Mike Andes presents a quick tour of a newly acquired, inexpensive pickup bought for the Mount Vernon location of his landscaping business. He explains the strategy of buying cheap trucks and repainting them to look good, describes this truck’s specs and intended uses (cleanups, towing a small dump trailer, trailerless mowing), and notes maintenance and outfitting details. Key specifics in this chunk: the truck is a 2007 Ford F-150 XLT with about 123,000 miles; it’s being fitted with trailer brakes for a 5x10 dump trailer (dual 3,500 lb axles, 7,000 lb capacity) purchased from Link’s Trailer in Linden; paint cost ~ $900; small adhesive labels cost about $0.70 each.
Questions this video answers
2007 Ford F-150 XLT
123,000 miles
5 by 10 (5x10) dump trailer
7,000 pounds
Dual axle — two 3,500 lb axles
Chapters
Hey, everyone, it's Mike. Landscapebusinesscourse.com today I'm showing you a truck that we just got painted. And it's actually our second truck for the Mount Vernon location. So if you watched the last video, you saw that we are moving into a new shop area there. And are expanding in our second location there. So this is our second truck. It's a pretty cheap truck. As most of you know, I'm a big believer in buying cheap trucks, Painting them so they look pretty good. But the cheap truck has 123,000 miles on it. The tires are pretty good. It's wired for a trailer and everything. However we are getting. The reason I'm here at this trailer place is to get the brakes, the trailer brakes put on here. And the reason we are having that done, it's an extended cab. The reason we're having that done is because we are getting a 5 by 10 dump trailer. So a lot of you are like, well, I thought you only do trailer setups. Yes, but dump trailers are amazing things. They're great for cleanups. Any sort of bush trimming, as well as, like small little mulch installs or gravel installs. So we got a 5x10. It has 7,000 pound capacity. So it has two. It's a dual axle. And it has two 3,500 pound axles on it. And it's the same color as this and same yellow. And we get it from here at link's trailer in Linden. So I want to show you really quickly around the truck. And see one mistake they actually made at the graphics place is they followed this angle. And really, they should have done it this way. So kind of a mess up on their end. They're going to put me a new one and give it to me next on the next truck. Whenever we get the next truck, they're just going to give it to me. We get these labels that say P2 on here. Actually, I think I got them inside. Yeah, we put all of our labels on our trucks. And so this is pickup number two for the Mount Vernon location. So we just do these pretty cheap. I think 70 cents a piece. Do them on both sides of the truck to label them. You can see 123,000 miles on this truck. Again, you guys know me. Cheap trucks. But when you paint them, they look pretty good. This is not a fancy truck, by no means, but we don't need to be fancy. You know, a half ton pickup can pull a 5 by 10 dump trailer. And it can have a trailer set up and Have a rack and all that good stuff. So this is the truck. Nothing fancy. I think it's a 2007 F150XLT.
Tires are pretty good. Pretty good tire tread on it. This is what it looks like. This is a regular cab, six and a half foot. And this will be mostly used for cleanups as well as towing around the little dump trailer. So that's all. Nothing fancy. But again, we did not spend $50,000 for the truck we bought. We now have. We've never lost a truck. A lot of people like, well, if you buy them new, they last like a long time. Literally. I've never had a truck go down. You do good preventative maintenance. You paint them up, take good care of them, and you make sure that you're continually checking them when they're not broken. Like just having a mechanic do a diagnostic. Having a mechanic just take a look at everything every once in a while. So, yeah, I just wanted to show you the truck. Show you. This is where we, you know, right now it's getting its trailer brakes. I have the controller set up for the trailer brakes. But it does have a seven pin setup on it already here on the back of the truck. So, yeah, pretty clean looking truck. And again, the reason we got it so cheap is because couple little things. Look at this little guy. A little dent there. There used to be a scratch here. But again, paint, you can't tell a single thing. There's a couple other scratches, but you can't even tell anymore. There's nothing you can't tell. So again, if you're going to paint your truck, you know, I think to paint this one cost about 900 bucks. But I probably saved about a thousand dollars because the few dents and scratches on it. And it's nothing special, but it will pull a 5x12, 5x10 trailer and it will do a trailerless mowing setup. And that's all we need. So that's truck number two. And we'll continue to grow down in Mount Vernon. Take care everyone. Have a great day.
