Truck Prices Are Soaring

I’ll let you in on a little secret: even the busiest and most well-attended truck events have slow times. To attendees who fight for parking spaces and lose children in crowds it might not seem likely, but I assure you it is. As vendors, slow time usually falls during certain hours of a multiple-day show when there is just enough time left before the gates close to start thinking about your dinner plans, yet still too early to actually sneak out to beat the dinner rush.

So when we’re on the clock and working a booth, yet the show looks as crowded as a Milli Vanilli concert, we tend to roam and talk to other vendors. Making polite conversation about each other’s products is out. Usually by this point of a show we’ve heard the opening line from our booth neighbor so many times we could sell his product for him. So asking a question we haven’t already heard – and heard answered a hundred times over – we tend to speculate on other topics such as the future of the diesel industry.

If it’s a gypsy-like vendor selling rain gutters or jewelry polish who hits every event from the home and garden shows to the pontoon boat blowout extravaganzas, we’re probably not going to gain any real industry perspective. So the speculating might just be on the upcoming football season. But for those actually in the diesel industry, the conversations with other vendors are priceless and often provide real insight to where we might be heading or possible future concerns.

We’ll save EPA talk for another day, but because my world is centered on diesel pickup trucks specifically, a big topic of conversation for me is the jump in prices for used trucks. Similar to everything from the housing market to a gallon of milk, prices have continued to spike and have left a lot of enthusiasts holding off on their next build. (And don’t even get me started on the price of diesel fuel right now, sigh.)

If people can’t afford to taste the modified diesel lifestyle, they might take their recreational appetite elsewhere. Being able to find good used diesel trucks at budget-friendly prices is extremely important to maintain the growth of the aftermarket and diesel modification industry.

Another vendor I spoke with during a slow time at a recent truck event had similar concerns. On one hand he was boasting about the ridiculous amount he was able to sell his used truck for, but then admitted finding a replacement left him regretting his decision to sell in the first place.

I’m always on the hunt for a good bargain so I’m constantly looking for used trucks. When I saw a Ford 7.3L in my area with an asking price of $45K it caught my eye. I had to know more and figured at that price for a 20-year-old truck it must be fully built with every modification included. Nope, it was actually just the opposite. It was a low-mile, stock truck where the seller decided to put a high price on it to see how desperate someone might be for a pre-EPA emissions truck. It’s no longer for sale so I’m guessing someone was able to justify the cost, but that didn’t feel like a bargain to me.

Not everyone can afford a new $100K diesel truck or even a $75K used one that is just a couple of years old. Where we’ve thrived as a magazine is finding used trucks at reasonable prices that left us with enough money to modify them. However, at these prices not only will I not have any money left to modify it, but it could limit me on what I can afford to tow behind it. We already know why diesel pickups are so popular; we just need to make sure the used market prices don’t get too crazy so obtaining and modifying a diesel truck remains possible for every budget.

Brady L. Kay,
Diesel Tech Editor