Shady Dealerships - Always get a Pre-Purchase Inspection

I've been looking to buy a 2007+ RCSB Tundra 5.7 4X4 and I came across this 2012 truck with 59K miles and it looked to be in good condition and the price was $19,500. It is at a small dealership in NY.

I first contacted them via email and asked about the Frame condition, body condition, if it had any rust and if the truck needed anything. They replied and said the frame and underneath was clean and body was in excellent condition and it needed nothing. I pulled the CarFax, it verified it was a 1 owner but it did show it eventually went to auction (red flag) where this dealer bought it to sell on his lot.

So I called and spoke with the sales guy and told him I'm from out of state and I'm interested in buying the truck but first need a pre-purchase inspection at the Toyota dealership and asked if he could take the truck there. He said no problem, so I made an appointment for this past Monday morning, he said that was ok. He ghosted me on Monday and did not take the truck to Toyota dealership for inspection and did not respond to my texts. I texted him Tues and asked him is he running a scam, he finally responded back and said he apologized about the no show and said he was not in the office on Monday and he would be happy to take the truck to the Toyota dealership for inspection.

So I scheduled it for the same day. He did take the truck for the inspection. I paid $166 for the inspection. The Toyota service tech called me and said it it had a long list of problems and needed $11,277.26 in repairs! The Toyota tech said the biggest issue is there was some frame rot, a hole in the frame. The ad picture showed the frame from the underside and it looked painted but pretty clean, I thought it was rustproofing. The tech said it looked as though they tried to hide issues with the frame by painting it. It had a lot of rust/rot issues underneath that also included the exhaust system that was bout to fall apart.

I included the invoice for the inspection and pics of the truck. This is the second truck I had inspected from a small dealership that needed several thousands in repairs, the previous one was a Nissan Frontier that needed 8k in repairs and had a rear diff that was near failure. The moral of the story is ALWAYS get a used truck inspected no matter what or you could be sorry. You cannot see many serious problems just by looking and driving it, It needs to be up on lift, checked for error codes and inspected completely.

As most of you know, the biggest issue with the first and second generation Tundras (and Tacomas) is a rusty frame and frame rot. Especially, for trucks located up North where they salt the roads. Btw, there was no frame replacement recall available for this truck (tech said).
Also, from my understanding it is best to avoid buying vehicles that were purchased at an auction, it seems as though most of the small dealerships buy their cars/trucks from auctions. Often times the vehicles were traded in at a big dealership and they just send them to auction when they need major repairs, they know they can't honestly turn a profit on them so they send them to the auction where the little dealers buy them and sell these junk cars to unsuspecting buyers. Also, be wary of the big dealers as well, even Toyota dealerships selling used trucks, make sure to get them pre-inspected by a third party before buying. The best used vehicles at a dealership are the certified pre-owned vehicles that came off of a lease like my old 2005 Lexus RX330 that has been awesome with zero issues that I bought back in 2007.

 

Yep, looks like a shady dealership. That's up in snow country. Probably was used mostly as a plow truck because of the mileage and the plow attachment.
https://www.allmotorcarsltd.net/details/used-2012-toyota-tundra/100832637

I would look south for a vehicle.

 

It's a shame that dealers try to screw over customer like that. I should have known better than to mess with any small dealers in NY.

I had another Tundra RCSB I was ready to buy at Ayers Honda dealership in Fort Wayne, IN, a salesman named Chris Jugloff screwed me over on getting a RCSB 4X4 5.7, I was the first to call about it and he put me on hold and took another buyer over me and lied about it and said he couldn't sell it to me because the customer was at the dealership ready to buy now. I called the sales manager and he said they were waiting for another customer to come in to buy it and had not put a deposit on it yet. I told him I was the first to respond to the ad and I should be first in line and have cash to buy now, he blew me off and sold it to the other dude. I was pissed off, it was a TRD and was selling for 14k with 107k miles. I made sure to leave a bad review online.

I can't for win losing trying to get a RCSB 5.7 4X4. Maybe I need to pay an expert to track a decent one down for me or something sheesh. I'm sick of shady dealerships.

 

Down South most RCSB are either not 4X4 or they have the 4.6 or they have crazy high mileage. I might just go ahead and get a double cab 5.7 4x4 down South, those are a lot easier to come by. I'm using it for a truck camper anyways, the extra space in the double cab will be better. Nearly all of the North trucks are rust buckets.

Toyota ought to be ashamed of themselves for making inferior frames on the older trucks. I hardly ever wash my 2005 Lexus RX330 AWD and drive it all up salt and my frame is great .

 

So, small buy-here-pay-here dealers get inventory anywhere they can. They don’t have a pipeline from a manufacturer so they buy vehicles from wherever is feasible for them. That’s said they have 3-5 main sources.

New car dealers: They buy “packages” of cars from the used car manager at various local-to-them new car dealers. A lot of times new car dealers take trades that they don’t want to resell for any number of reasons and they will sell them as a group called a “package” to maximize their profit and minimize the risk for the small dealer. There are usually some decent cars and some grenades in that package.

Auctions: they buy from whatever auctions they can. They buy from Co-part, Manheim (the worlds largest auction house) IAA (insurance auto auction, where you’re wrecked cars go), co-part and locally owned and operated auction houses. Manheim is Cox Automotive which also owns such fan favorites as Kelley Blue Book and autotrader. Manheim has Red light sales and green light sales. Green light sales have an inspection and warranty of sorts for the dealer. These cost the most. Dealers can also pay for inspections separately. Red lights are Caveat emptor. Manheim has their own financing arm for the dealers so they get them coming and going.

Some of them will go to the police auctions, other government auctions, or tow yard auctions. Many times these auctions come without car keys and have little to no inspection. These are real gambles and therefore cost less up front but they haven’t the slightest what they are buying and can get burned. These are the sorts of things that the really shady guys will dress up and ship off to someone else.

Joe blow off the street: They also take trade-ins and buy cars from people off the street and sometimes car curbers.

Auctioned cars the good bad and the ugly: You’ll see a lot of cars go through multiple auctions in different states of disrepair. They may buy a grenade in a package or over pay for a bad red light sale gamble at Manheim, or take a bad trade in. Either way, I’ve seen bad cars get turned around through different auction houses or hastily repaired and sent out to customers. So an older car that’s seen several auctions is generally one you want to stay away from. Usually someone is trying to pawn off their mistake to minimize their losses.

Now, if you see a car that’s been auctioned, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. Lease returns typically go through Manheim on a Green light sale. A lot of times you’ll see hawaii leases run through Manheim then go no sale because it doesn’t meet the minimum. Those cars will sometimes be shipped to California to rerun through a larger Manheim location in an attempt to bring in more revenue.

Now if you see an older car run through several auctions. Stay away. Newer ones, take a closer look.

The higher quality used cars tend to be at the new car dealers for a litany of reasons. Lower quality stuff tends to filter down the line through auction tiers to buy-here-pay-here dealers and ending at car curbers.

My advice is to always have an inspection done. Even if you know what you’re doing, have a disinterested third party look it over. And if it seems too good to be true, it most definitely is.

 

Thanks for sharing that helpful info!

 

I just had another Tundra RCSB 4x4 with 162k miles (one owner - a trade in at the dealer) inspected that is for sale at the Wood Motor Co. in Missouri. I passed on this truck but be aware of the issue with this truck for any prospective buyers. The pre-purchase inspection showed these problems: