Used a lot of sites to find and buy equipment off of or through, the thing that really ticks me off is when someone won't even return my inquiries about machines, and there are plenty out there that don't, or when they do they don't know they have that machine to sell or advertised at all. I'm a big believer in ironplanet, they offer me more to save me a lot of driving right up front by looking at their inspection reports, if your wanting to use ratings, I"ve got one even better yet, require them to have inspection reports done by an independant company on all machines for sale and forget the ratings idea, then you'd have something worth while to look at rather than someone's fantasy idea of whats a good machine or an undercarriage thats 80% life left in it, and save everyone a lot of headaches and chasing, and keep some of the absolute junk out of circulation, nobody would do an inspection on something nobody would ever buy to use, it would then be called a parts machine or salvage. As for the ratings idea, what will that really do for you? Tell you that persons done business with 500 people and only 25 got conned or lied to or had machines that were mispresented to them, how about having the machines rated or inspected and then you've only got to worry about negotiating the price with the seller and handling the paprerwork. I don't call or deal with anyone who won't let me come and look or pull samples on a machine or run the machine, if its on a lot then they can find someplace for me to run it, if not, we write down their name and don't ever call them again on any machine, thats how we weed out the junk dealers and those that are trying to hide something.
I just bought a dozer this summer after looking at maybe 200 machines, the one we bought was advertised on machinerytrader and was brokered through a dealer by an individual, we were allowed to run the machine, pull samples and anything else we wanted to do, were given service records and all questions we had were answered, by either the owner or the seller, the seller was only as good the owner who knew about the machine and provided us with the information we wanted, otherwise he knew nothing at all about that perticular machine, so what would a rating system do for me on those situations? However an inspection report would have saved me from looking at maybe 175 problem machines in about 20 states and tens of thousands of miles of driving and time wasted to weed out the overpriced junk.
You've got a nice idea your just looking at the wrong thing to rate, rate or inspect the machines, not the person who has the machines for sale, they are only a handler so to speak, and as for brokering of machines, thats a total bunch of bull, maybe the same dealership with 10 different yards can handle the same machine but the idea of having 5 different companies or jockies selling the same piece to see who can get is pawned off the fastest, not a good idea, those machines are generally junk anyhow from what I"ve seen of them, they are trying to find someone who can pawn that machine off before it goes for salvage or gets repossessed by the lender.
I just bought a dozer this summer after looking at maybe 200 machines, the one we bought was advertised on machinerytrader and was brokered through a dealer by an individual, we were allowed to run the machine, pull samples and anything else we wanted to do, were given service records and all questions we had were answered, by either the owner or the seller, the seller was only as good the owner who knew about the machine and provided us with the information we wanted, otherwise he knew nothing at all about that perticular machine, so what would a rating system do for me on those situations? However an inspection report would have saved me from looking at maybe 175 problem machines in about 20 states and tens of thousands of miles of driving and time wasted to weed out the overpriced junk.
You've got a nice idea your just looking at the wrong thing to rate, rate or inspect the machines, not the person who has the machines for sale, they are only a handler so to speak, and as for brokering of machines, thats a total bunch of bull, maybe the same dealership with 10 different yards can handle the same machine but the idea of having 5 different companies or jockies selling the same piece to see who can get is pawned off the fastest, not a good idea, those machines are generally junk anyhow from what I"ve seen of them, they are trying to find someone who can pawn that machine off before it goes for salvage or gets repossessed by the lender.
lots there alright Powerjoke!