Heavy equipment vehicles are imperative to a construction company and its success. The quality of your equipment can play a huge role in the jobs you can take and while sometimes we have to work with what we have, other times we have to look at alternative options, like trade-ins. How can you ensure the best return in a trade-in? Take a look at our best practices to remember for heavy equipment trade-ins.
Strike a Balance
When you trade in your equipment, your hope is to get out of it more than you put into it in maintenance. You’ll likely never make a profit on the buying price, but it’s worth knowing your trade-in value is more than the overall maintenance cost. Similar to how renovating certain parts of your home will increase its value, you’ll find that is also true with heavy equipment.
Do the Research
The same as you would put time into researching before you buy a piece of equipment, you should do the same when you’re getting ready to trade something in. By knowing what your equipment would fetch on the open market, you can then have a fair understanding of what you should expect for trade-in value. There will always be a disparity between what you’re offered and what it will sell for, but understanding the market will help you get the best deal.
Work Local
As with many things, dealing locally will usually bring you better results. You may be able to get what seems to be a fair trade-in value from a dealer far away, but once you consider the shipping costs of getting the vehicle to them, you might find you’d be better off dealing with someone nearby. Dealing local means that you’ve got convenient services and access to your trade.
At the end of the day, you want to be able to feel like you’ve got a good deal that works for you and the dealer and leaves you with the equipment you need to keep taking jobs.
