I recently found a beautiful 2014 Ram 1500 SLT 4x4 in supposedly in excellent condition. The used car dealer is quite a long way from where I live so I haven't gone to see it for myself yet. I don't want to travel 8hrs one way for nothing, so before I do, I have concerns on its history. I am not a mechanically inclined, so I'm hoping someone with experience can offer some advise.

The carfax shows one owner, no accidents, low miles, and timely service records. The red flags for me are that on 6/04/14 the Computer reprogrammed (no specifics), on 10/22/15 the Transmission computer/module reprogrammed and it was finally sold at auction on 2/22/16. Because of this, the dealer has no information on the previous owner, so I can't contact them to find out for myself what problems it may have had. If it was such a good truck, why would it be sold at auction and not a dealer? And are the Computer reprograms a concern?

I have a 3 kids (one in college) and a tight budget. I'm only looking for another vehicle because I have to. But I can't afford to purchase this truck and then turn around and have to invest more on repairs. So I would appreciate any advise from someone knowledgeable on the subject.


Thanks....

 

there are hundreds of used RAMs out there, believe me I know I just bought a used 2014 with 30K miles from a dealer about 40 miles away... it was Certified by the dealer which means they looked it over and provide a warranty that it is in good working order... I started from a list of about 25 RAMs that I got off autotrader.com that met my wants/needs list. Autotrader is easy to use and allows you to find many used cars within a certain radius. I also found the website below to be invaluable to get an exact build sheet using the VIN number... just sub whatever VIN you have in the URL to pull up a build sheet for that RAM and find specific info, not what the dealer has listed


http://www.dodge.com/webselfservice/...HV18P49S802880

I think a reprogrammed computer is not a big deal... updates are done to auto computers all the time. And many cars and trucks are sold at auction... many are coming from Canada because of the $ spread Vs CA$... you can tell from the build sheet if it was sold to the Canadian market

hope this helps

 

Does the carfax show the original selling dealer? Maybe you can contact them for the history in their computers. To me carfax is a joke, I've seen cars with accidents not listed and other things as well.

Depending on the miles, you may still have the bumper to bumper (3 year 36K) and for sure the power-train (5 yr 100k).

I would not buy a used truck that was sold at auction and even less buy from a used car lot even if they were close to me. Once you get the truck, the used car dealer will blow you off for any issues you may have.

 

Autotrader is actually where I found it. But at the moment there aren't many of the truck I'm looking for listed.

I did try to contact the original dealer in Iowa, but the person I spoke to couldn't help me and she transferred me to the service department who never picked up the phone.

I keep getting the feeling this truck is too good to be true. Maybe I'd better go with that gut feeling.