How to Sell a Truck in Alberta

A personally registered pickup sells on the same paperwork as a car in Alberta. Nothing is added to the process because the vehicle has a box on the back.

What changes is the list of things that decide the number. Trim matters less than configuration, kilometres behave differently than sellers expect, and most of the money spent getting a truck ready is money that does not come back. Here is what actually sets the price.

Is selling a truck any different from selling a car in Alberta?

Not on paper. Your plate belongs to you rather than to the vehicle and comes off before the buyer drives away, Alberta charges no provincial sales tax and a private seller is not a GST registrant, and the bill of sale is form REG3126 with a signature line for each registered owner.

All of that is the same as it is for a car, which is why the rest of this page is about the number rather than the procedure.

What moves a truck's number that does not move a car's?

We price everything on the same three inputs: kilometres, accidents and claims, and the condition of the vehicle. That does not change for a truck, and neither does the arithmetic on a claim, which is priced on the dollar amount of the claim rather than the story behind it and is worked out in full elsewhere.

What changes is what counts as the same vehicle. Two half-tons of the same year, same trim and same mileage can be two different trucks to a buyer, because cab style, box length, drivetrain and engine are all in play, and so is whether it was ordered to tow. Valuations get looked up against an exact configuration rather than a model name, which is why "half-ton, loaded" is not a description anybody can put a number on.

Give the configuration in full the first time you are asked. Cab, box, drivetrain, engine, and the tow or payload package if it has one, since those came from the factory and are in the lookup with everything else. It is the fastest route to an accurate number.

Is a diesel priced differently from a gas truck?

The engine is part of the configuration rather than a footnote to it. A diesel and a gas version of the same truck are two separate lookups, so say which one you have when you ask for a price.

The same goes for anything that has been changed underneath. Emissions equipment that has been removed or reprogrammed is a modification like any other, and it belongs in your description rather than in the driveway. A truck described one way and built another has its number made again on the spot, which is the outcome worth avoiding.

Does high mileage finish a work truck?

No, though it does cost you, and the cost is not where sellers assume it is. Past about 130,000 km a vehicle gets harder to move, in our experience, because the number of people willing to buy it starts thinning out. That is a fact about buyers rather than about the truck, and the general mileage argument applies to a truck the same way it does to a car.

The truck itself has no such line. There is no kilometre reading at which a vehicle starts to break. Vehicles past 550,000 km are still in service on their original engine, transmission and differential, on nothing more than brakes, tires, belts, hoses, fluids and tune-ups. What separates one of those from an identical truck showing the same reading is not the reading, it is the evidence, and a folder of maintenance records is free.

Do a lift kit and aftermarket wheels add value?

Not in the way the receipts suggest they should. A valuation is looked up against a specific factory configuration, and a lift, a set of wheels, a tune, a bumper or a light bar is not a line in that lookup. The money went out at retail and it is not coming back as a line item.

What we do ask is what has been changed and whether the factory parts are still around. If the factory suspension, wheels and tires are in your garage, say so when you ask for a number, and include them in the sale. It costs you nothing and it puts the truck back into a configuration a valuation recognises.

What is worth fixing before you sell a truck?

Less than you would think, and the things sellers reach for first are the things that pay back least.

A new windshield, an oil change, minor maintenance, sometimes brakes. Sellers do that work hoping for an extra thousand or fifteen hundred dollars in the offer, and it is not there, because none of it moves kilometres, claims or condition in a way that shows up in a number.

Safety is the exception worth taking seriously. Deal with brakes and tires first if they need it, which is also the order a technician looks in: tires, then the brakes through the wheels. And keep the receipts, because the work is worth less than the proof of it.

What do truck sellers forget to mention?

The general walkaround belongs to why an offer changes at the appointment, and the appointment itself to how we buy. These four are the parts a truck has that a car does not. A truck that worked for a living is an easy truck to price. A truck that worked for a living and was described as one that did not is the version that costs you in the driveway.

1. 1The box, the tailgate and the hitch. This is the part of the truck that did the work and the part its owner has had the longest to stop noticing. Wear here is fine and gets priced as wear. Wear that arrives as a surprise does not.
2. 2Holes in the box floor and the rails. A fifth wheel or gooseneck that has come out leaves its mounting behind, and so does a headache rack, a deck conversion, a bolted toolbox or a set of company decals. Say what used to be in there before you photograph an empty box.
3. 3The trailer wiring and the brake controller. Whether the plug works and whether the controller is still in the dash is a thirty second answer, and it is the kind of thing a buyer finds out about after the number has been agreed.
4. 4Underneath. A truck that has been off pavement or backed into something often has a bent exhaust, and bent suspension and steering parts show up the same way. That is what a buyer looks for once the truck is in the air, along with what gravel and winter brine have done to the frame.

How does DriveOffer buy a truck?

The same way we buy anything else, which is the point of everything above. You give us the configuration and the honest history, we give you a number, and we come to you, in Edmonton or anywhere else in the province.

Getting an offer takes about a minute and costs nothing, and it is the quickest way to find out which of the things above actually apply to your truck.