Buying A Tractor From Ritchie Brothers Auction

It's always a gamble.A company I worked for bought everything at auction's,some good and some that needed some work.Dont pay too much.
My current company buys new Freightliners and sells them at 650,000 miles.

 

Just keep your top bid at a price that includes a couple major repairs factored in. If none are needed you make out. If some are required then you hopefully break even.

 

Some of the stuff at auction is worn out junk. Others are repos that dealers cant sell (that have nothing wrong with them). And yet others are companies that went out of business. As has been said, its a crap shoot. But now WOULD be a good time for an auction buy as the demand wont be high with the way rates have been.

Bring someone that knows what to look for in a used truck with you and good luck.

 

Being Penske trucks you have a higher chance of getting something decent in my opinion. They use Ritchie Bros to liquidate their older trucks so they’re likely being sold simply because they got to a certain mileage. Of course a thorough inspection is in order though.

 

Oh, be careful with auction trucks. Many times, they are repos and probably need a lot of work, or they wouldn't be there in the 1st place. Thinking of a truck, you can't go wrong buying one from the owner. They can tell you what they did and many times their baby. Auction trucks, not so much. Not sure why you would want to buy a truck in the 2nd place, with all that's involved with owning, licensing and ins., for limited use, just have a contractor, already losing money, do the hauling.. Listen to the father in law,,,

 

They have an app in the Google Play store.

 

If you can find the Penske unit number, you may be able to look it up on the Penske website or call the local sales rep for the maintenance file.

 

If you can go on Facebook Marketplace, lately, that seems to be THE place to advertise a truck. I punched in 500 miles from central Co., which includes the Heartland, and a slew of really nice trucks came up. I'd say $10-$15 grand buys a: '79 IH Transtar conv. Eagle, sleeper removed, $10,500, an '85 GMC Brigadier day cab, twin screw, they were nice trucks, $4600, couple Louisville Fords, even some Petes and KWs, all under $20grand. I've been behind the scenes at auctions, even a "shill" once I had no idea what that was, so I'd stay clear of auctions, unless buying antique furniture,,, good luck, seriously, Facebook is the new truck paper, and I never thought in a million years I'd ever endorse that site, but here we are.

 

Guy I know only ever bought his picker trucks at Ritchie brothers auction in Nisku. He only lives 20 miles away, so he would go look at them a few days ahead of the sale and crawl over the trucks. They usually leave the key in them so you can fire them up.
I personally retired in 2021 and sent my truck and trailers to Ritchie Bros in Saskatoon. They scanned all my service records from the truck and people could view them online to see that it was well maintained, they even put up all of the oil analysis results I had for the life of the truck.
Ultimately I was hoping to get $85k for both units but made plans for only getting $65k. On the sale date I was pleasantly surprised, I got $113k for them.
So yes, some trucks on there are sold just for personal reasons. I think their term for it was “company dispersal / liquidation “.