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Are new work vans seriously hard to come by these days ?

Milacron

Milacron

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 15, 2000
Location
SC, USA
I ask as for my 2021 Ram 1500 high roof cargo van with 2300 miles the Carvana offer is $42,201….. which is $2400 more than I paid for it eight months ago ! (Including tags, title and sales tax !). Seems too good to be true … thoughts ?
 
Local to me? Yes!

The car and commercial truck dealers here have less than 5% of their usual new inventory. From what I’ve been told there’s multiple reasons for this, not just chip shortage.

Not a work van, but my five year old manual transmission Mazda suv is being offered silly money for a trade in. Trade in on what? They don’t have a replacement!

L7
 
Its a sellers market. Have a neighbor that sells Chrysler/Jeep/RAM. They've had lightly used trucks selling for MSRP. That dealer has also had folks fly in from various places to buy a truck simply because they had one on the lot. The auto makers continue to crank them out but the on hand inventory is near zero.

My Chevrolet dealer, who normally has an expansive inventory has only 9 Silverado 2500HD pickups on its web site. Only one has a real photo and its the white WT fleet truck with a service body. The others are all stock photos and of those most are probably still in transit.
 
I have flipped a few 20 year old work trucks in recent months. With anything wrong with them they are a hard sell. I have bought them broken, fixed a few things and made an easy five thousand + profit on each one.

One had a brand new $7500 flatbed on it which I kept in addition to the cash profit. It's kind of absurd what work vehicles are going for.

There are certain vehicles that have also had their collectability explode recently. I saw one of them coming and spent $5000 on two of them 3 years ago. I will have about $20k invested into one of them that will be finished this week and then on to Bring A Trailer it will go. I expect it to sell for $60K- $80K.

There are a lot of folks flush with cash right now.
 
I should add that the Carvana value is especially nice in my situation where the intended use of the van hasn't really been as much as I planned, and I sort of regretted buying it a few months ago because of that. So it's especially nice to come out ahead in this case.

As to the Ram ProMaster being a "TrashMaster".... I love the thing, drives beautifully and have hauled a 3,000 lb lathe in the back with no problems. Still at only 2,300 miles perhaps the "trash" aspects will show up later. From what I have read online and from a multi user, the Nissan high van is even worse. I test drove a new Mercedes Sprinter that not as quiet and smooth as the ProMaster and cost a couple thousand more outfitted the same (plus future maintenance issues like where besides dealer to get service), that leaves the Ford Transit, which I guess is ok but here again cost more than the Ram.

Glad I never got around to spending $ installing flooring and subwalls in the back as that wouldn't have increased it's Carvana value by one cent.
 

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Milland said:
We're nowhere near that. Inflation in the US is relatively low compared to historic levels, except when compared with the previous decade (2010 to 2020) of very low inflation rates.

For those whining about the current (Covid induced) inflation, look at how things were from the 40's through 80's:

View attachment 337510

United States Inflation Rate | 2021 Data | 2022 Forecast | 1914-2020 Historical
Click to expand...

Inflation? Pffft.. nothing to worry about. Biden, Pelosi, and Shumer got 'yer back.
 
Milland said:
Driven by folks who think "Pfft" when dealing with a pandemic.

But there's no cost associated with nearly a million US dead due to the disease, is there? That sort of attitude almost cost your president his life.
Click to expand...

"Your" President? Thought the President who won election to office over a year ago is Joseph Robinette Biden.
 
Have you driven by your local Amazon distribution center lately? We have a very tiny little one in our office park that thing alone must get a few 100 different vans a shift loaded and sent out. If our tiny little local Amazon is any sign of what is going on, I bet Amazon probably is locking up most of the country's production for some time.I can't even imagine how many vans the 5 other super Amazons I drive by on a regular basis require to send out all those packages.
 
Yeah, when Amazon gets all tooled up finally, there will be a glut of Enterprise and every other rental fleets full of used trucks for sale - CHEAP!


Good grief, that whole Amazon thing ....

I did a round trip to the far side of Pennsylvania summer '20, and I was seeing truck loads of Amazon vans going east, and then truck loads of them going west.
What on Earth?


---------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
Milacron said:
I should add that the Carvana value is especially nice in my situation where the intended use of the van hasn't really been as much as I planned, and I sort of regretted buying it a few months ago because of that. So it's especially nice to come out ahead in this case.

As to the Ram ProMaster being a "TrashMaster".... I love the thing, drives beautifully and have hauled a 3,000 lb lathe in the back with no problems. Still at only 2,300 miles perhaps the "trash" aspects will show up later. From what I have read online and from a multi user, the Nissan high van is even worse. I test drove a new Mercedes Sprinter that not as quiet and smooth as the ProMaster and cost a couple thousand more outfitted the same (plus future maintenance issues like where besides dealer to get service), that leaves the Ford Transit, which I guess is ok but here again cost more than the Ram.

Glad I never got around to spending $ installing flooring and subwalls in the back as that wouldn't have increased it's Carvana value by one cent.
Click to expand...

If you like the FIAT IVECO seating/wheel position they are a fine vehicle, unless you drive in the snow. What the real issue is working on them and the maintenance costs. The Sprinter is a higher routine maintenance cost but the Trashmasters seem to need motors every 100k if used as work vehicles. They also EAT brakes.
 
Ox said:
Yeah, when Amazon gets all tooled up finally, there will be a glut of Enterprise and every other rental fleets full of used trucks for sale - CHEAP!


Good grief, that whole Amazon thing ....

I did a round trip to the far side of Pennsylvania summer '20, and I was seeing truck loads of Amazon vans going east, and then truck loads of them going west.
What on Earth?


---------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
Click to expand...

The Amazon Vans.....Locally Amazon opened a distribution warehouse while at the same time KwikTrip opened a fueling station(pax car and truck) along with their typical convenience store.

At certain time of the day the truck converge for fuel and the drivers hit the store for food and beverage. Must represent a huge dollar volume for KwikTrip.

Will be interesting if their delivery vehicle ever appear on the used market. Although a of different design I don't think I have ever seen a used USPS truck for sale.

Wonder what the Amazon fleet size is at this point?
 
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