How to buy a Cheap Old Truck..........and NOT get Ripped off

how's it going everybody my name is dave whipple and you're watching bush radical over the last two years a lot of people have wanted to get more off grid get more out into the country maybe do a little bit of hobby farming maybe build a cabin in the woods if you're going to make that transition one of the first things you might want to consider is a pickup truck but if you're looking at trucks that were made in the last 20 years the prices right now are the highest they've ever been in that market so it makes a lot of sense to look at an older model truck especially if you're gonna actually use it as a truck hauling animal feed hauling hay hauling firewood hauling building supplies especially in back country where the roads are pretty crappy a good four-wheel drive truck is what you're gonna need but if you're not a mechanic how do you evaluate a pickup truck to make sure that you're getting a good deal and you're not just buying somebody else's problems in junk today on this video i'm going to walk you guys through what i do when i buy a used truck all the things i look for in the way i evaluate to make sure i'm buying something that's worth having and i'm getting a good deal stay tuned [Music] now what i like to do is i like to evaluate everything underneath the truck first and i like to start right at the driver's front tire you're going to want to check the tread of the tire but not only that the condition of the rubber itself see the weather checking on the side see the checking between the tread although this looks like a good tire from 10 feet away once you get up to it and really start taking a look you can see that it's an older tire look for the dot date code on the tire it could be on either the outside or the inside sidewall it's a four digit code and it looks just like this looking at this code i can tell that this tire was made the 39th week of 2003. it might not have been used much and it might still have a lot of tread lift but it's got a lot of age no this is a four wheel drive truck and if it has lockout hubs you're going to want to make sure that both of those lockout hubs move freely and do what they're supposed to now we want to take a look at the shock the spring in the shock tower shock tower has a whole lot of scale rust on it but it appears to be fairly solid i don't think anybody's power washed this thing in ages that's for sure you see how rusty that shock mount is now this is an upper midwest truck so of course what we're looking for is irreparable rust damage the most important thing on any one of these older trucks is the frame itself frame rod is your major concern even on newer trucks there's a lot of problems with frame rot while you're underneath there looking at the frame also look at the floor from the underside and of course we're looking for rot there too you can see right here there's a body plug that's missing salt and dirt and junk gets up in there and it'll rust out right there so we're going to want to do something about this this body panel right here in the extended cab area that's rusted out pretty bad this rust over the fender well that's pretty common this tire is the same brand that's on the front it's probably from the same batch it's probably the same age rust is one thing holes welds repairs that's another thing now at the end of the leaf spring you have this spring hanger these things will rot out on you this one all the paint and stuff is peeling off all the coating that was on there at some point you're going to want to get your hand right up in here and you're going to want to feel if there's any holes in this spring hanger take a look at this rear spring hanger this thing is gone that is that's ready to fail pretty much any time i want to take a look at this rear shock whether it functions or not it's in horrible condition it's got pieces that are falling off the sleeve it's in terrible condition and that needs to be noted while you're in this area too take a look at the gas tank straps this forward tank has one strap that's in good condition and one strap that needs to be replaced here's that rear gas tank i'm not seeing any leaks the straps are pretty rusty and speaking of gas tanks we want to check each one of these fill doors make sure that there's a gas cap on the filler tube now we're going to take a look at the tailgate we're going to see what condition it's in if it's bent up how it functions if it's missing any parts if anything's broken you can see this hanger strap's broken you can see that the taillight lens back here is broken passenger side lens cover looks like it's in good shape notice the sag in the middle of the tailgate there's a little more body rust in that bed corner to note the tailgate hinges look like they're in pretty decent shape not only do you want to make sure the tailgate opens you also want to make sure it closes take a look at the bed looks like it's pretty solid one of the places a pickup is likely to rot out is right over top of the wheel wells and these ones look pretty good moving on to the passenger side of the truck we see the same issue we've got the rust over the back wheel well we've got the rust on this extended cab body panel the rest of the truck looks pretty straight this rear spring hanger is ugly but it's in decent shape tail pipe looks good we have the same type of tire over here this shock's ugly too here's that front spring hanger this one's not in bad condition of course the most important reason why we're down here is we want to take a look at this frame we want to make sure that there's no spots on this frame that are welded i want to make sure there's no holes that aren't factory that aren't supposed to be there we also want to look up underneath the cab itself see how bad the rust is where it starts where it stops that sort of thing i've seen a lot worse here's one of the cab mount this is the rubber mount where the cab mounts to the frame we want to make sure that all of the mounts the bed mounts the cab mounts the front clip mounts i want to make sure that they're all good take a look at the corner of this fender it's in fantastic condition for an old rusty midwest truck pretty substantial dent in that extended cab portion you see the lockout hub on this side is a different brand but it works fine we're going to want to take a look at our sway bar bushings we're going to want to take a look at our tie rod ends best thing you can do with these parts is just grab them and give them a good shake make sure they're good and tight the steering linkage here in the front all looks like it's in fairly good condition while you're up here you want to look for moisture anywhere on the inside of these wheels could indicate that there's a brake line leak or a brake caliper leak that wheel is actually missing a dust cover that's supposed to be there the grille is in good shape and both of the headlights of course are clouded like all these ford headlights are windshield wipers coarser junk not only that but if you look real close you can see this there's like a little rainbow mark here where that windshield wiper has been dragging dirt across this windshield you want to take a look at the front of that engine look for any major oil leaks take a look at the oil pan on the motor look at the back end of the engine where it bolts onto the transmission you can see some seepage there look at the transmission check for any major leaks seepage is one thing leaks are another what about the transfer case you don't want to see any major leak want to take a look at the bottom of the gas tank for leaks of course you want to look at the rear differential for leaks a leak like this where there's actual oil coming out it's going to make me very curious of what the level is in this rear differential time to check the doors what you're looking for is you're looking for the door to sag you're looking for the way that the door fits in the door opening the way it's hung pull on the body panels of the door you want to make sure that that door skin is on there nice and tight does the window work works like a charm you want to pull up on that door and check that hinge make sure the hinge isn't sloppy the bushings in that hinge aren't wore out now let's check the driver's side you can tell the hinge pin bushings are wore out in the driver's side door keep an eye on those body lines as that door is open quite a lot of play in this one now that we're done with that first lap around the truck what do we know we know the tires are 19 years old that's a big problem we know that the frame is good we know there's one spring hanger that needs to be changed we know that the bed mounts look okay we know the cab mounts look okay we know that all the steering linkages they look pretty tight and checking the drivetrain from the front to the back we see seepage at the front of the engine we see a little leak at the back of the engine no leaks at the back of the transmission no leaks at the front of the rear differential but you do see a leak around the bottom of the rear differential and that is a ton of information we know all four shocks are probably original they need to go one of the tail light housings has some damage on it one of the straps that holds the tailgate is busted that's going to need to be replaced the passenger door is in good condition its hinges are in good condition we know the driver's door is going to need new bushings in it it has two fuel tanks we know that it has both of the gas caps that go on the fill tubes we know that the front gas tank has a rusted through strap that's going to need to be replaced now let's check how the lights work first thing to do is to make sure that the light switch knob doesn't fall off we can see that the headlights work rear tail light works and the other rear tail light works kick on dimms both of the headlight dimms work you see that condensation in that headlight lens kick on a turn signal no left turn signal look on the right no right turn signal either let's check our brake lights well one of the brake lights works now let's talk about price deductions i'm looking for problems with the truck that aren't listed in the ad if the ad says it needs new tires i'm not going to get there and say hey your tires are junk i'm not going to pay you the price because of the tires that stuff's already been covered i'm looking for stuff that is wrong but isn't listed while we're checking lights let's make sure our hazards work one hazard light's working and one in the front's working right down there is the rear view mirror which is supposed to be attached to the windshield that's a problem seats in poor condition once you're in the truck the name of the game is move everything everything that moves move it through its range of motion make sure it works correctly glove box radios dials you name it 15 or 20 radio works glove box opens glove box light comes on time to grab your knobs too that one's good and tight oh yep that one comes off i could tell it would because it would wiggle just a fuzz that'll scare you if you're not ready for it about the old ashtray yep the ashtray works usually you'll see these older trucks like this the ceiling will be falling down the cloth will have lost its contact with the phone behind it this one's doing all right that looks like a bad connection there we go how about the other one yup now for the important stuff now we're gonna look through the engine compartment but if you don't know what to look for how do you know what to look for i'm gonna break this down very simply we're gonna start with fluids any container in the engine compartment that holds fluids we're going to want to take a look at it we're going to check the engine oil at the dipstick we're going to check the oil at the fill cap we're going to check the radiator we're going to check the power steering fluid now all of these fluids are going to tell a story we're going to be able to get a ton of information just from looking where the fluid goes seeing how much is there and what it looks like for starters let's take a look at our brake master cylinder the first thing you notice there's hardly any brake fluid in it that's a problem the fact that the reservoir on the master cylinder is almost empty we know there's a broken brake line somewhere we're going to have to find that now up here in the engine compartment one of the most important tools that you can bring with you is a headlamp here's the reservoir this should be washer fluid you can see there's something in there it looks like it might be partially frozen let's check the coolant overflow wow that's empty and it's just corroded down here too power steering fluid is low see there's some wet oily residue around the power steering fill tube let's take the radiator cap off now you'll notice we never even bothered to start this truck because what's the point in starting the truck and hearing it run and thinking everything is great if all this other stuff isn't great there's the coolant down in there it's pretty gross but i've seen a lot worse now right here is the radiator we're going to kind of come in we're going to take a look at the side of that radiator this metal crimp on this radiator a lot of these ford radiators will seep and over time they're just going to lose fluid you can see this has some corrosion on it and if we look down here there's a pan underneath the bottom of the radiator that tray underneath the radiator's wet there's probably a seep in this radiator we're going to note that oil is pretty black find the oil fill cap you're going to want to look underneath of it if underneath that oil cap it looked all milky and cloudy and like like a like a chocolate shake underneath there it's because the rings are bad there's none on this one so the oil in this motor is filthy that's disappointing but on the other hand if you check the oil in a truck that you're looking to buy and it's brand new odds are somebody changed it so you think that they take better care of their motor than they do let's take a look at the condition of this serpentine belt and we can see that this belt is very cracked it's not in the worst shape i've ever seen but i would change this after fluids we just want to look at every hose look at the connections you can tell if one's been disconnected and then reconnected notice this fitting we're looking for conditional hoses we're looking for cracks we're looking for abrasions we're looking for splices that aren't factory you're going to want to look for vacuum lines that go nowhere you can see there's a vacuum line that doesn't go anywhere there is another vacuum line right there and it's been repaired with a chunk of rubber vacuum line i'm going to guess that it goes right there while we're looking at that we'll just fix that so we know what we're dealing with disconnected and broken vacuum lines are one of the most common causes of your check engine light coming on another thing to look for you can see right here we have the original jack and the original tire iron that's good to know a lot of these older engines this one included it's got plenty of dirty oily residue on it none of these things are perfectly leak-proof i'm seeing oily areas on the engine block but i'm not seeing any active drips there's no oil that's dripped out onto the snow and this truck's been sitting here for a while when we're looking at the battery here you want to make sure that the battery is not moving around you know just grab that battery and wiggle it around this little thing down here that's holding the battery in that's not stock i don't know what who put that there but that's not original now an engine like this can look extremely complicated but all you're doing is looking for very basic things you're looking for broken vacuum lines you're looking for missing vacuum fittings you're looking for areas on the hoses that are abraded maybe there's fittings that you can see are cracked here's a good example right here this vacuum line fitting is in poor condition you want to look at every hose that you can get your hands onto you want to make sure that the fittings and the elbows and stuff that there's no cracks you're looking for leaks another thing you're looking for you're looking for parts that are newer you can see way down there in the engine bay that's a new starter you can tell that that's a newer part the one thing we do have to locate and i think we've already found it is we need to find out where there is a bad brake line and this brake line right here is very wet the axle shaft is wet around it you can see that there's some brake fluid the frame right here is wet i think uh i think this little short brake line here is the culprit looks like it's probably failed maybe right there by that connector you notice the vent hose for the axle is also disconnected pretty sure that this is the failed brake line that's why there's no brake fluid in the master cylinder this is definitely something that needs to be addressed quickly and it's also a good bargaining chip this is an obvious deduction so looking over this engine what we found we found out that there's no major leaks there's no major antifreeze leaks there's seepage around the edges of the radiator the coolant level is a little bit low the overflow tank is dry the battery is being held in there with kind of a homemade clamp we know it needs one vacuum hose that we know that we're going to have to top off the master cylinder we know that we're going to have to replace a brake line there's a lot of maintenance issues that i can tell have been neglected but on the other hand you're looking at a rig that hasn't seen a ton of use it's got low enough miles long as the engine runs good and the truck drives down the road good i think most everything else we've found can be dealt with let's start this thing up see how it sounds that's a totally cold start on that motor so the motor from sitting ice cold in the middle of winter fires right up it's running smooth everything seems okay now this truck started cold so i know that the battery is at least fairly decent what i'm going to do right now is i'm going to take this multimeter and i'm going to check make sure the alternator is working you're going to want to turn your meter on to volts dc positive to positive negative to negative 14.4 if you check your battery before startup and it reads something like 12.7 once you start the vehicle if it's still reading 12.7 your alternator is not doing anything that's a properly functioning alternator now if you listen you can hear that fuel pump running the back tank is the one that's operating right now this is a real good time to check that both tanks work yup both fuel tanks are functioning just fine how about the heat [Music] oh see that nothing nothing works nothing nothing nothing if you have a blower motor that only works on high it's the blower motor resistor it runs the power through a couple different resistors so you have a low speed a medium speed and high speed on your fan if you get to the end and everything checks out and you're ready to take this vehicle for a drive the first thing you're going to want to do is check to make sure the four-wheel drive works if you have locking hubs like this truck you're going to want to make sure both of those are in the locked position then you're going to want to make sure that the four-wheel drive shifter actually functions once the vehicle is running and in neutral you're going to want to shift this shifter from two-wheel drive to four-wheel drive you're also going to want to push it down and pull it back into four low now what we're looking at here this is the bottom of that four-wheel drive shifter lever quite often this will actually dry up and inside here there's a rod that you're supposed to be able to plunge down to move it back into four low a lot of times this shifter is froze up you'll be able to shift from two wheel drive into four wheel drive but you won't be able to push down and shift it into four low this would be the problem if you can't get the truck to go into four wheel drive nine times out of ten that's the problem if it's a four wheel drive truck and it won't shift into four-wheel drive you're gonna want a deduction for that especially if that wasn't listed in the ad another quick tip nothing in this video that i've pointed out is gonna do you any good if you forget about it so make yourself a list before you go to look at a truck well there you have it that's the procedure that i go through when i buy a new used truck looking around the vehicle with just piece cardboard and headlamp you can figure out a lot of the things that you need to know that are going to be very important if the frame's bad just walk away if the frame is good and the things that are wrong can be fixed then you're going to want to listen to the motor you're going to want to look at the doors you're going to want to look in the engine bay if all that stuff checks out listen to the vehicle drive the vehicle and you know that 99 of that vehicle is working properly at least for now this is actually a truck i just bought i paid 1900 for it and if i was to go out today and buy a brand new ford extended cab four-wheel drive short bed i would pay 45-50 000 for it which i'm not gonna do an older model pickup like this is gonna cost you four or five percent of what a new one's gonna cost and it's gonna be able to do the same kind of work you're not gonna have to worry if you scratch it up you're not gonna have to worry if it catches on fire and explodes it's not that big of an investment but you definitely don't want to buy somebody else's problem so if you've been looking to change things up in your life a bit and you're looking to buy a used four-wheel drive truck i hope that this video has been helpful to you my name is dave whipple and you've been watching bushradical and be radical eh see you soon [Music]

Channel: Bushradical

Views: 396,327

Keywords: how to buy a truck, how to evaluate a truck, how to get a good truck cheap, what to look for in a truck

Id: cLOAMLAqzfA

Length: 20min 0sec (1200 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 13 2022