Best places to buy a PPV/SSV?

[ggeorgia]

If your willing to give up some of these specs then look at Gaston & Sheehan auctions. They have about 15-20 PPV's per month and some SSV for auction. Its located in Pflugerville, just north of Austin, so about 2-3 hour drive for you. Mine is from there, its a 2013. You will be able to find the year you are looking for, possibly the color, no collisions and easily non K-9.

Police lights, no spotlight and with a center console/storage containers will be difficult to find there.

I have to ask though, if your looking for a 2013/14 in the $15k range, why not just go with a civilian? The options you are looking for will be much easier to find and probably not much more on the wallet.

Thanks for the tip. I'll add their site to my favorites to check occasionally. Coincidentally, I'm looking to move to the Austin area in the next few months, so that would be really convenient if I found something.

It's the overall look of the truck and the fact that I should be able to get one cheaper at auction ($10k for one with less than 100k miles). Admittingly, $15k was a bit on the high side and I was going to try to negotiate down to $12k cash on the spot.

I think the one I was looking at was a supervisor's. It was previously owned by the Tyler, TX police department. The strange thing on the CarFax was that it was in possession of a Chevy Dealer in Whitesboro (Dallas suburb) around July 2020 before it arrived at a small used car lot in Tomball, TX (Houston area) in October 2020. Between the Chevy dealer in Whitesboro and the small used car dealer in Tomball, it accumulated about 1,200 miles on the odometer. Does that sound like someone bought it from the Chevy dealer, realized it burned excessive oil (or some other deal breaker), and returned it?

 

[Bill 1960]

@ggeorgia it could just as easily be that someone at either dealer was using the vehicle as a daily driver with a set of dealer plates. Or took it on a road trip. One of the perks.

Carfax is just one slice of used vehicle information and seldom complete and often inaccurate. Take it with a grain of salt and let an inspection of current condition be your best guide.

 

[Notacop]

I'll have to agree with @Bill 1960 on this one, there are plenty of reasons it could have accumulated miles.

As for the auction vehicles, it is rare they are under 100k (at G&S), but you will find 100-120k all day long. $10k budget will get you in nearly any of them (typically sell in the $8-10k range). Just remember they are a bit of a crap shoot. Most will need a few basic things such as center console, door locks, door panels, seats...things like that. All easy to swap, but you have to find them first.

 

[Peacock]

I got mine from Chicago Motors Inc super clean, rust free, low milage, lot of options on it, runs great, I'd definitely buy from them again.


https://chicagomotors.com/

Photo album from the dealer, very clean well maintained one officer take home, D.O.T. enforcement, all the normal stuff worked but has stealth mode, like most of these.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=16MeHdE93JOEM1oSbl8Ro8lR3p96EGWmr

 

[jatPPV2012]

I’m a little late chiming in, but I bought my 2012 Tahoe PPV retired FHP (Florida Highway Patrol) on the spot at a local auction called Tampa Machinery Auction, Inc. Got it back in February 2020 as the winning bidder for $5200 ($6052 after tax, title, reg) with 175,013 miles.

Mine of course was missing the center console and the 3rd row seats, which I found on Ebay, and I swapped the steering wheel for one with the radio controls and got a bezel with the DIC switch, both got on Ebay. For some PPV owners I read on this site, the rear door handles don’t function because they were manually disabled by removing a part in the mechanism, but with mine the child safety switch was set to 'on' so I switched it to 'off' and they worked. Didn’t have to replace anything. Also, the rear windows worked as opposed to others which they didn't work and have to replace parts to get them to work. Everything else inside was intact and not gutted out. The interior was fairly clean and in good condition. Just had to vacuum and use some household cleaner to clean up some areas.

You can read more of my post on it, and what custom projects I did on it, in the following link.

https://www.tahoeyukonforum.com/threads/2012-tahoe-ppv-new-owner-here.117090/


This auction is the largest regularly scheduled public auction in the southeast and is held every 2nd weekend of the month selling more a 100 vehicles and various types of equipment and machinery. They also do live online bidding the day of the auction via Proxbid so you don’t need to be physically there to bid on a vehicle. A 2% online bidding fee will be added to each transaction for this service if you are the winning bidder. They have a Catalog page which you can see an entire list of all the vehicles to be auctioned and for each vehicle they show various pictures of it that you can view and they even show a short video clip of the engine starting up and running.


There are 3 groups of auction lots, my 2012 Tahoe PPV was in the Ring 2 Government Vehicles lot. Every auction month is different with varying types vehicles (pickups, cars, trucks, SUVs, buses, maintenance trucks, fire engines, tractor trailers, cargo trucks, etc.), including various PPV and SSV Tahoes from as old as 2011 to 2015. Most of them are retired FHP, but there are some city, state, and county PPV/SSVs that go up for sale. The winning bid price can vary depending on how many vehicles are for sale and their condition. Most of them have over 100,000 miles, but there are some with less than 100,000 and so they may go for a higher price because so many people want it, therefore selling prices can range between $5000 – 15,000+ depending on the year, condition, and miles. At the last auction on April 10, the cheapest sold was $5800 for a 2013 Ex FHP Tahoe PPV (190,293 miles) and the highest was $15,300 for 2015 PPV Tahoe (112,505 miles) former County Sheriff. There were 21 PPV/SSV Tahoes that were sold that day and 2 of them were from 2005 ($3400) and 2002 ($5,500) so every now and then these older year (200x) types pop in on the auction block.


The next auction is May 8th. You can view the latest catalog at the following link. Vehicles get added throughout the month leading up to auction day. As of today April 21, there are 10 retired FHP PPV Tahoes listed for sale. The oldest is a 2012 and the newest is a 2015.

https://tmauction.proxibid.com/Tampa-Machinery-Auction-Inc/auction-house/1409


Good luck on your search.

 

[Kee Fuller]

Got mine from Asia motors. Paid 15k for a 2013 PPV with about 85k on it.

 

[GlockandRoll]

I bought my 2008 on Ebay in 2014, with some electrical problems missing the center console and the wrong tires for about $11K. Put everything back to the way it was new, touched up some paint, new tires, etc.. and drove it for 2 years and sold it for $15K in 16. It paid me to drive it.

 

[jmm121783]

I've purchased from both of the Midwest's top Government Vehicle dealers, most have mentioned them already. They are Asia Motors and Chicago Motors in Chicago, IL. As most will say, Chicago gets the better, more rare vehicles and usually ends up getting more for them (makes perfect sense) but both do have a very nice selection on site/in Chicago that is worth going to and picking through if you are someone looking for some extra specific. I will say that my buying experience at both went fairly well. Asia was less informative and "into" the vehicles knowing the ins and outs of the business of buying Government cars. Asia seemed liked they didn't do as much to get the vehicles is as near perfect condition as possible before selling. Here is my two examples buying from each.

2009 Tahoe SSV with 112k purchased in Oct 2017 for $12100 I think it was. When I got the truck home I found numerous things that were wrong or just "patched up" nice enough to sell the vehicle without the customer knowing. I wish I knew they had the large inventory on site cause I would've rather picked through it finding the truck I wanted instead of going on eBay and checking their auctions out. They had a lot of nice trucks that weren't listed, maybe they were newer IDK but I got the feeling that they were more about turning and burning as much inventory as quick as possible. Yes I know its a dealership and that is the goal of all dealers to sell as many cars as possible, but as I stated, to me the quality of the trucks and the lack of a true full detail on the truck before I drove off, the spray painting of certain problem areas or rust to make it look better, just stuff like that kind of rubbed me the wrong way with Asia. I will admit thought that was my first purchase of a 4x4 SUV Tahoe on my own. I will say these guys are MUCH MUCH more willing to negotiate on the pricing.

2018 Tahoe PPV with 73k purchased Sept 2019 for $29k. I knew this time I wanted to try and purchase from Chicago as they always had the best looking auctions, the best pictures and the best trucks. They looked and found the rare ones with crazy options, low miles and little to know issues. I talked back and forth with a guy named "Ted" who ended up selling me the truck after a few months of texting back and forth as new inventory came in that I was interested. I was specifically looking for a SUPER SUPER clean and well optioned Tahoe that was the K2 platform. The couple issues I had with Chicago were pretty minor. They picked me up from the airport and we got the sale done pretty quick. He said there was ZERO wrong with the truck. Although this was mostly true there was definitely some things I found out later when I got home or while driving that had me texting Ted back to try and get answers on. We all know Used Car salesman will do damn near anything to sell a vehicle. There are good and bad ones as always. They things that I did end up finding out weren't too big of a deal, but it would've been that much sweeter if they could've just told me about them. The other bummer and I guess it could've been my specific truck because it was a REALLY REALLY nice 2018 Tahoe, but getting them to move on the price was a chore. I eventually got them to knock off $900 I think it was, but in the scheme of things it wasn't even 3% and I've always lived under the assumption that a dealer price typically has a 5-10% wiggle room on the price. After the back and forth they claimed that they paid X for the truck and getting 29k was absolutely the lowest they could go and still make money. I will say the truck is an amazing truck, a GEM especially being only 2 years old when I bought it. They said that all the government agencies have been keeping their Tahoes MUCH MUCH longer than they used to before. Typically a truck would get to 80-100k and the truck would be sold and the department would get a new one. Now these Governments are getting a LOT LONGER service life out of the vehicles for a variety of reasons from cutting costs to longer lasting components and few services needed to maintain the vehicle properly. In fact Ted told me they had only gotten in like 3-4 2017+ PPVs in the last two years.

I ramble as you can tell, but if anyone has questions about my experiences I would be happy to help!

 

[jz57]

Would you mind let us know what "some things" you found about your newly purchased 2018 Tahoe PPV when you got home?

.........

They picked me up from the airport and we got the sale done pretty quick. He said there was ZERO wrong with the truck. Although this was mostly true there was definitely some things I found out later when I got home or while driving that had me texting Ted back to try and get answers on.

....

 

[jmm121783]

Very minor stuff....Check engine light was coming on when it was raining really ******* the way back. I found a few dings/scratches in the paint on the rear bumper. I ended up needing to replace the direct injection fuel pump which wasn't covered by the 100k powertrain warranty. The stuff with the Asia Truck was MUCH MUCH more in depth and a PITA to figure out. Electrical issues that came down to a rusted pin in the BCM causing nearly all of my indicator lights on the cluster to not work. Issues with the removal of the cage (idk who did that) and the door panels were just barely hanging on the rear doors.....I mean it isn't Asia's fault per say, but it wouldve been nice to know all the small things I had to figure out for myself. At least Chicago Motors offered suport and even purchased and sent me a new owners manual since it wasn't in the truck.