Used impliments and FB Market

[pmsmechanic]

We just watched an episode of 20/20 about two guys that escaped a prison in Mississippi. While evading the police, they stole a van and then went to Walmart and bought a bunch of blue cans of spray paint. They painted the van blue, and where able to evade the police for quite awhile.

A friend of mine would buy plates for a car he owned. When that car was done he would steal a similar car the same color and just put his plates on it. Cops look for stolen plates. Not as much for cars.

 

[chim]

We had a purchasing agent who bought everything as cheap as possible. One day I saw a "new" stake body truck in front of the tool shop and went for a look. At 50 yards it looked surprisingly nice. The closer I got the worse it looked. The wood bed was in rough shape, and the new shiny paint over the rusty frame looked like they painted over soda crackers. I asked where he found this prize, and was told "somewhere in Delaware". My next question was "did they pull it out of the bay?"

Another time a VP who was always critical of that PA's buying habits went on a buying spree at an equipment auction in Middletown PA and bought three trailers (as in tractor trailer trailers) One was so bad we resold it as soon as it showed up. One was a reefer. We had no need for a cold trailer, and the floor wasn't very friendly for our use. The third was in very used condition. But the were CHEAP!

 

[paulsharvey]

I shop used stuff continuously. Freshly painted stuff is a strong pass. I don't buy from crack heads.

Oh come on, crackheads often are the best deals. I have absolutely bought from them.

 

[scootr]

Oh come on, crackheads often are the best deals. I have absolutely bought from them.

Crackheads stole that stuff from their neighbor and spray painted it like the OP showed. You buy it and the Popo show up at your door to arrest you.
50 yrs ago 2 kids showed up at my place pushing a minibike, said it quit. Stupid me gave a few dollars for it and got it running. I'm riding it around the neighborhood when the police show up and confiscate the stolen bike. Said I kept riding past the house where it was stolen. I had to go to court and convince a Judge I didn't steal it. Lesson learned.

 

[paulsharvey]

Probably 16 years ago, I was building some condos, and the electricians foreman had left a 5x10 landscape trailer on the job. We work around it for a few months, but gets down to the time to clean everything up and leave. An other guy on the site was friends with the owner, who went back to Tex (this was in FLa). I tell the friend, call him, and tell him I'll give $200 for it. The friend calls him, and say I would give him $300 (which pissed me off, but whatever), he agrees. I give personal check to the friend to mail to the owner, and I take the trailer. About 6 months go by, and the friend gets a call from the 'owner' bank won't touch the check, it's over 6 months old (the friend had forgot to mail it foe like 3 months). Now, I've always been able to cash any check for upto 12 months. I tell the guy, fine, rip it up and drive the 1900 miles to get it. Needless to say he doesn't. I never got any paperwork, and the sticker name on the trailer said "xxx portable welding" so I don't know if this guy actually owned it or not. So I "clean" it up, get it reregisterd as homemade, after replacing a lot of stuff, wheels/tires, deck, tongue, springs, and actually widening the trailer by 4 inches to fit a SxS.

 

[paulsharvey]

Funny thing with this trailer, when we sold it again, the buyer didn't want a bill of sale, or a copy of the registration; so in theory, I could always reuse those numbers and registration if I find another crackhead 5x10 landscape trailer

 

[paulsharvey]

Last year, maybe 2 years ago, was inspecting a gast food place being built, and one morning they find an old JD skid steer was stolen. Now, my son had worked in that town, Late the night before, so I call him to make sure him and his dumb ass friends didn't take it for a joy ride or someone stupid. They didn't. Anyways, no leads, they make police report, and that's it.

6 months later, I'm inspecting another commercial job, that has same contractor, and while we are looking over some plans, she gets a call, John Deere just got the skid steer that was stolen. Someone had taken it upto JD as a trade in....

Edit: When I called my son, I did tell him, I'm 90% joking, OK, but you and your friends really didn't, did you. I know when I was a teenager, we took a JD-544 front end loader on a joy ride once, but returned it unharmed a few hours later. Not endorsing that kinda behavior, just kids do dumb stuff

 

[scootr]

I bought a gooseneck trailer cheap once, no paperwork, no ID markings. Owner claimed paper work burned up in a house fire 20 yrs ago, okay.
Fixed it up and registered it as homemade. Built a small trailer and registered it as homemade too. Pretty easy process really.

 

[bcp]

Homemade trailes are not so easy to register in WA.

https://www.wsp.wa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/homemade_unidentifiable_trailer.pdf

Bruce

 

[paulsharvey]

We just need a certified scale ticket, and sign the papers, and pay the money. Used to be easy with the scale ticket, cause the dump used to do them. Now, you need to go else where. I took mine to a sandmine down the road and they did it for $10 (I paid in cash, and I asulsume scale house guy pocketed it)