good care of it.
they actually controlled costs better than most private owners do. They kept track of mileage based on the drivers records which were required to be turned in weekly.
Those documents went a long way towards selling the units to buyers at a premium. Repeat buyers were the basis for low operating costs and high sales prices when used up. There are exceptions of course,
My .02, I have worked with a lot of HD truck fleet repair centers and in my experience, they were all well-run and the mechanics were top-notch. Most of the smaller fleets for municipalities that I worked with either went straight to the dealer or had an in-house team that was first-rate. I would trust commercial fleets more than rental cars. Also there are a lot of people who rarely rent cars, so beating on them is fun. For most fleet truck users, its a truck, to do work in, and your boss is paying attention to how you use it.
I have no idea how big Fastenal is but I would not have guessed that they would have 946 trucks for sale at one time!!
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:Yep... too much to guess.
Most fleets have religious maintenance; either because it's the only way to keep track and stay on top of it, or because it is a requirement as part of the lease agreement. You and I might have one DD and we can be a little lax and just remember that we did an oil change a while ago. We put a sticker on the window, but is that an 8 or a 9? And did I put the mileage it was done, or due? Fleets usually just plug things in a computer and when it comes back and logs a certain odometer in the database, it's automatically flagged for LOF, alignment, coolant flush, and transmission pan/filter.
So it really comes down to the fleet. Rental is usually a relatively good bet. They sell them quick so they always have the latest model and prettiest fleet to compete with other companies. Any airtime, drift time, or other abuse that drivers could impart upon them is short-lived and honestly, 90% of rental drivers are "normal" people, not GRMers. Police/Fire/Medical... hard to tell. Many of them drive 3 miles to a scene at full throttle, then sit for 4 hours idling. Mileage can be deceiving. One of the least desirable fleets I've ever been a part of was a Natural Gas company in WV. Those trucks spent 80% of their day off road... which could mean a 1/4 mile gravel road, or a clay-mud crawl up the side of a steep WV mountain, crawling over branches, pushing trees out of the way after you've cut them. Transmission and cooling system stress was a real thing. Not to mention, the layers upon layers of clay that gets built up on the underside just holds moisture and rots things super fast.
I was just looking at a retired city fleet truck from a small town in Ontario. It's job was to be a salt/plow truck in the winter and parks maintenance in the summer. After 30k miles, it looked like a tree had fallen on it and most of the fenders were gone. I'm sure the engine and trans had another 200k in it, but the truck was wasted.
Three years old with 150k sounds like DOT interstate transport of some sort. I doubt they were used for towing unless it was something like a flatbed with sheds on it. Usually transport stuff goes straight to 3/4 up to medium duty like 450s and 550s for the beefiness. Look for shadows from DOT stickers or magnets.
And (IMO) "highway miles" doesn't really mean anything in terms of modern EFI vehicles. It might have meant a very slight difference with a carb if it spent a significant proportion of its life while on-choke, but it doesn't mean squat to me these days. I would almost rather have a low-mileage church-lady car that spent most of its life between 0-15% throttle than something that spent 600 miles a day at 40% throttle fighting wind resistance.
Curtis. My last truck was 20 years old 371,XXX , Mostly highway miles ( some of which was hauling really heavy loads. Actual massive overloads. Crossed the mountains more times than I can remember always hauling a heavy enclosed racing trailer ( my best guess is somewhere around 30 ) and the sweetest running truck right up to the end. It took only $1000 in repairs to get there.
But 80% of those miles were in the first 5 years. And those were pound down the highway and haul a heavy load home.
My point is highway miles are still easier than city miles because the engine is warmed up by the time it gets on the highway and oil is happily splashing around. The hardest thing you do to an engine is start it from cold. If started cold it probably takes 10 miles or more just to get the oil warm enough to splash up all the cylinder walls and slide down all the valves guides.
I drove and maintained a state fleet truck for many years, and I could tell you which ones from our fleet you wanted and which to pass on based solely on who drove them. Most of us were very good about doing our service right and on time.. after all we had to drive the trucks and fix them, so why make more work for ourselves by breaking neglecting them. BUT some of the guys I worked with didn't care one dang bit about neutral dropping into drive from 4000 rpms several times a week/day/month just for fun and or never washing of the road salt. They beat the E36 M3 out of them without a care in the world. Buyer beware.. if you can talk to someone who works there or works on the trucks.. Do it.
dculberson (Forum Supporter) said:I have no idea how big Fastenal is but I would not have guessed that they would have 946 trucks for sale at one time!!
I had given this some thought too. Being that they are advertising right on the trucks that they sell trucks, my guess is they have figured this out as a money maker. I also noticed that a lot of the trucks are 2019's or generally, near new. I think 2019 was the change over year for Ram where they were still making the "Classic" or aka othe old version too. This old version was probably sold cheap to fleets. I'll also bet in that fleet business, volume commitments are a big factor to price. If you agree to 2,000 units that year then the pricing per unit is probably better.
Similar story. The 2007 model of the Ford Taurus was the last year of the old body and in that last year they were only offered to fleets. I had an acquaintance working for Praxair and the company was buying a ton of salesman car Tauruses. To meet the volume commitment, Praxair opened the purchase to employees. The employees could buy a brand new 2007 Taurus for $13,000. Google tells me that MSRP on a 2006 Taurus started at $21,000
I also wonder if Fastenal owns just 946 trucks. Translation: everything is always available for sale.
ShinnyGroove said:In reply to John Welsh (Forum Supporter) :
Wow. Priced similarly but those trucks have way fewer miles. Some of them are still under factory warranty. Thanks for posting!
I concur with the "thanks for posting." I have been looking for a used, but not worn out long-bed truck for the Garden I run... very hard to find and the local dealers still aren't being too flexible on price. These seem reasonable and a few within 1-2 hours of us.
I drove a 2016 F150 Ecoboost for two years. It was a delightful truck, and plenty of my friends have the V8. I like the aluminum body structure -- it felt light years better than my previous 2003 F150. If it was cheap enough I wouldn't worry about mileage. F150 stuff is cheap.
John Welsh (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to ShinnyGroove :
How do the prices compare to the Dodges that Fastenal is always selling off?
Tons of dodge local to me . All 12,000-$17,000. Sub 50K miles. 2014-207 Model year. WOW. Would have never bought the Tacoma in 2017, had I known about this!
I worked for Fastenal for a short time while in grad school. My branch had 5 employees and two pickups. Our customers were mostly auto plants and their suppliers, but we also had industrial construction contractors. For us, a full size pickup was severe overkill, I could have done 99% of the deliveries with my FRS. The trucks were never overloaded, never off road more than a gravel road, didn't tow or plow. We had ours serviced at the local Dodge dealer. The trucks also never went home with employees, so they weren't getting overloaded with topsoil or something on the weekends. I don't know if that's typical for all branches or just the one I worked at, but I think it was a corporate policy.
I would have zero reservations buying one of I was looking for a barebones pickup.
I'm a service tech for a forklift company and we are responsible for the service on our vans. Van doesn't work neither do we. I bought one they were taking out of service about 10 years ago and I still use it to tow my car. Has over 210,000 miles on it, just starting to need some TLC.
frenchyd said:Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:Yep... too much to guess.
Most fleets have religious maintenance; either because it's the only way to keep track and stay on top of it, or because it is a requirement as part of the lease agreement. You and I might have one DD and we can be a little lax and just remember that we did an oil change a while ago. We put a sticker on the window, but is that an 8 or a 9? And did I put the mileage it was done, or due? Fleets usually just plug things in a computer and when it comes back and logs a certain odometer in the database, it's automatically flagged for LOF, alignment, coolant flush, and transmission pan/filter.
So it really comes down to the fleet. Rental is usually a relatively good bet. They sell them quick so they always have the latest model and prettiest fleet to compete with other companies. Any airtime, drift time, or other abuse that drivers could impart upon them is short-lived and honestly, 90% of rental drivers are "normal" people, not GRMers. Police/Fire/Medical... hard to tell. Many of them drive 3 miles to a scene at full throttle, then sit for 4 hours idling. Mileage can be deceiving. One of the least desirable fleets I've ever been a part of was a Natural Gas company in WV. Those trucks spent 80% of their day off road... which could mean a 1/4 mile gravel road, or a clay-mud crawl up the side of a steep WV mountain, crawling over branches, pushing trees out of the way after you've cut them. Transmission and cooling system stress was a real thing. Not to mention, the layers upon layers of clay that gets built up on the underside just holds moisture and rots things super fast.
I was just looking at a retired city fleet truck from a small town in Ontario. It's job was to be a salt/plow truck in the winter and parks maintenance in the summer. After 30k miles, it looked like a tree had fallen on it and most of the fenders were gone. I'm sure the engine and trans had another 200k in it, but the truck was wasted.
Three years old with 150k sounds like DOT interstate transport of some sort. I doubt they were used for towing unless it was something like a flatbed with sheds on it. Usually transport stuff goes straight to 3/4 up to medium duty like 450s and 550s for the beefiness. Look for shadows from DOT stickers or magnets.
And (IMO) "highway miles" doesn't really mean anything in terms of modern EFI vehicles. It might have meant a very slight difference with a carb if it spent a significant proportion of its life while on-choke, but it doesn't mean squat to me these days. I would almost rather have a low-mileage church-lady car that spent most of its life between 0-15% throttle than something that spent 600 miles a day at 40% throttle fighting wind resistance.
Curtis. My last truck was 20 years old 371,XXX , Mostly highway miles ( some of which was hauling really heavy loads. Actual massive overloads. Crossed the mountains more times than I can remember always hauling a heavy enclosed racing trailer ( my best guess is somewhere around 30 ) and the sweetest running truck right up to the end. It took only $1000 in repairs to get there.
But 80% of those miles were in the first 5 years. And those were pound down the highway and haul a heavy load home.
My point is highway miles are still easier than city miles because the engine is warmed up by the time it gets on the highway and oil is happily splashing around. The hardest thing you do to an engine is start it from cold. If started cold it probably takes 10 miles or more just to get the oil warm enough to splash up all the cylinder walls and slide down all the valves guides.
I agree with the cold oil part. My point is that everything in there goes through cycles of duty. A valve moving back and forth in a guide, pistons and pins rapidly reversing their linear motion, etc. They have limits. Not to mention, as throttle openings increase, the forces seen by those parts increases exponentially in relation to the forces required to keep the vehicle in motion. An engine working to move a car at 0-35mph with sustained 40 mph will see exponentially less stress on those parts than a brick trying to cut through air at 70mph.
I'm simply saying that 200k miles at 40mph makes a lot less wear than 200k miles at 70mph.
The old idea that "highway miles" are better was based exactly on both what you mentioned (hot oil) and old flat-tappet cam tech. Flat tappet, in-block cams were entirely lubricated by crank splash, so startups were far more critical. These days with improvements in metallurgy, ring alloys, multi-viscosity oils, roller cams, etc, the whole idea of "highway miles" being better is something that should have died in 1995.
My truck was a "fleet" vehicle for a government contractor. They sold it off at 350k (their internal limit for diesels) with a stack of receipts that I couldn't have been more happy with. It's well used, but the list of things that work exactly as the factory intended is amazing. It may be the only 6.0 psd with stock egr, which was replaced ever 50k 
So.. There is a dealership in St. Cloud that posts Forest Service trucks regularlly..
Frame and body look clean.. Body config is cool. V10 4x4 6spd. They get lots of these green trucks and nice ones by the pictures. If they come from the forest service in Minnesota, I'm not concerned much about being thrashed, as even the wheeling here is pretty mild.. Lots of rough roads, but nothing insane. I imagine they spend most of their time running around to campgroups.
https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/ctd/d/saint-cloud-2008-ford-f350-4x4-reg-cab/7112623443.html
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