How I Buy USED Trucks on Craigslist for My Landscape Business - Mike Andes

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes from Landscape Business Course. Today I'm going to be doing a live video screen recording, as you can see here. And I'm actually going to show that you can actually buy a truck for 15 or $20,000. That's good. That will last you five, 10 years in your business. No problem. I'm making this video because my last video I talked about a comparison of buying a brand new $70,000 truck versus a used $15,000 truck that, yes, you have to put some maintenance into over time. So watch that video beforehand and then come and watch this video where I'm actually going to prove that it is possible to buy a truck that's decent. You can work using your landscape or construction business and it still work really well. And from a financial standpoint, give you the cash to spend more money on hiring better people, giving them more money, therefore attracting better talent, retaining better talent, being able to do advertising and grow your business via marketing channels. Okay, so let's dive into this. My only point I want to make today is that for 15 or $20,000, you can get a good truck. You do not need to buy a brand new vehicle, go into a whole bunch of debt. You don't need to go that route. Okay? This is for the young person, the person that's growing their business very quickly, that thinks they only can buy brand new and pay a bunch of financing charges and all the rest of it. Let's dive into it. Before we do, though, let me make it very clear. Our local shops, the ones that are close to me here, we have about 20 vehicles. Out of those 20 vehicles over the past seven years, we've replaced one. Wait, let me. One engine and two transmissions. So in all, about $16,000 we have spent on big fixes. Everything else has been like tires, brakes, oil, really basic stuff. But that's the truth. In my last video analysis, I actually assumed that the whole, like, every vehicle had yet to replace an engine, a transmission engine and the suspension. And it still made three times as much sense to get a used vehicle over a brand new vehicle. But let me go ahead and show here that you can get a new vehicle or used vehicle for a good price on Craigslist. I know Facebook Marketplace is also another option. Now, I literally just walked over my computer and I'm going to randomly choose cities. I'm going to start with my location because I know my location pretty good. Then I'm going to go to like, somewhere in the middle of the United States and then probably somewhere to the east coast. We'll just use the whole craigslist worldwide or United States thing or whatever. We'll figure out a way to like get a couple random places. And I promise you within a few hours drive of you, you're gonna hit one of these, one of these markets. Okay. So we're in Bellingham, Washington. That's where I live specifically. I already know in Bellingham there's not any good trucks. I already know that. But Seattle's close by. It's two hours away. Yes. You might have to drive a couple hours in order to save thousands of dollars. It's very bad. So let's go ahead and just assume I want to get a 1500 truck. You know what, let's go back to here. Let's go to cars and trucks.

Okay. Now for me personally, I like to go through used vehicles. So I go the owner tab only. All right. Picking up some stuff I really don't want. So we could go to the type of vehicle. Let's go to truck pickup and truck. And then I do other. Just in case people have not selected something. Alright. So these are the trucks I'm looking at. I know I'm gonna paint these vehicles. So I don't really care about the paint job. I'm gonna have to spend a thousand dollars on a brand new paint job, get decals and all the rest of it on it anyways. So I'm just scrolling through here. I don't really like a 2004. It's kind of old again. That's for me. I know for some of you might be good at mechanical. Like you're not. You're going to be able to spend a lot less because you're able to fix things. I'm not good at mechanics. I can't handle fixing, fixing little things all the time because I'm just not good at it. So my businesses locally have never gotten older. Really old trucks, like 80s, 90s. It's not happening. Like I could never get this with a good conscience because I just don't know if I could fix anything. So for me personally, I'm just kind of scrolling through here. We have $24,000 for 1500. A little much for me. I don't like to spend that much money on a truck. Let's see here. This one looks pretty good. It's an extended cab 2004. So not a little bit old. It has quite a few miles. 150,000 miles. You'd only get probably five years out of this thing before. Yeah, I don't Even haven't even read this. It got a whole bunch of new stuff on rebuild motor. Don't really like that. I don't really like rebuild titles. So here's a 1500. It's going to be a two wheel drive, it looks like. Yeah, real wheel drive, eight cylinders, 184. Too high of miles. Don't really want that.

All right. I'm looking for a long bed. I like the long bed too. Just because we bag our clippings. So for example, this is a 2019, 1500, 32,000. Too much. Way too much money. Oh, look at this. Oh, you know, this is the one I looked at the other day. Yes. Let's go. Okay, so the funny thing about this is that we are looking for trucks. And this is a truck that I'm looking at trying to buy. Actually I think I emailed this guy and trying to set it. Yeah, this is the guy. He has a. His title coming in a couple weeks in the mail because he had lost it. So. Yeah, you got a ding here in the front. Little bit of damage there. But other than that, 2014, long bed, four wheel drive, which you know, don't necessarily need a mowing truck. But if you're gonna do landscaping and pull a trailer, probably want four wheel drive. Looks clean. Got leather seats. Let's go. It's only six years old. Okay, that. That's a bit of a ding here. Let's pull this up here. Let's see if this is actually. Okay. So if I paint over that, it's not gonna. It's gonna look. Whatever. I might put some have the. When they do the paint, I just have them fill this all in with filler and then paint over it. Look, you know, you wouldn't even notice it. Okay, so 100,000 miles. You got at least eight to ten years on this thing before anything major. Let's see here. Carfax cool work truck. Four wheel drive, V8, 5.3. All new tires, all terrain tires. They got dash cams, comes with the hitch. Check. Engine light is for the. That's pretty normal. Occasionally the brake assist state. Yeah, it's pretty normal on these trucks. Small thing. Okay, got it. Okay, cool. This is a cool truck. $14,000. You got 10 years out of this thing. You put a thing of paint over this and like literally it's going to look brand spanking new. That's a gorgeous truck. 14 grand is more than we've spent on any pickup ever. But still, for that type of, you know, you got backup cans, the whole nine Yards really like that truck. Okay, again, we're looking in Seattle. It's a couple hours drive away because close to me, nothing really I'm super interested in because I'm looking for, you know, trucks that, you know, fit into my eight foot bed. I want to have recent decently new, like in the past five, ten years.

All right, I'm looking at 1500s right now. Okay, scrolling through. What's this? This is a nice little, little bit older of a truck. Too many miles. 185,000 miles gets kind of a lot for me. I know there's gonna be issues. Okay, this looks high miles again on this one.

Okay, this one looks kind of cool. 2007. This one's pretty cool. What's this? Extended cab, four wheel drive, 173,000 miles. Okay. But only 11 grand. Not bad. Not bad. Has a crew cab on it too. Okay, not bad. Definitely can get some good miles out of this. You got a new transmission 20,000 miles ago. They have the receipt for it, which is kind of cool. Got Carfax vincheck. Okay, got it. Very cool. All right, so again, these are trucks I wouldn't even probably buy because they're so expensive. I'm looking for usually around $10,000. So 11,000. Wants so bad, but a little bit high on miles. I usually want like 150,000 miles if I'm going to be spending nine or ten grand under that, you know. So. Okay, so that's one market just to kind of show you. Let's assume. Okay, Well, I need 2500s. I need three quarter ton pickups. Okay, let's do 25 again. You can see in my local market, really not a whole lot there. You know, this truck looks half decent here. This 2500, only 76,000 miles. Low miles. Let's go. Okay, cool. A little bit older of a truck, 2002. So really going to depend on how they, how they used it. Has the tool bed on there. So if you're looking for like irrigation truck, landscaping truck, great. You know, miles really low. Simple truck to work and fix on. There's all your toolboxes. We're looking at 14 grand. You can again, this is craigslist. You need to haggle with these people. This has been on here for 30 days. I could get this for 12 grand. A little bit of haggling. Get this thing for 12 grand. Let's say, for example, you know, at 76,000 miles, it looks pretty good on the inside. You know, if you had to change the engine out in a few Years, like, it's not a big deal. It's five grand, you know, so looks really good, clean. 14,000. Best offer. I'm offering 12 grand cash today, basically. All right, so that'd be kind of like a landscaping trick that I might entertain Again, I've never spent 14,000. These are not great deals. I would not buy these deals. These are deals that I'm just literally randomly finding. Okay, so let's go back to Craigslist again. I have not done this before or tried to like, look at certain cities. Let's just go to US Cities and I choose one of these randomly. So let's do something like middle of the. Of the. Of this of the country. Like, like, I guess Houston would be good. Houston, Texas. Okay, let's go to cars and trucks. I have not done this before, so let's. I could be wrong. Let's see if I'm wrong. All right, let's do a 1500 truck again. I know if you like Ford, you can do F150s. I'm just using 1500s as an example. Okay, so I'm searching through here. These kind of some older trucks. I can set some parameters here. Like, okay, I don't want to see anything over 20,000 is just too much money. And I don't really want to see anything like 2000 before. 2000. Like, definitely it's 20 years old. Personally, I'm not gonna fix anything on it. So. All right, now we're looking at these things. I'm looking. I like a long bed. I like the space to be able to haul debris. Clippings, brush tools. Have a toolbox on there if I need to. So that's what I'm kind of looking for. Okay, this is. Now this is interesting. This is going to be a high mileage vehicle. I almost guarantee at 211,000 miles. Super low, cheap, super low cost there, but too too many miles. Okay, this might be a good estimate vehicle is $10,000 truck. Good estimate vehicle. If I'm just driving around using an office. It's a short bed, short cat going to be good on. Ooh, this. I like this. Oh, 180,000 miles. It's kind of high mileage, but for 65,000. $6,500. Let's see. Your truck has cool. Ooh, leather. Okay, Looking pretty good inside. I really like standard cabs. This is a two wheel drive. This would be a great mo truck. If you put like a ramp rack or a trailerless setup, this would be great. A little bit high miles, like, you know, five years, you're going to be pushing 20, 200, 20,000 miles. But again, if you have to change out the transmission, you know, it's not like this is a huge, huge deal. I like this truck. $6,500. You know, I would prefer this to be a one. 160,000. 160,000 miles. In terms of this price, if I'm paying 10,000, usually I'm trying to get under a hundred thousand miles for a mowing. Mowing vehicle. Oh, look at this one guy. This guy already got some racks on it. Oh, looks like this is a dealer of some sort. Has 153,000 miles. 13,000 four wheel drive. Let's go. And it's got that Z71. Let's go. Okay. Ooh, nice tires. It already has, like, you can do a trailer setup or it's ready to go. My goodness. This is a great deal. I would buy this deal. 153,000 miles, four wheel drive. It could pull a trailer if you needed it to. Nothing super heavy, but it's four wheel drive. And it could pool. Has an extended cab. It has a long bed. And all this racking on the back is worth, to me, probably, you know, three grand with that toolbox above and everything. I like this deal. I really like this deal. That might be a mow and go system. It looks something like a mowing go system. It looks homemade, but I like that. That's a deal right there. That is a good mowing truck. Slash light landscaping truck. Okay. Let's look at a larger vehicle. This is like a 3500 larger truck. Okay. Whoa. I just saw a good deal. Sorry. I saw. I saw $6,000. I have to look at this thing. See, this is the kind of deals I like. 150,000 transmissions, manual. I don't like manual transmissions for work trucks. It's too hard to train. Guys, this is gonna be. This could be a good mowing truck if it was an automatic, but a manual. It's a V6, so it can only do mowing. But it's. It's the manual part that kills me. If that was a. A. If that was an automatic truck, I'd be all over it. Has a liner in there. Looks clean. Really nice. I'd be all over that. Sorry. The $6,000 right here caught my eye. So. All right, let's try a bigger truck. Let's try like a 3500.

Okay. So these are usually going to be sometimes dually. So you got to keep this in mind, too, in terms of Maintenance costs, things like that down the road. Okay, so this is an older dually. It's 15 grand. I don't like that. Has a lean on the status of the title. This just doesn't look like a nice truck. And in terms of what, you know, too much words. Too many words is not going to be good for me usually. All right, let's look at this truck here. Okay. This looks almost too good to be true, this one. I don't know if I believe this unless Texas is just really cheap. 140,000 miles.

Eight cylinders, 3,500 with a toolbox on it. And it's only 15 grand. I guess that could work. It's only two wheel drive. Yeah. So maybe that would work. Okay. Yeah. Like, there's your $15,000 work truck. You know, it's 2012, has 136,000 miles on it. You're not gonna take it off road. It's only two wheel drive, but it'll haul. I think it's. Is that a dually? I can't tell.

Yeah, it is a dually. Yeah, it is a dually. Look at that. So there's your. There's your work truck. You know, if you want to pull a bunch of weight, you say, well, I need a diesel. Okay, well, let's look at this bad boy. This one has a lot of miles, 220,000 miles. But for everyone that likes diesel, they would say there's nothing. It's just getting broken in. So, you know, $14,000 up in Cyprus, just north of Houston there. Looking pretty clean. Again, high mileage for. I would do, but if you're a little more mechanically inclined, you could probably go for a truck like that. Let's see, these are bigger trucks. Remember, these are 3,000 5002. This is going to be something wrong with it.

There's no way. This only has a hundred thousand miles on it. Something's got to be wrong. It looks like it's been custom in the bed, which a lot of times means that it's been an accident. But it says clean title again. This one looks too good to be. Again, like Texas could just be a lot cheaper and I could be wrong. But nine grand for a truck that only has a hundred thousand miles and is a dually flatbed with that grill on it. I don't know if I believe the hundred thousand mile thing, so could be wrong there too. But again, Texas could be just way cheaper. Let's look at. I'm still looking at big trucks in Texas. Let's look at this. Okay. I want to. I want a big truck that's a little bit newer. $14,000. Oh, it's high miles. It's too many miles on a gas. Oh, this is a diesel truck. Oh, there's your diesel again. If that's what you like. Okay. Okay. So this one's a little more hard to find a bigger truck. That's gas. I like gas. Here's a 25 heavy duty. It's a diesel as well. Has 200,000 miles. A little high mileage. Not a huge fan. Let's see here. I like this one here. What's this gonna be high mileage as well? Probably. I can't read Spanish. Sorry. I wonder how many miles is on this truck. It's only 12 grand for a dually diesel. Pretty cool. All right, well, there's Houston. All right, let's try someone else on the east coast. Let's go back to craigslist. US Cities.

East coast. Let's go somewhere. East coast. Let's go like. Let's do Boston. Boston, Boston. Cars and trucks. Here we go again. Owner. Let's do our. We don't want to spend more than two. Well, odometer. No, no, no. I want to price max $20,000. Let's do model year. We don't want to go super old and we're owner. Okay, cool. Let's roll. Oh, we're doing cars. Okay, let's do 1500 again. We're in Boston on the east coast. Okay. This truck is gonna have too many miles. 199,000 scrolling through here. Just looking. I'm looking for that long bed kind of a work truck. This is a cheap one. Has a plow on it already. I don't like if people have been using it for plowing usually, but 136000 miles. This is going to be. Is pretty well used, it looks like with the whole plow. Yep, there's some rust going on. Yeah, this is a cheap truck. I would not spend much for this truck. I got rust. They've been plowing and salting. It's going to be beat up. Look underneath the, you know, engine, see if there's a ton of rust, things like that going on. Got 15 grand for this year. That looks pretty good truck. They're 94000 miles. Not bad. I would never spend $15,000 in this truck. You're paying for the little accoutrements here of the steps and these beautiful tires and all that rest of it. But hey, four wheel drive. 1500 less than 10 years old. Got at least 15 years in this thing if you treat it right. The original owner. This is a great, great truck. 15 grand. You could easily get this for 14 grand. It's been on the market for a while. Okay, here's like a good mowing truck. 1500 high miles. 180,000 miles over there in Boston. Good little estimate truck there. Short bed and single cab. There's no reason to have a crew cab if you are driving around by yourself all day. Whoa. Now that's something. You never see a Mercedes vehicle with a plow on it. Let's go. Okay, I'm getting off track here. Let's. Let's do a larger truck. Let's do like a kind of a three quarter ton. Come in the middle of the road. We got a bunch of plow trucks. You know, it's winter right now when I'm looking at trucks. Let's see here. So $18,000 for this truck. Only 100,000 miles has a plow on it. This is great. $18,000. I could get this for 16 all day long. Ooh, this is a nice little truck. I'm not gonna. I don't like spending 16 grand on a truck. But it only has 100,000 miles. It can pull a truck or pull a trailer. It could plow. I like this. This is a good work work truck. Like heavier duty stuff. This will pull like a lot of weight like that. A lot. Cool. So there's Boston for you. 2000, five hundreds. See what else we can find here. Ooh, 15 grand. A little bit more than I like to spend, but still, like, I'm just trying to stay in this range of 15 to 20 grand. Based upon the videos I've made in the past, if you keep an eye on things and you're looking all the time, you're gonna be able to find the deals that occasionally come through that are 10, $12,000. I'm literally just doing this off the seat of my pants. This looks like a diesel here. Gas. That's high mileage. 210,000 miles. I don't really like that this person's bought it, though. Since they had 20,000 miles, they've owned it for a long time. I like that one owner thing. Paying for a nice sound system. Looks pretty clean though. You could definitely get some good mileage out of this if you know how to do little fixes. Because after 200,000, it's a lot of little stuff you're fixing all the time. Right. So you're going to end up paying for it. In the little fixes, wiring, fuses, Little stuff like that. So anyways, okay, that was three markers. Let's just try to one more just in case people think I'm just. Let's do something, like, north. Like, let's go US Cities. Let's do, like.

It'S like, let's do something north. D.C. denver, Atlanta. Let's do, like, Atlanta. Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia. Cars and trucks. Okay. Owner. I'm not buying. No. From no dealer model. No. We want to do price $20,000. We're not going to spend more than that model year. I don't want to be less than 2000 because I'm not very good at trucks. And then let's go ahead and look for it. Let's look for a mowing truck over here in Atlanta, Georgia. Okay. Oh, this is my work truck. I love this. I love these trucks. That's kind of high mileage. 7,000. Nah, I don't want that. Like, if I'm gonna pay seven grand, like, I would get this truck because it looks so clean. I would get this truck if I could get it for under five grand. But 198, it's just too many miles Is only gonna be good for a work truck. You know, it's only a V6. I don't like it. It's got to be cheaper. I've got it for like three or four grand. Now we're talking. But it's not. It's not like in five years, the thing's probably gonna have an issue or two. Okay, still looking. Still looking.

That's a nice little trucks me. High mileage probably, though, at that price. Good little estimate truck there. Good little estimate truck there. Okay, I'm looking. I like. Oh, this is a nice truck. See? Good little truck. Under a hundred thousand miles. I don't like rebuilt titles. Not working.

Okay, let's see. See here? Still looking. Still looking. I'm gonna find a good work truck. Don't you mind? Okay, this is a little bit older of a truck. Let's see what we got here. Too many miles. Okay. This market looks a little tough, to be honest with you. Okay. 163,000.

I kind of like. This is a short bed. Is that short bed. I don't like a short bed. I'm paying for tires. In this case. I'm paying for tires. Okay. Keep moving along.

I just want to see if it's a long bed. Ooh, Ooh. This is a good truck. This is a good truck. I like this truck. Yes, yes. This is a good mowing vehicle. All right. V8, eight cylinders. It's not a four wheel drive, so I'm not going to be pulling a bunch of weight or trailers with this bad boy.

I like this. I like this. Under 150,000 miles. Under 10 grand. It's been on the market for 25 days. I can get this for eight grand, no problem. And if I had this for eight years, that's $1,000 a year. That's less than $100 per month cost to own this truck. This is my mowing truck. I like this. 2009. Like that's not too old. It's 10 years old. Got this. No problem. I like this a lot. That's a good. There's my mowing truck in Atlanta. Okay, one more. One more in Atlanta. Let's look for a bigger truck. Let's look for a 3500. A truck that can pull some weight, do some landscaping, hardscaping jobs. Something be wrong with this? Yeah. Too many miles and it's beat up. Yeah, too much. Okay, let's keep looking here. That's gonna be too. You know, if it's too cheap, like if it's under five grand, you already know you're gonna have issues. All right. 16 grand for this truck. 200,000 miles. Not a huge fan of that. I like lower. Keep looking here again, you just got to keep. Stay patient. Keep looking. You know what you're kind of looking for? You can scan this, you know, once a week when you know you're in the market. This is only a two wheel drive. I don't really like that for pulling trailers.

All right, scanning here. Ooh, work truck. This is gonna have a lot of miles on it. How many miles? Yeah, 340,000. That ain't happening. Which gives me hope on those 200,000 mile ones. If they're diesel. Right. Obviously they last a lot longer. Okay, so this is a tough market. This is. I can already tell Atlanta finding a bigger truck is going to be hard. So what I might do then is like, okay, like, let's do an F350 and see if just changing to Ford can get me something else. I know all those people hate Ford are going to say whatever, but in this case, I'm just trying to find a truck that can pool. All right. Oh, look at this little fella. This isn't going to be no four wheel drive, but this, like, I like this. $9,000. Oh, they're smart. Look at them putting the blue book price on here. Yeah, I like this deal. 2012. It's not going to be four wheel drive, but it's going to have an engine do some pooling on it. Okay. Yeah, I see you, huh? 172,000 miles. Gonna get a good solid five years out of this without any issues if I take good care of it. An F350, it's only two wheel drive. I don't like that on my bigger trucks when I'm pulling weight like this is not going to be pulling anything crazy heavy. It's just not built for it. Right. But again, it's $9,000 and I could probably get it for eight. You know, it has a carfax on it. So, you know, you get a clean truck, a work truck here, let's see what this thing is pulling. Ooh, ooh, look at this. Here's your work truck. Again, not a four wheel drive, but you got a box on the back. Like, literally, if you bought this, a box like this brand new, you're looking at $10,000. Just for the box. Just for the box. You're paying 10 grand, let alone for the truck. Only 104,000 miles. I love it. I love it. This will last you 10 years, no problem.

Even if you have to change out some suspension or whatever on this back axle and you got 30 days on the market, you could easily get this for 7,500 all day. I like it. So anyways, I can do this all day long. It's not. I have a pretty simplistic way of looking at trucks. I know for some of you, you're very dedicated and loyal to certain brands for certain reasons because of the engines and things like that. I don't even know that stuff. And so I can't even filter out by, oh, it has to be this brand or this size of engine. I don't even know those things. However, like I said, using some common sense and price ranges, you can really determine, okay, like if I bought this, this truck for eight grand and something bad went hat went out on it, like the transmission blew out at 140,000 miles. I could put a brand new transmission it, spend five grand more and get another five years out of it. So, yeah, like, this is, this is kind of how I look for trucks. And I promise you, you can look in your market and if you're like, well, there's nothing in Atlanta, well, guess what, you can go out to, I don't know, Chatsworth, drive a couple hours and, you know, spend. Even if you have to drive three or four or five hours to get a truck that you're going to save five grand on like make a weekend out of it. It's a lot of fun. So anyways, hope that was educational, helpful kind of just seeing how I quickly scan through trucks and try to look at them. These are all just random places and I guarantee you within several hours of you if you drive a little bit you can get into a market where there are a lot of trucks, little bit more variety. Like in my market Bellingham, it only has like 80,000 people living there. So yes, I need to travel usually an hour and a half or so two hours to Seattle area to get a wider selection. So just do it. Don't spend $70,000 on a new truck. Buy it used. Buy and buy a good used vehicle and it'll last you and you'll make money. Anyways, thanks so much everyone. I'm Mike Andes, landscapebusinesscourse.com We'll see you next time.