I’m looking at buying an F100 from the 70’s. It’s a plow truck with 95K miles. It’s not inspected because the owner only used it to clear his parking lot. When I asked with it was in good driving condition, he told me that it starts and runs good, but he’s never had it over 5 MPH. While I’m not certain, I get the impression that he’s owned this truck for a very long time, if not since it was new.
Is this a good thing or are there some very serious potential problems I should look out for?
I find it VERY hard to believe that one can put almost 100,000 miles on by driving around a parking lot…
Simple math tells you that there is a problem in this logic. I used 1978 as a reference point and 95K at 5 mph requires over 19,000 hours of use sustained at a speed of exactly 5 mph spread over 30 years, 7 days a week, 365 days a year :dubious: for about 2 hours a day. That doesn’t sound feasible to me in many ways.
Good points – I was paying close attention (any attention) to the math. At this point, though, it’s definitely uninspected, only does parking lot duty, and probably hasn’t been over 5 MPH in a very long time. Are there problems I should look out for?
It strikes me that he could have bought it used with [pick a number] miles on it, and only put a few thousand on it himself, not going over 5 mph other than, perhaps, the first time he drove it home.
He must mean 50 MPH, right?
At 5 mph (whether it is really the highest it has EVER gone/gone weith this owner, blah, blah . blah), many 'weird" noises will not show up. Even if it’s only parking lot duty, oil neds to be changed, coolant, etc. 95K with no maintenance is trouble - how many maintain their lot plows?
If he didn’t change the oil at a pretty low mileage interval, I’d be concerned about premature engine wear. He may have used it in a way that’s not quite the same as short trips where the engine never warms up (how long does it take him to plow the lot?), but I would think that lack of moderate- or high-speed use could be tough on the oil.
Also don’t forget, that’s 95,000 miles foward and 95,000 miles backwards.
(Unless the odometer counts backwards miles as well).
And another thing. I’d imagine he took it off the lot to go get gas. Surely he got it up to speed for that.
I don’t know the inspection requirements in PA, but here in VA using a registered vehicle only on private property does not relieve you of the obligation to get it inspected, although it’s unlikely to be ticketed for it since the police check for a current inspection sticker (I don’t think they do database checks).
If a vehicle is used only at low speeds and high load, the wear and tear will be different than what you get at normal and varied road speeds. IANAM so I can’t tell you exactly what kind of wear that might be but if you’re pushing big piles of snow around, the fact you’re doing it at 5 MPH doesn’t alleviate the wear and tear.
You don’t say what the asking price is for this truck, or how you plan to use it yourself, but in this market I am sure you can find a good deal on a similar truck that doesn’t have such a suspicious past. I would stay away from it:
My girlfriend can just by trying to find the absolute closest to the front door parking space at Walmart 
Parking lot vulture!
But she also get up early in the morning for a half hour walk to keep in shape :rolleyes:
5 mph is an exaggeration I’m sure. That is really slow. Typical parking lot speeds are probably 10-15 mph.
Even plowing snow, one goes over 5 MPH. Even in a parking lot.
Especially where you are (Pennsylvania), where to really clear the foot of snow that you have on the ground now one needs to get up a bit of speed to really push that snow into the already high and tightly packed snow that was pushed to the side of the lot **last **week.
I live in Minnesota, and believe me, plow trucks get up to at least 20 MPH in parking lots to adequately and effectively move snow to the side of parking lots.
It’s almost physically impossible to drive at 5 mph. Hell, my car will go faster than that at idle speed if it’s in gear. I suspect the speedo is broken.
Are you buying it for a snow plow?
I have a 76 Chevy that I use exclusily for a plow (now, it used to be a daily driver) and I can say that plowing snow is BRUTAL on a truck.
Seconding what enipla said. Using any vehicle as a plow is a very quick way to drive it directly into the ground. It’s not a gentle way of just keeping it putzing around parking lots. It’s very hard work for a truck, even if it is going slow.
IME, there’s usually a reason why a particular truck becomes a plow truck or yard truck.
Just sayin…
I work for a large landscaping firm which also does plowing in the winter. The guy who runs the maintenance/plowing division has often told me that there’s no quicker way to ruin a truck than to plow snow with it.
I sell auto parts to the U.S. Air force. They take pickups and jeeps chop the ass off of them and call them bobtails. They use them to haul bomb and missle carts to the planes. I doubt any of these has ever gone over 30 miles an hour. They have the lowest gearing available (rearend) and many have had the frames chopped as well.
It’s $1500. I hadn’t taken into account how hard plowing is on a truck. I’ll pass on it.
I really appreciate all the information.