There are plenty of shysters around in the refurbished forklift business so you have to be very careful and have your eyes wide open. Over the last few days I have visited 4 companies and 3 of them did not give me good vibes. When someone will not look you in the eye when they are talking I smell bull shit and the trust is just not there. Body language is a tell tale sign and why you need to be present when discussing deals.
This fork lift featured in this post was test driven by myself today and actually have a choice of two. This one is a gas and diesel so if you run put of gas you can continue working via the diesel engine. I like this option and is better than the battery options as I have head one of those before and when the battery goes you may as well buy another fork lift. I am old school and prefer diesel, but the gas and diesel option I am happy with.
The forks I will swap out if I select this one and we will see what kind of deal can be struck first. When viewing you have to have a poker face and having a few white lies thrown in as i told them I had two other fork lifts I had viewed and I am currently thinking about. This should give me some bargaining power with out letting them know I will most likely be finalising a deal with them.
The owner of this particular company started this fork lift business after he saw how the other businesses were being ripped off. What I have learned over the last 10 years with fork lifts is that their is good money to be made so wherever there is money you will find crooks.
I am waiting on the 3 options for 2 machines with a buy outright option a rent to own and a flat rental. Depending on the prices the rent to own is most likely my preferred option. This way you will find out if there are any gremlins over the next 6 months and if the machine is reliable or not. This is more for peace of mind than financial as long as there are savings over our current rental which I feel is way too high for what we have.
Most decisions are common sense and as long as you stick the the numbers you are happy with then this purchase should be straight forward. This would be my second fork lift that I have owned after selling my previous one back during lock downs. Very little can go wrong with the diesel option and as long as you maintain a regular service routine maintenance is minimal like tires etc.
This one may be too light for the work I have in mind so we will double check the second machine tomorrow which is slightly heavier. Most pallets do not weigh more than 1 ton with the average about 250 Kg's. The only heavy part we have is the gym weights when they arrive and have to be off loaded from the shipping container and those pallets are seriously heavy duty and the fork lift has to help drag them using chains to the edge of the container before lifting them. We have pallet jacks, but those are not in good shape and don't last very long as they are not meant to handle the weights we have.
