Buy it right.
The first time.

The worst used truck I ever saw sold was clean. The man who bought it did nothing stupid. He looked at the truck. This book is about everything you check before you look at the truck: the pump, the model year, the paperwork, and the one date on a certified warranty almost nobody asks for.

Get Buy It Right — $19 See what's inside

No dealer pays me. No manufacturer. No sponsor. · Instant PDF · 7-day refund.

§ 01 — Why it matters

Most of the expensive decisions are made before you see the truck.

A heavy-duty diesel can be one fuel pump away from an eight-to-twelve-thousand-dollar repair, and which model years carry that pump is public information. A used-car dealer isn't required by federal law to fix an open recall before selling you the vehicle. And a certified warranty usually runs from the day the truck was first sold new, not the day you buy it.

None of that is a secret. It's just not what anybody on the lot is paid to tell you.

3Free VIN checks
before you drive

$12KWhat one diesel pump
failure can cost

1Date that decides a
certified warranty

5Checks before
money changes hands

Repair costs are indicative and vary. Recalls, settlements and rules cited in the book are attributed to their sources: NHTSA, the FTC Used Car Rule, and published recall and court records.

Field Manual No. 03 · 34 pages

Buy It Right

$19

A retired master tech's guide to buying a used truck or car without getting burned. Diesels, gas V8s, transmissions, certified pre-owned and the finance office, in plain English, with the good years named as well as the bad ones.

1Four minutes at the kitchen table
2Read the sticker before the car
3Diesels: the pump that picks the truck
4Gas engines and transmissions, by type
5The cold start and the test drive
6Miles lie, hours tell the truth
7Certified pre-owned: what it buys
8The finance office
9Five checks before any money moves
10Cheat sheets to take with you

Get Buy It Right — $19

§ 02 — Who's telling you this

I'm Hank

"Fifty-nine years old, forty of them under the hood. No dealer pays me, no manufacturer, no sponsor — so I'll tell you exactly what they won't."

I spent the last fifteen of those years on a dealership service floor. I signed the sheets behind the certified stickers. I cut open the fuel filters. I watched good people sign for trucks I wouldn't have towed home.

Three promises run through this book: I name the good ones as well as the bad, by engine and by year. No scare stories: every claim is a documented pattern, a published recall, a court record, or what I saw on my own lift, and where it's my opinion I say so. And it's your call. I lay the cards face up. What you buy is your business.

— Hank Calloway

§ 03 — Fair questions

Before you buy

I'm not a mechanic. Is this for me?

Yes. Most of it is checks you do from your kitchen table or standing next to the truck with a flashlight, and the book tells you plainly which jobs to hand to an independent shop.

Is it only about diesels?

No. Diesels get a full chapter because that's where the biggest bills are, but gas engines, transmissions, certified pre-owned and the finance office each get their own.

Does it tell me which brand to buy?

It tells you which engine families and model years have a documented weak spot, which years fixed it, and which ones I'd spend my own money on. It doesn't tell you a badge is junk. That isn't true of any of them.

What do I actually get?

A 34-page PDF you download the moment you pay. Read it on your phone or print the cheat sheets and take them to the lot.

What if it's not for me?

You get your money back. Seven days, no questions asked.

Buy it right, and it'll look after you.

$19. Less than the cost of the fuel filter you should cut open before you buy a diesel.