I have been looking for a "new to me" pickup for over a month, and am finding very limited results. Sure, I can find a ton of them, but not what I am looking for. (2012-2014 Silverado Crew Cab with a Duramax, and LTZ trim, in Blue or Gray, less than 100K miles, no body damage, preferably not from a rust belt state, and must have all emissions equipment intact).

Putting my own preferences aside, I am hoping some of you folks can point me toward some different sources than what I have been looking at. I am willing to travel for the right truck. The sites and apps I have used so far:

Autotrader
CarMax
CarGurus
Craigslist
Carfax
RJ

CL is a pain, I do think it could yield a nice private party vehicle, but I wish they would let you do a state by state search, or even a 500 mile search, instead of doing 25 different searches by city...

Most of these sites limit your range to a max of 500 miles from your Zip Code. Why not give me a wider option?

And I am amazed how many dealers post trucks without a single picture, and expect people to call them, or provide your number so they can bombard you with calls & texts. You ask for some pictures, and it is like pulling teeth. Some don't even have the vehicles at their store, so they can't get you pictures.

In a MONTH, I have only found 2 trucks that meet my basic criteria, one in Oklahoma that is super clean, low (62K) miles, but has a lot of tiny rock chips in the leading edge of the hood, which makes me thing it spent a LOT of miles following others down gravel roads, while probably ingesting tons of fine dust into the engine. (If the guy had installed a bug shield on it new, I never would have known, and I'd be driving it now). The other one is near Austin, and looks really nice, until you get to the pictures of the underside. To be honest, had they not posted them, I would have driven down and looked at it. Appears to have spent some time sunk up to the floorboards in water, thinking maybe a Hurricane Harvey victim. Frame and rear axle/leaf springs coated in rust & very dirty.

I have decided Carfax and AutoCheck are a complete waste of money. They can only report what others report to them, or to titling agencies.

I don't know why they make so few of these trucks in blue. Had the same trouble 10 years ago, looking for my current blue HD2500 Crew Cab.

Anyway, I would love to hear of any other used vehicle search engines that might help me out.

Thanks, and if anyone has a blue DMax, (or a friend with one), and it might be available, please let me know!

I like CarGurus - found my current truck with it - 2015 Ram 3500 - purchased in 2016. I like the comparison to book value feature. Also, when you use the advanced search you can put in a ****her distance but filter to get what you want. Also, the daily email alert is pretty good too.

I gave-up. This is what you want. 2500HD, blue, fully loaded, Duramax, has 700 miles on it now. But the cost is rediculous! I hope it lasts as long as my gas-burner from 2001 with a 6.0liter.



What website to find a good truck on, no clue. Talk to your fellow racers, better luck there. Have a friend with an '07 which was everything I wanted, except black, but that was ok. He wouldn't sell it!

Mike, that is why I am looking at 2012-2014's. Pretty big price jump to the 15's with the newer styling. And I am ok with a 60-80,000 mile truck for half the price of a new one. My '02 6.0 just hit 284,000 and runs just like it did 10 years ago. So if a Duramax will last me that long, and provide 2X the torque for pulling up long hills, I will be happy with it.

Greg, I would rate CarGurus the best of the ones I've tried, but I do think they are driving the prices up with their valuation feature, that in no way can take into account the actual vehicle condition. I even talked to a dealer, and asked if he would come down on price a bit. He said "No, we base our pricing on CarGurus for all our vehicles and consider that to be fair". I looked at many comparable vehicles to listings they presented, and they are high in almost 100% of the examples I have seen.

I used CarGurus on my latest used truck. Found what I wanted, looked, drove, negotiated deal and drove home 500 miles. Have put 50k miles on it since June no issues. I slammed the dealer on feedback because they hid a cracked bed with a bed liner. So be diligent with your inspection!

For Craigslist searches you could try this

Search Tempest

Try facebook marketplace, but Texas and Arkansas is like truck country! They should be everywhere

Emmons boys from Houston have a '16 High Country, price doesnt seem to bad, 31,402 miles and $51,997

I bought a GMC 3500HDb CC Denali DMax a few months ago. I just couldn't see buying another oil burner used. You just never know how they were used or abused. The 3500HD has a higher better GVW and is not really much more money vs the 2500HD.

Mike, your truck is really nice looking!

I have historically used Autotrader. But I notice fewer cars on there now. I was looking at 3-4 year old suv's. It was an eye opener to see what I was looking at costing over $30k. I have a tough time plopping down $30k on a 4 year old suv. But even tougher plopping down $70k on a new one. Especially when you can see that owing that vehicle for 4 years cost you over $40k. That's a lot of race car parts!

quote:

Originally posted by Bucky:
Mike, your truck is really nice looking!

I have historically used Autotrader. But I notice fewer cars on there now. I was looking at 3-4 year old suv's. It was an eye opener to see what I was looking at costing over $30k. I have a tough time plopping down $30k on a 4 year old suv. But even tougher plopping down $70k on a new one. Especially when you can see that owing that vehicle for 4 years cost you over $40k. That's a lot of race car parts!

If it wasn't for my business and the fact this is a "company" car and pre-tax payments, no way would I spend that kind of $$$$. Got it in December, 10% off, other discounts, still was $58k or so.........

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Beck:

quote:

Originally posted by Bucky:
Mike, your truck is really nice looking!

I have historically used Autotrader. But I notice fewer cars on there now. I was looking at 3-4 year old suv's. It was an eye opener to see what I was looking at costing over $30k. I have a tough time plopping down $30k on a 4 year old suv. But even tougher plopping down $70k on a new one. Especially when you can see that owing that vehicle for 4 years cost you over $40k. That's a lot of race car parts!

If it wasn't for my business and the fact this is a "company" car and pre-tax payments, no way would I spend that kind of $$$$. Got it in December, 10% off, other discounts, still was $58k or so.........

At that price it would be hard to justify used. Nice!
Oh and,
"They're writing it off Jerry!"

Call TS racer Greg Lair Buick GMC Texas. Spoke with Greg at Pomona. I’m doing injectors, selling then calling Greg. He has used DMAX pretty often. Hope that works for you.

After casually watching the market for a solid year, I got serious and pulled the trigger on a 2008 Duramax in October. I found that almost every truck meeting my criteria (or yours) was listed on Autotrader and/or Cars.com. Carmax doesn't seem to be interested in the HD truck market. There are a lot of trucks on Craigslist, more private owners than any other site. But, I found that anything on Craigslist that doesn't have 200K miles and isn't beat to hell is also listed on cars.com or Autotrader. About 80% of the trucks listed on Autotrader are also on cars.com and vice-versa.

I think Carfax itself is a joke as the OP stated.

I know people who have been in accidents and have been able to "hide" this and will never show-up on a Carfax.

And with all the flood cars out there and the way they get titled in other states and turn-out clean is a joke also.

One thing that amazes me, is how many people will spend upwards of $60K on a new truck, and not maintain it. Yeah, I realize these diesels take 10 quarts of oil, so changes are a bit more costly, but 9 of 10 people I called said they did not have maintenance records, and only had their oil changed once or twice per YEAR.
I guess if you can afford to trade it off every 3-5 years, you don't care what the next guy is getting. Shame. I will admit I am a-n-a-l about keeping clean oil in my vehicles, but I consistently get over 200,000 trouble-free miles out of each one. I also tear the flap off the filter box, and write down the date, mileage, filter P/N & oil that I put in it. Along with any other items replaced, (air filters, trans fluid/filters, brake pads, etc). I have that stack to offer to potential buyers, (who are always impressed, and say it definitely adds value to the truck at resale time, along with peace of mind).
I would pay AT LEAST an extra $1,000 for my next truck, if the owner could show me detailed documentation of maintenance.
I think these "oil life monitoring" systems are highly flawed, and adding to the stupidity of our society. Just changed the oil & filter on a neighbor ladies' SUV, which had just hit the "Change Oil Soon" indicator 3 days prior, and it looked like molasses.
She said it had not been changed since last summer, around 8,000 miles ago...

quote:

Originally posted by stk 758 BP!:
Call TS racer Greg Lair Buick GMC Texas. Spoke with Greg at Pomona. I’m doing injectors, selling then calling Greg. He has used DMAX pretty often. Hope that works for you.

I did look at Greg's website, he currently only has 1 used HD2500. I am very impressed that he offers a LIFETIME powertrain warranty on any used ride with under 100K miles at time of sale. Did not read the details of it, and if the service must be performed at his dealership in Amarillo, that is 315 miles from me. But I can certainly see that being a nice incentive for local folks to do business at his store. And if it is valid/honored at other GM dealerships, I would seriously consider having him source a used truck for me.

quote:

Originally posted by FootbrakeJim:
One thing that amazes me, is how many people will spend upwards of $60K on a new truck, and not maintain it. Yeah, I realize these diesels take 10 quarts of oil, so changes are a bit more costly, but 9 of 10 people I called said they did not have maintenance records, and only had their oil changed once or twice per YEAR.
I guess if you can afford to trade it off every 3-5 years, you don't care what the next guy is getting. Shame. I will admit I am a-n-a-l about keeping clean oil in my vehicles, but I consistently get over 200,000 trouble-free miles out of each one. I also tear the flap off the filter box, and write down the date, mileage, filter P/N & oil that I put in it. Along with any other items replaced, (air filters, trans fluid/filters, brake pads, etc). I have that stack to offer to potential buyers, (who are always impressed, and say it definitely adds value to the truck at resale time, along with peace of mind).
I would pay AT LEAST an extra $1,000 for my next truck, if the owner could show me detailed documentation of maintenance.
I think these "oil life monitoring" systems are highly flawed, and adding to the stupidity of our society. Just changed the oil & filter on a neighbor ladies' SUV, which had just hit the "Change Oil Soon" indicator 3 days prior, and it looked like molasses.
She said it had not been changed since last summer, around 8,000 miles ago...

I don't know all the differences with today's oil and engines. But according to the owner's manuals, we can go 7,500 miles, and don't have to use synthetic. I have done either this or the oil life monitor for several cars in our family that have gone 200k miles. But never has the oil come out looking bad. We live out in the sticks, so never is there a short trip.