I've been in the market lately to get a new-er truck to tow my fifth wheel. While my aging '95 Dodge gets the job done it is an auto (my mistake), rides like an Abrams Tank, and is only a regular cab. Yesterday I drove 60 miles to a dealer in Woodland, Ca. to see an '01 Dually with 90 grand on the clock but it was equipped the way I wanted it and that's not an outrageous milage for a Cummins diesel. I must mention here that I found the truck thru
www.cars.com and the dealer had already done a carfax which was posted for free. It was totally CLEAN !!
I first noted brand new front (only) tires and they were ultra cheap off brand rubber....rear ones were nearly shot. Ok...so I drive it for a few minutes and get it out on the fwy while trying to learn the stick shift, get thru town traffic, and so forth. Once cruising straight and level I finally look down and the steering wheel and see it's canted way to the left...like about 10:00 O'clock. WTF? Upon further inspection once back at the dealer it seems the driver's side door is somewhat poorly fitting and possibly sprung.
I approached the salesman (my test drive was solo) and told him I thought the truck had, in fact, been wrecked and had a bent frame. I showed him the problem and he was puzzled..or so it seemed. At least this place was honest ? enough to have not removed the wheel and re-alligned it on the splines to hid the problem.
Like I said, the Carfax was clean and said 'Guaranteed no problem' in regards to wrecks and other major damage. So...can we really trust them????
As an aside to this, I'm still looking for a good '00 or '01 Dodge Dually stick. If anyone has more or better search tools please chime in.