Newbie looking for help on HMMWV research/buying

[Jelloburger]

Howdy folks, great forum you have here, full of some really great info. Recently I've been doing some research to purchase an HMMWV and have looked at the usual auction sites and some other builders around the country. But in all honesty, even with the time spent reading and on phone calls learning and trying to get a handle on what I can expect for what money and which builder/company to go with...well, I'm still unclear and wet behind the ears. I was hoping this group could point me to a company they know is reputable and reliable (especially after the purchase) that does turn key rigs or has used ones available for purchase. I'm in NC, willing to drive if short distances <4hrs and will ship as needed. I'm not looking for a blinged out $85K rig, but rather a more modest, "mostly" original perhaps with some essential add-on's here and there (like winch etc). Being that I'm so new to this, I appreciate any guidance you can give me, steer me away from the wolves out there and keep me from buying something I don't need or worse, a headache that will sit in my driveway broken down and never hear the end of it from the wife.

Thanks! Jello

 

[simp5782]

Wheelspinner is just SE of you in Asheboro. check with him. He may even have one for sale.

 

[NDT]

Buy the nicest unit you can afford from GP. That is where all the flippers are getting units from. Most assuredly your sweat equity is cheaper than the "builders". And you won't end up with a "lacquer overhaul".

 

[Jelloburger]

Thanks Simp, appreciate the lead, I'll try to ping him when he's online if he doesn't reply here first. Would you or anyone else know anything about these 3 companies listed below? I've chatted with each, but buying over the phone is always iffy w/o good references.
planbsupply.com
midwestmilitaryequipment.com
bulletmotorsports.com

 

[simp5782]

You are going to pay too much for a truck that is already how someone else has it made. Buy one, fashion it up and make it how you want. Not how others want. it is luck of the draw with any truck bought at auction or from companies. The government has absolutely no quality assurance on their stuff. New engines blow, New tires blow, It can be the biggest ratty POS on the field and run for ever. It just varies. CBRMetalworks is there in WS. He has a few HMMWVs I know as well.

 

[Jelloburger]

NDT, that's kinda what I was thinking too, that perhaps I could do most of it myself and save thousands $$. I'm pretty decent at turning wrenches and handy for the most part, diesel is a bit new for me however. The sales pitch I was getting from these builders/companies was "we get first pick of the auction items that the public can't get to and thus get a better build to start with than the public could". Not sure how true that is As long as the engine/drivetrain is solid and no major cosmetics, I think a solid core would be fun to build up. But buying from GP I wasn't sure if you could get a straight looking core, then 6 months later it die on you hard. I've bought sight unseen before, but it always came with a warranty so this is a bit...skeery.

 

[BLK HMMWV]

Before I spent a penny I'd find out about registration in your state.
Every state is different laws are changing all over the place .
Are you handy with a wrench?
Because you can save yourself a lot of money if you can do your own work.

 

[Jelloburger]

I'm in NC, from talking to the DMV here it seems pretty straight forward as long as there's no special designation on the VIN. But from what other companies (listed above) are telling me, NC is pretty easy. I'll know for sure once I chat with the inspectors next week and they can review what I'm doing. But you're right, would suck to get it and be stuck to the ranch...legally

Yes, handy, but I stop at full on engine pull/rebuilds. I'm simply not equipped for that. Electrical, carb and other components, welding, light fabrication...I'm pretty good for a shade tree mechanic. I guess it's like Simp said, could be a total crap shoot, might get a POS or might get a gem. I would GUESS, on the average they're mostly solid sold at auction, that is, if the good ones listed have accurate mechanical assessments they're claiming.

 

[NDT]

the sales pitch i was getting from these builders/companies was "we get first pick of the auction items that the public can't get to and thus get a better build to start with than the public could". Not sure how true that is

huge lie!!!!!!!

 

[98G]

The advantages to getting one from a reseller/private sale are that you don't have to wait for the EUC, you can examine it and test drive it, and you benefit from their (presumably) greater knowledge.

Auctions are a great unknown, but nothing there is deliberately misrepresented. Private sale *should* be more of a known quantity, except for unscrupulous practices.

The more blatant fictions I've heard -

1) Only has xxxxx original miles. NONSENSE! More accurately phrased as "only xxxxx miles since the odometer was changed, presumably at reset."

2) I get a special deal. I get access to them before they go to auction and skim off the good ones. You can't get these except from me. NONSENSE.

3) We pay GP an extra $150 so ours don't have an offroad stamp on the titling paperwork. We have this special arrangement. If you get one from auction you won't be able to drive it on the road...

When you identify one blatant deception, you can be sure there's others you haven't identified.

A private sale (without deceptions) should be worth 15-20% more than a similar truck at auction due to the lack of EUC waiting and the lack of uncertainty. "Custom" anything only has value to the person who wants that particular mod, and are value neutral or a reduction in value to everyone else.

Disclaimer - I dabble in reselling trucks. I lose sales to people who misrepresent what they have. It's a sore point for me.

 

[Jelloburger]

@98G, Very good insight here; appreciate the candidness. Glad you're confirming things I thought, but didn't really have anything other than "gut" to go on, so that's reassuring. While I do like to take on new projects and take them from ugly duckling to cool end product, there is something to be said about having someone else do most of the work for you, especially with having a job, kids and well my back isn't what it was . I'm still on the fence on doing GP auction or private/dealer vehicle for the very things you and others have mentioned. All of you are helping me come to a final decision, so thank you very much for your time here.

 

[juanprado]

Since you are Close to Albany in Ga, Gp is selling later model a2 trucks with 6.5 and 4 speed. Expect to pay a premium but if it is in your price range, you will be starting way ahead. Also if slantbacks is a preference, then those USMC units are the only real source of slantbacks being sold right now straight from government hands.

What I did is literally look at 100's of for sale and sold listings on GP. After you look at a truck's engine bay or undercarriage pictures a 100 times, problems start to become apparent. Videos of the engines are also a good source. I then just started making in my mind a list of what to look for. Another tip, these are lego sets and everything is bolt on/off. I found in my area 2 door tan trucks sold the cheapest. Easy to configure to a 4 man. This logic does not apply for slantbacks as parts are expensive and not easy to find. I also found the ones in the middle of the afternoon are cheaper than the morning or end of day auctions.

After 3-4 months of throwing bids out to test the waters, I found a truck I thought was a diamond hiding in the listings for that day. I think there was maybe 12 at the location that day. The rest is history as I got a cherry 6.2l that hauls azs and only needed a jump to drive home. YMMV, but I got an all led truck with high back seats with a paint job not done by a 12 year old, all new canvas. Someone had loved this truck My truck needed a washer pump & fan delay relay and was in my budget parameters the better half would allow.

 

[98G]

I agree with JP - patient stalking pays dividends.

If you're going the auction route, start watching and predicting sales price of the trucks. Look at every pic in hundreds of auctions so that anomalies stand out.

I stared at 5ton auctions so much that I could differentiate where a truck was reset by the different patterns of overspray, without even seeing the rebuild tag. It paid off - i got trucks that were RSMS trucks with the tags on them, but the tags weren't shown in the auction pictures.

It all breaks even in the end - put the time in to acquire bidding expertise, or pay a premium to get one without putting in the time.

The risk of auction can yield a good truck cheap, or it can yield a dead truck at a high price. Spread out over a large sample size, it all evens out. Buying just one, it's a roll of the dice. Depends on your tolerance for risk.

In days gone by, you could chase stuff at auction, knowing that if it was a dead truck you could break even on parting it out. These days the prices are so high that an unexpectedly dead truck is a major loss.

The market is at an all time high right now. Spring is always high, but this one is higher than most. I suspect that waiting until fall will make a 30% difference in auction prices.

The HMMWV market is also somewhat different than the MV market as a whole. The HMMWV crowd includes a disproportionate amount of people new to the hobby, and a disproportionate amount of people who have not been in the military. This leads to a somewhat skewed valuation. The HMMWV and the LMTV demographics also include a disproportionate number of people with deep pockets. Two of these people fighting over an auction truck can send prices literally ten times what an equivalent truck will bring an hour later.

Part of winning an auction is letting it go when the price exceeds value.

I don't really play in the HMMWV market. Market volatility, and titling difficulties keep me out. I stalked them patiently trying to get one for me, then decided that I was priced out of the market. Two weeks later I found one at private sale and made a deal on it. I've been using it for a daily driver and consider it one of my keeper vehicles.

I speculate that private sale in one of those jurisdictions that have recently passed unfriendly legislation may yield a better truck for a better price than the auctions these days, simply due to the auction frenzy....

 

[Jelloburger]

Thanks, solid advice. And it sounds like I'm in the beginning stages of what you already experienced so it's good to know I'm not insane...or at least not alone. With these auctions, I'm guessing it's 100% online and the only time you'll ever see your vehicle is the day the transport drops it off or you go to some location to pick it up? Also, does it really take 3-6 months after auction close to get these from a GP auction?

 

[98G]

GP generally has no provision for previewing. They intend for the online ad to be all the information you need.

Timeline for an EUC to clear can be 6weeks or over a year. I have experienced both. 8 weeks is probably realistic right now. Note that it's been about a year since I've bought at auction.

Have a clear plan in place for titling. HMMWVs are more problematic than other MVs. Talking to DMV first is a waste of time. What they tell you today will have no bearing on what actually happens when you go to get title. (I have both seen this multiple times, and experienced it myself.)

Buying one with a "clean" title isn't worth paying a premium unless the seller will warranty that your DMV will accept it and refund you if not. (This is what keeps me from dealing in HMMWVs. I won't promise what I can't deliver with certainty.)

Pick it up yourself if at all possible. GP's ironclad guarantee gets a nice fat deductible once it leaves their premises, and is also a lot harder to enforce. You're in a much better position standing there saying "this isn't as described. This clearly doesn't match the ad. I'm leaving without it and we can arbitrate later", than you do after it leaves their lot - "you bought a truck. You have a truck. We have your $$."

 

[riderdan]

Just another perspective... I was in sort of the same boat as you. I'm handy enough with a wrench and have wanted one since I drove one in the Army. I knew that I could buy a truck at auction and take the luck of the draw, buy from a reseller and pay more than I wanted, or buy from a private party. I started out reading SS forums, looking at what was available out there, and working to figure out the details.

The thing that made me decide to go with a private party was the registration. The seller had an on-road title in his state. So getting it registered in mine was simply a VIN inspection and paying the country revenue office their take. I didn't have to jump through any hoops, I just visit the VIN inspection guy, took the form to the county seat, and walked out with a title. The whole thing took about an hour. In Kansas it can be tricky to get a vehicle on a SF97 titled and they can be sticky about an on-road title. So it was worth the difference in price (to me) to avoid that.

I'd strongly echo BLK HMMWV and suggest figuring out that part well before you decide you have to have a $12,000 driveway ornament. If getting an on-road title is impossible, you'll want to know that before you jump into it. You may decide that you can afford to have a truck that's for off road use only, but you don't want to have that decided for you after you've already bought the truck.

Just my $0.02

 

[AOR]

I am still a HMMWV noob and I have owned my first one for about a month now. I was in the same boat as you and I was watching the auctions since Govplanet started selling them. They were selling for much less then but I had to much going on in my life to try to convince the wife to let me get one.
I can tell you what the current market pricing is on these since I spent a few hours a day looking for one for about a month. I decided to purchase from a private seller that already had an on road title and it was already driven a few hundred miles so for the most part I knew what I was getting. I did end up finding it on ebay and I bought it site unseen and paid a friend to go get it from over 1000 miles away. Even with an on road title I still had some trouble in MD getting this on the road. I had a local tag and title place try for me and they ended up not getting the job done so I ended up going to the main MVA here and got management involved and put on my charm and out the door I went with my tags and registration. The employees are being told not to register former military vehicles but it really depends on who you get at the counter. With this said I wanted a 4 door model with a 6.5 engine that was complete and camouflage that was unmolested without light bars or aftermarket wheels etc. About 15k is what most people were asking but I found that over that month of looking they were not really selling and most were being relisted and eded up selling in the 13-14k range. I did "watch" several of them on Govplanet to see what they ended up selling for and the price was maybe 12k for ones that were not nearly as nice as the one I ended up with. Plus there is a premium to pay to the auction site then dealing with getting it and waiting for the EUC stuff etc it just did not seem like it made sense to me. There are several newer models in GA but some of them brought up to 30k and being my first HMMWV I did not want to invest more than 15k incase I did not like it since I had not really driven any military models

 

[Jelloburger]

@Riderdan & AOR, tyvm for your replies, that gives me a lot more confidence in this decision making process and reaffirms many things I was "thinking" but didn't have any experience to go on. It sounds as if 15K is more or less a ballpark for auctions for something in good condition/low miles and over 25K for dealer trucks that have modest touchups.

 

[Jelloburger]

You guys are great, thank you very much gentlemen. Is there a big difference between the 6.2 and 6.5 engines?

 

[BLK HMMWV]

yes.
Especially if it's backed up with the 4L80.
You will get a park position and an overdrive