My Career Ends......kind of

Last June and I know that's 9 months ago, I bought a truck from an old from of mine in the car business. Over the years I'd bought quite a few vehicles from this gentleman and made quite a few bucks off of them. This vehicle was an old work truck, with a 1 ton rating, making it very desirable as work trucks go. In any other setting, a 1 ton truck under $5000 would be like money in the bank, so to speak, but there is just one thing I forgot to take into consideration. There is NO CONSTRUCTION going on in the valley of the sun, Phoenix, Arizona currently. Once I realized my error, I figured it would take just a little longer to market. Last week, through "Davine Intervention", that transaction finally took place. I took the liberty of advertising my truck in the Auto Trader and paid the extra $25, so the ad would run for a full year. That happened in January. The deal went something like this.


I received an email from a gentleman that left his email address, telephone number and name for me and wanted to know if the truck were still available. I wrote him back that it was indeed. I told him I'd call him tomorrow, since it was too late in the evening tonight. The following day I did precisely that. He started off by telling me he was looking for a truck, as a gift for his soon to be 18 year old son. I stopped him short and explained that this was not a truck for a child's gift, it was more of a work truck and has had a hard life. Now you may not believe me, but I've been doing this long enough to know you can't make a size 10 foot, fit into a size 6 shoe. In other words, if I had a son that was having a birthday, I certainly would not buy him a purse and matching shoes, because he clearly would not want those items. He also would not want an old work truck to show off to his high school friends. It would waste my time, as well as everyone elses. I explain all this in detail, without the reference to his son wearing a purse and shoes, of course. That was just for us on the blog. He counters with, "I'd like to see it anyway". I'm flabbergasted, I actually took the phone away from my ear and looked at it, like a dog that heard a strange noise!


The following day, as arranged, I'm down at the old lot with a bucket, soap and a towel, full knowing that the truck is going to destroyed from rainy weather. I wash it and the old girl looks pretty good for an old work truck. Nothing I can do will remove the pitting from hail, that the roof suffered. It's got plain old tires and factory work wheels, absolutely nothing fancy. One thing I'd like to note, is that it ran better than any truck I'd driven in a long time, in spite of the fact that it showed an amazing 177,000 hard miles on the odometer. Even though it did not smell from cigarette smoke, it did have a couple of cigarette burns on the seat and was missing one visor completely. I'd had the tail gate repainted, as it was all chipped up and it passed emissions, of course.

Right on time, Ken pulls up in his Porsche 911, black convertible and all I can do is laugh. I'm thinking I haven't got a snow ball's chance in hell of selling this old beat up truck to a guy driving a fancy sports car like his. This is the worst possible scenario! With a smile on my face from laughing, Ken just thinks I'm a friendly guy. We chat for a time and he explains he just got the Porsche for his birthday. A gift for himself and now he's looking for some piece of shit for his kid. I'm starting to dislike Ken, just a little. We take it for a ride and Ken asks me if it's dependable. Frankly, it is. I would leave it sitting for months at a time and it always starts right up. He looks at the engine like he knew what he was looking at, but he didn't. He moves into chisel mode. I watch it happen before my very eyes. One minute he's a big successful executive driving a Porsche 911 and the next he can't afford full price. It happens every time! I felt like crying when he finished his sob story. He makes me an offer a full $500 less than I'm asking and I'm so anxious to sell the mother, that I merely say, YES! Ken was even shocked. One of the things I learned at UCU, Used Car University , was to never let the buyer think he offered too much by accepting his offer. So I told him a made up story about how I was losing about $1800 on it, after making a loan to a friend. I don't even think he was listening. The following day he and his wife along with his son, driving a Hummer H-2 in bright red pull up. His son was extremely shy and couldn't make eye contact and kept his hands in his pockets the entire time. Ken paid me and they all left and now I'm officially out of business........... kind of!