I won a Skid Steer at an auction but have just discovered the meter has been tampered with badly.

[Nige]

"I made a mistake. It must be somebody else's fault" - the cry of the snowflake generation.
Fail to do due diligence on an auction lot, be prepared to get bitten in the a$$.

 

[56wrench]

i've said it before, bid on it like something may be wrong with it and then you are prepared. if its good, you scored a deal. if you want peace of mind, buy from a dealer with 30 day warranty, haggle a deal, and write the check. just my 2cents

 

[KSSS]

If RB sold the same machine a year ago showing 10K on the hour meter and ran it through a year later with 2K on the hour meter, you may have a case to make. If not legally (given the expressions given in the RB bidding info) perhaps morally and RB might step up and help you out. Probably should have fully investigated the machine prior to buying it to save yourself. Like expressed above, you have to take care of yourself at an auction. Whatever you did to find this information, could have been done prior to buying it.

If RB didn't sell this machine the first time you found it, you will either pay to own it or face whatever RB does in circumstances when someone doesn't pay for the bid that they won. Bad deal for you, but that is the reality of buying items at auction. I have bought a fair amount of equipment at RB and Iron Planet (now owned by RB) and never bought anything that surprised me. Probably some luck in that perhaps, but 26 years in the business and trying to educate myself on equipment doesnt hurt either.

 

[Bumpsteer]

Lots of unethical arseholes selling equipment, spotted a Deere 855 compact tractor on c-list the other day....503 hours, hourmeter just broke, new one ordered. Bullcrap, footrests were wore bare of paint, I have a 955 (bigger brother) almost 2k hours, still have ALL the paint on the footrests.

Ed

 

[Welder Dave]

Somebody else could have bought the machine and done something with the hour meter to try to get their money back or more money for it. I'm real curious if a visual in person inspection was done or it was bought off looking at pics?

 

[92U 3406]

I've always viewed auctions as a way people get rid of crap. If it's there because the company went belly up, well what's the first thing that gets ignored when money's tight? Maintenance.

 

[kshansen]

I personally never seen a 10,000 hour skidsteer. But with my personal experience with any skidsteer. It should at least had every component changed by 10k hours. People abuse the hell out of these things and I have changed all components on various machines with less hours than 10k hours.

Well not 10,000 but I know of a Case 1845C that was sold on Iron Planet just this last year with something over 6,000 hours on it! I was around it from the day the company bought it new in 1989 and up till I retired in 2015. Last I knew it still had all the original components, diesel motor, pumps and drive motors. Hydraulic cylinders and drive chains and wheel bearings would be an all together different story, Oh yea did replace water pump twice first time the aftermarket one failed so an OEM one was installed.

As of September of 2014 when my entries in the files stopped it had 350 lines of notes on the work done to it over those years. And this was not a machine that lived an easy life, it spent those years doing clean-up work in a stone quarry.

Just checked on Iron Planet and see the hour meter was showing 4,083 hours so was that one was sold under false information as I know for a fact that the hour meter was replaced at 2,900 hours? Just read further in the Iron Planet report and guess someone at the quarry actually gave my old files to the inspector as there was these notes:

"4,083.2 Hours - IronPlanet makes no guarantees as to actual hours/miles; we can only report what can be visually observed." "There are repair records with the following meter reading greater than that on the meter: 2,874"

By the way that 1989 1845C sold for $6,900 no wonder I can't afford one to play with in the yard! Anyone here from Texas buy a used 1845C? I could send you some files on it!

 

[DIYDAVE]

I don't buy at auction, unless I am at the auction, physically, to inspect, either on the day of sale, or at the preview. There's an old adage, my grandfather taught me, works every time you use it, "Never buy a pig in the poke"...

 

[Mobiltech]

Ritchie bros have been pretty good at changing some of the bad auction stereotypes around here. They seem to move a lot of good iron for good prices and will usually stand behind the quality of an item listed if you catch the problem right away. They will actually go back on the seller and hold back payment.
You really need to present your evidence of tampering to them immediately and let them decide whether you have a legitimate case of misrepresentation.
At least they may waive any penalty and resell the item with proper hours listed.

 

[kshansen]

Not to beat a dead horse but I personally don't like the term "tampered" with in this context.

Like I said in my post about the 1845C I personally replaced the hour meter due to it failing. In my case the person from Iron Planet was lucky as someone from the company selling the loader happened to think to show him the records I had made and the fact that right up at the top of the page I had noted the replacement of the meter.

Here is the top of the first page of the file:



It also could have happened differently, say the day the inspector showed up the guy doing my job could have been out sick and the boss did not know how to access the files. Believe me the boss is not all that computer literate! Or I could have noticed the meter was bad a couple weeks before I retired and replaced it but in the rush to tie up loose ends over look making a not in the files and now the hours would be way under what was really on the machine. So now would I be accused of "Tampering"?

And to be honest I would not be as concerned about numbers on some meter on a piece of equipment as I would be on how it was treated over the years. I'm sure most here could look at a machine and spot things that would show one way or the other if a machine was going to be a money pit or was a used but solid piece of equipment. This is one of the reasons why seeing a machine first hand can be so critical!

 

[skata]

If you have evidence, present it to ritchie. They may side with you and ban the seller.

 

[Nige]

As we all know hour meter get changed on equipment all the time. They get broken or simply quit.

The issue here appears to be how to determine whether the hours were deliberately tampered wiith on the part of the seller by installing a different meter before sending it to auction, or whether the hour meter had been changed at least once in the past and there was a lack of historical maintenance records to send with it to auction. One is a deliberate attempt to defraud, the other is not, IMHO.

 

[Welder Dave]

My skid steer is shut off with the throttle and then the key also has to be turned off. If you forget to turn the key off the hour meter will keep running till the battery goes dead. Some hour meters are run off an oil pressure switch and others are run off the tach. All of them can go bad. It would be very difficult to prove an hour meter was tampered with. Buyer beware is most appropriate when it comes to hour meters. They are the last thing to rely on. I'm curious what skid steer this was that sold for 25K and apparently had a ton of hours on it.

 

[92U 3406]

What I'm trying to wrap my head around was how OP determined it was that exact machine that was sold a year ago.

I'm sure we've all been burned with this at one time but is it possible someone included the 1/10th hour digit in the reading a year ago and it was actually around 1,000 hours and not 10,000 hours?

 

[kshansen]

What I'm trying to wrap my head around was how OP determined it was that exact machine that was sold a year ago.

I'm sure we've all been burned with this at one time but is it possible someone included the 1/10th hour digit in the reading a year ago and it was actually around 1,000 hours and not 10,000 hours?

Very good point! I have seen people make that mistake back when I was working at the quarry and used the operators inspection sheets to keep track of the service hours also some guys would use the odometer in a truck and really mess with me!

 

[kshansen]

I know it's a bit OT but it does relate to auction bought equipment.

Many years back the company bought a Koehring truck crane from a friend of my boss who's main job was buying and selling used equipment. Short time after we got this crane that had 2 Chrysler gas V8 engines, I believe truck engine was a 413 and the crane engine was a 318, I was sent to another quarry where it was being used as operator was complaining about the way the truck end was running. Long story short I found the advance in the truck engine distributor was retarding instead of advancing when revved up. In the end we learned that the crane was sold at auction after it was repossessed and apparently the guy who it was repossessed from had tried to keep it by removing the distributor from the truck end and when the repossession people got there someone was smart enough to pull the distributor from crane end and stick it in the truck end!

Now if there are any Chrysler people here they probably know why that would not be the best thing to do, worked to get the crane moved but did cause me some head scratching!

 

[Tyler d4c]

The only way the hours could be truly verified is if there pulled from a ecm and it has never been replaced with out the correct hours being set at that time. Personally I think you are tough out of luck on this one.

 

[Delmer]

I'll disagree, if the hours went from almost 10,000 to 2,000 in one year, then walk away from it. Give RB a chance to look at the evidence and make their own decision, but I think I'd do it by email, not in person, I'm a non confrontational guy that way, stick to the facts. Then look at your state law and the UCC if they don't let you off, or they threaten to sue. They can write anything they want in their contract, it's only enforceable if it's legal in your state. And I don't think that would fly for one second if the facts are as you represent them. In reality their worst case is having to advertise the thing on their next sale with the correct hours, they're not likely to sue you, they're going to sell it again, probably with the new lower hours and hope the next guy takes it for a more realistic price.

Now if you bought an old tractor for $5 or $10K at an estate auction and came back when you found out the hour meter had been replaced a couple years ago, that would be ridiculous. RB is in the business of selling junk, and they are protected from most claims from disgruntled buyers by their contracts, but you're not claiming damages, you haven't paid for something fraudulent that they let slip through, and you're not going to.

 

[check]

If I said once I said it a thousand times. There is a reason it went to auction. People don't sell their equipment because it's a good machine and someone else needs to have it.

Lots of auctions are liquidations. A company might be going bankrupt, have a huge judgement against them or some board of directors who knows nothing about things mechanical decides the company must replace any equipment made before XXXX.

 

[Welder Dave]

I don't know if the OP is still around but I think providing all the details he was reluctant too would help to clarify just exactly what happened with this particular machine. RB's is a huge company and they can't be expected to verify all the info on all the items they sell is accurate. Now in the case of the welder I posted earlier they did the right thing because the seller failed to disclose major internal problems. I think that would only work based on the selling price. If a $1500 machine sells for $100, sorry you're out of luck. If there is no way to inspect it and it appeared fine from outside appearance and the seller never disclosed a major problem then RB can go back on the seller.

A skid steer is different because RB offers ample time to fully inspect and run equipment they sell. RB runs the full gambit from worn out junk for parts to brand new machines with warranty. The OP has nothing to lose going back to RB with his claims the hour had been tampered with. It's highly possible someone bought it and realized it was getting long in the tooth so changed the hour meter to try to get a higher price or their money back. RB may look at that and let you out of the sale. Having all the details/evidence to support your claim would make it much easier to offer advice on the matter. We still don't even know if an in person visual inspection was done on the machine.