My idea of shipping a mostly-but-not-entirely rust-free car to Michigan to find a buyer made sense at the time. Nobody was buying the truck in California since it had some rust and since it wouldn’t pass emissions, with folks even asking to purchase it for parts. I knew the truck would be worth more in Michigan, and given that it wasn’t completely rust-free, I didn’t want to risk an auction site like Bring a Trailer. And so I took the chance and shipped the truck back to Michigan to see if it would be easier to sell there, and I immediately received loads of interest.
I nearly had the truck sold, and my plan would have proven to be genius, but after committing to purchase it for $7250 the buyer backed out at the last minute. Then a tree fell on the truck, making selling it that much more difficult.
Here’s the tree:
The headline of my last article says it all: Shipping My Jeep J10 To Michigan To Find A Buyer Was A Huge Mistake. I did understand the risk when I sent the J10 away on that truck heading out of California towards the midwest. This was a bit of an experiment, and one that I looked forward to writing about.
In the end, it was a learning experience. The J10 is too niche of a product to try to sell this way; there aren’t enough people looking to purchase this particular vehicle, so a sale is going to take a long time. Even though my friend Jamie, who lives in Ann Arbor, has been great about storing the truck in Michigan as I tried to sell it, I still felt like I was burdening him. He and I agree that, if I were to send a relatively rust-free vehicle that were a bit more mainstream, it might have sold more quickly. Also, the tree thing…it happens.
Anyway, there’s a good ending to the story. Last week, a fellow engineer (one who attended Kettering University, a very auto industry-focused school) reached out saying he had seen my listing on eBay and wanted to drive two hours to look at the truck. He seemed serious, and within a few days, he arrived, test drove the J10, offered $5500, and before we knew it he was driving away in his GMC Yukon, with my beloved old truck in tow:
What do I think about the $5500 price? Well, I’m giving $400 to Jamie for his trouble, it cost me $1450 to ship the thing out to Michigan. Factor in my eBay listing fee, and I probably made $3500, which is what I paid for the truck 10 years ago. Not an amazing investment given inflation, but I’m at a different stage in my life now. I have a wife and child and business and 100 year-old house; though I am historically a cheap-bastard, I can’t focus on trying to eke every penny out of an old truck that doesn’t really have a place in my life anymore. I have bigger fish to fry.
I’m just happy the truck found a good home, that Jamie seems happy, and, hey, I have a little change in my pocket for my next ill-advised car purchase wife and child and other important adult obligations.
I bought a ’71 Peugeot 504 with 60K on the clock for $1500 in 1978 and drove it for eight years and another 90K miles with very little in repair and maintenance. Then it got rear-ended and totaled and I got $900 from the insurance settlement. And my wife walked away essentially uninjured.
I’m not sure it gets better than that. I am happy Elise and Delmar didn’t go through any of that. And I am happy that you are now relieved of that millstone around your neck. Congrats.
I also have a story of a BMW Bavaria that nearly bankrupted me, so it’s not like I’m an used automotive sales genius.
The actual mistake was taking it to California in the first place.
I think everyone should live there once. I loved it. Glad to be elsewhere but I loved it while there.
I read that comment as taking the truck itself was a mistake, not moving there.
I absolutely LOVE SoCal, I have friends that have moved out there and are much happier than they were in the Northeast. Yeah, it’s expensive, but they love the year-round warm weather. I really want to be out there too, I just don’t think I’d be able to afford it.
Correct. California is lovely. Taking the J10 was a mistake.
Y’all, you know what this means: there’s now room in DT’s heart and wallet for another Jeep.
Jamie is the real MVP in this story.
Awww, thanks. ☺️
Buyer attended Kettering. Too bad he didnt graduate. But then again ~ 50% dropped out when it was General Motors Institute, the world’s preeminent automotive engineering college.
Odds are the buyer has a degree, being an engineer.
Not to be a party pooper, which I am being, but you can’t compare today’s money with money from ten years ago.
And of course todays 3,500 bucks has the buying power of about 2,600 bucks in ten year ago moolah.
And of course counting all the work done on it, and the worth of your time, and you probably are well into the red.
And of course there is the little matter of all the back registration owed California for operating it on public roads over 20 days past establishing residency. Luckily the state is famously inefficient at nailing scofflaws.
But it’s all good as I didn’t mind at all paying your share for you so you could drive it scot free for years.
Congrats on the sale.
At least some of that time / work cost can be countered with the number of articles it produced. It’s content for the website and potential ad revenue!
Congrats!! It’s nice when things work out for you and for the vehicle.
Congratulations on selling the J10. I’m glad you found a buyer for it and I’m also glad i got the chance to drive it, even if the turn signals were janky and the steering was a complete mystery. It was still fun!