Wrecked Kenworth in Georgia
I pulled into the body shop while on the phone with the owner. Look for the blue Kenworth he tells me. The body shop is on the right side and stretches the length of a football field with a heavy duty tow truck parked adjacent to the shop at the end. There’s a guy in uniform pulling the cable out of the truck. Looks like he’s trying to unwind it to make sure there’s no kinks in the cable. Having a kink isn’t safe for a tow truck. With the right pressure the kink can unravel at the wrong time, so it’s a must to maintain a slack free cable. It’s not easy because as the name implies its heavy. Anyway, I keep driving through the parking lot. All the trucks are opposite the body shop on the left side. I’m about thirty yards away when I see blue bumper-less truck peak out from behind a UPS truck. “I see it now”, I tell the owner. “Ok, I’ll be there in about 15 minutes” he says. “Aight” I tell him, and we both hang up. There’s enough room to park an aircraft so I just pull up in the vicinity of the truck a few yards a way and get out. I’m pretty excited so I don’t take the time to turn off my car. I love buying Kenworth trucks. They’re quality trucks and well respected, even if it looks like this one did, cause the parts are expensive. Even if you over pay a little you can always make your money back.
I don’t know if I want to sell it
They pull up in a late model grey F-150 pickup truck. A heavy set older gentleman is in the driver seat. He looks at me as he pulls up and stops the truck about ten yards away. The younger gentlemen says a few words to him that I couldn’t hear right before he gets out the truck. The young man steps out of the truck and introduces himself. Hey I’m Chris and this is John. “Rashaad good to meet you” I said. He walks up to the truck and looks at it as if he’s going over the condition in his mind. I get right down to business. “What’s the best you can do on the price” I ask him. He says “whats the best you can do”. I make my offer. The two men pause and look at each other. Now I know who’s in charge. So I ask John the same question. “Whats the best you can do on the price”. He asks Chris “how much did you tell him”. Chris gives John the price he gave me over the phone. John looks at him like it was the first time he heard the price. I’m saying in my head, y’all drove all the way from Atlanta together to sell this truck and this is the first time you’ve discussed the price. John looks at the truck and says “this don’t look that bad”. Chris tells me this is the first time John has seen the truck since the accident. John says “I don’t know if I want to sell my truck, now that I’m looking at it”. I think I can get this fixed for a less then buying a new truck. So for the next 30 minutes we go back and forth about how much it costs to repair verses buying a new truck and we finally come to an agreement after a stressful negotiation. I was a little worried a wasn’t gonna be able to buy this one. But it turned out he didn’t want to deal with the stress of having to do the repairs. The body work is really expensive along with the parts he would have to buy.
Estimate for this 2012 Kenworth T660
Class 8 Heavy Duty Truck
Used Parts:
Hood – $4,000
Bumper – $450
Radiator (Complete Cooling Pack) – $1,500
Axle assembly – $850
Wheel and tire – $125 and $500 respectively
Miscellaneous parts – $1,500 to $2,000
Labor:
Frame work – $2,000
Body work including paint – $5,000
Total approximately $16,000