I have a question.

Last night I looked at a 97 F150 XLT reg. cab. with 8' bed. It has the 60/40 split front seats, gauge cluster, AC, PS, PW, PLocks, cruise, tilt, power mirrors, keyless remote, thieft alarm, am-fm cassette, tow package, factory bed liner, 4.6 Romeo engine, 4R70 trans, 3.55 rear axle, the cast spoked wheels I like, good Michelin tires, and a new battery. Always serviced by Ford on a regular basis.

Now here is the topper. It only has 36k actual one owner miles. It has always been garaged, and looks like new inside and out. The tires are the factory replacements for the Firestones that came on the truck. It is all original, except for an aluminum camper cover painted to match the truck. There are only a very few small scratches on it. It runs and drives great, and with the 3.55s, it has a lot of power, more than my T-Bird with the 4.6.

The owner was retired when he bought it. He occasionally towed his pontoon boat to the river, which is only a few miles away. It went to Florida on a few trips. Other than that it sat in the garage. He died last year, and his wife is selling it and her house to move into a townhome.

We talked price, and I'm positive I can get it for $8500.00, she said as much when I was leaving.

Would you take it? Let me know of any problems with this combination of options that I might not be aware of.

This is also posted in the 04-05 forum as part of a post I made so as to get as much feedback as possible.

Thanks

 

Yardbird,

Just one guy's opinion, but I think $8500 is about $1500 off the mark on the high side. You can do a (private party) used vehicle value report at Kelly Blue Book: http://www.kbb.com/kb/ki.dll/ke.kb.s...&&usedCars;slp

Best of luck.

Cheers, Wm.

 

It does sound like a great truck and all around good value but I also agree that it may be a few hundred above what you could get for it. So maybe try and work them down to atleast 8150 just for that sake of the year of the truck. If anything print out the KBB value and show it to them.

I just did a KBB as my zip code and I think that what you are quoted may be high but I didn't factor in the Topper

 

I forgot to mention the most important thing.

It's 4X4 with electric shift. It also has the sliding rear wondow. I know the window don't add much, but it's there.

The private party in my zip code is $8240.00

 

I would try to work him down to a couple hundred below the kbb value that you recieved for your area.

Why?

You will have to make a ~400+ investment in tires, even if the the michelen replacements look good (I'm assuming they got replaced in '00, which makes them a, 4 - almost - 5 year old tire).

Tires dont have a very long shelf life, and those are prolly starting to dry rot pretty bad.

Tires are a use-it or lose-it type of investment.

 

Here a link to the Black Book work up on the truck your looking at.
I couldn't post the graph so I made a web page.
Here's the link.

http://www.geocities.com/n2dfyreigo/...eg_cab_4wd.htm