Buying at truck auctions

Well, today finds me heading to Fort Worth, TX for truck auctions. I'm looking to buy my first truck and am open to any tips others might have. The first auction is 3/7/12 with preview day 3/6/12. It's a truckcenter.com auction with 109 trucks. Lot's of 07's, lot's of walmart Int'l 9400's with about 600,000 miles. lot's of freightliners with 72" mid roof or hi-rise sleepers with 550,000-700,000 miles. a few T-600's and T-660's, and a few Pete's 387's and even some 379's.

There's a second auction next Thurs 3/15/12. It's a Taylor-Martin auction. not quite as many trucks but a good selection of 06's to 08's.

I guess what I'm shooting for is one of the Freightliner's to go cheap. If I could pick up an 07 with 700,000 miles or so I'd try to get it paid off in a year or so and maybe get a couple more years out of it to save up for my next truck. Even one of the walmart int'l's wouldn't be too bad, although they have 51" bunks which isn't a whole lot of room as much stuff as I like to carry with me. I guess my thinking is to look them over the best I can and try to focus on 10-15 trucks. I don't think I'm gonna pull the trigger unless they're a good $5,000 - $10,000 less than what I think they'd sell for on the street. Hopefully, that will give me a little cushion in case of worst case scenario I have a bunch of repairs or a rebuild or something. what do y'all think ??

 

thanks for the tips ! I'm running behind as usual ! just got into Dallas and inspections on the trucks is 8am to 5pm tomorrow. There's 15 walmart trucks there for sure. All 2007 9400i's cept one is a 2006, 51" midroof's, 400hp ISX., 205" wheelbase, 10 speeds, all between 570,000 and 640,000 miles. All seem to have working APU's which surprised me, I know a guy who bought a couple and they robbed parts from the APU's, but these all claim to work.

the only thing that keeps me from getting too excited is the 51" sleeper and short wheelbase. I like to carry a lot of personal items and tools, plus I'll be flatbedding so there won't be much room at all.

There's several 2007 Freightliner ST120's with 72" standups and midroofs on the sale as well. I'm no big Freightliner fan either, but I do like the space in those trucks. and there's plenty of room to mount a 24x24x48" toolbox on both sides behind the tanks too !

It will be interesting, looks like they're selling the Pete's, KW's, and newer trucks first, then the Intn'l walmarts, then the Freightliners. I'd be kicking myself if I grabbed up a walmart truck and one of the nicer Freightliners went cheap !

 

What's the deal with baby blue 05 Binders ? there aren't any on the auction, but there's a bunch of em here http://www.southerntrucksales.com

I gotta admit they look pretty good ? what's the deal with them ?