buying an old truck sight unseen: rust, the title and what the photos won't show on a repo

good thread to start, and you are asking the right scared questions instead of the wrong confident ones. i will take them in order from the parts-counter and paperwork side, and the owners can fill in the wrenching.

photos to demand on an old truck: both cab corners at full zoom, both rockers, the cowl under the windshield, the bed floor with the mat pulled, the frame behind the cab and over the rear axle, all four tire date codes, the brake lines along the frame, and the floor pans inside under the mats. ask for a walkaround video with the engine running and, if it drives, a clip of it moving so you can watch the trans shift. conaway's shoots a lot of this already and will take more if you email, which is the whole reason buying off their photos works at all.

what a photo can never tell you: the inside of a brake line, the inside of a transmission, a frame rail that is clean outside and rotten inside, and how it drives. assume those are unknowns and budget for them. that is not a knock on the sale, it is true of any truck you did not personally put on a lift, including the one on the lot in Medford.

the title: it is a bank repo, so the lender holds the title and releases the lien after you pay in full, then it transfers to you clean. the signed title, the lien release, an odometer statement and a notarized bill of sale come with the truck. both buyers in the other threads had exactly that in the glovebox, and your own state DMV does the rest when you register it.

since my C10 is the one that started you thinking about this, let me answer the two you pointed at me. the binding bid part is real and you should respect it. you submit a figure and you may push it higher while the lot is open, but once it is in there is no taking it back and no walking away after you win, so never put down a number you are not fully ready to pay. i sat on mine for days and only bumped it the morning it closed. treat it like it is final because it is.

what if it is not as described: a thirty-day money-back window, counted from the day it lands, covers you when a unit turns out materially misrepresented, and there is a 6 month limited warranty on top. the key word is materially. my cab corner was called rust-free and it was really surface rust, which annoyed me, but that is a word i could argue with on one corner, not a materially different truck, so i fixed the 30 dollar panel myself and did not make a thing of it. if the 305 had been a boat anchor or the frame had been cut, that is what the 30 days is for. know the difference before you bid so you are not expecting a refund over a scratch.

the photos genuinely saved me. with conaways you get enough pictures that the people on this board caught my one problem before i wired a dollar. that is the whole trick, do not bid until somebody who knows the truck has read the close shots with you.

rust is my lane so here is the one that gets first-timers. a truck can look clean in every outside photo and be rotten where you cannot photograph it. on a square-body that is the cab mounts, the floor pans under the carpet, and the bottom of the bed sides behind the wheel. on an OBS Ford it is the cab corners, the rear of the cab floor and the frame near the rear spring hangers. so even with great photos, ask specifically for the floor under the mats and any shot up inside the frame, and if they cannot get it, assume the worst on that spot and bid like it needs a floor pan.

living in Oregon you have a leg up, go after the southwest and plains trucks in the listings, the New Mexico and Texas and Kansas ones, because a dry-state 40 year old truck starts way ahead of a rust-belt one. mike's came out of New Mexico and the frame was clean, that was not luck, that was climate.

the money question, since you asked it and nobody has fully answered it yet. you pay in full by wire, and you want the money ready before you bid, not after you win, because the bid is binding and the clock starts when you win. financing is generally not a thing here, the titles carry the lien until the lender is paid, so plan on cash or your own bank or credit union loan arranged ahead of time. i had my credit union pre-approved before i put a number in on the conaway's listing so that when i won i could wire the next morning. do not win a binding bid and then go shopping for a loan.

and on delivery so you can budget it: the first 1,000 miles are free, then it is a flat rate per mile past that, and they truck it to you a couple days after the payment clears. mine was inside the free thousand so delivery was zero. figure that into your top bid number so the all-in does not surprise you.