Those fellows at Firehouse66 are back in the spotlight again. You may remember them from our report last November on them stiffing a small fire department in North Carolina by selling them a fire engine without a title. (Firegeezer story HERE.)
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One of our sharp-eyed readers, Chief J., spotted something peculiar while shopping online for a used fire engine. He had just finished reviewing the online auction offerings of several pieces of fire apparatus that are being sold by the Odessa, Texas, Fire Department including their former-Engine 7. The engine, a 2001 Pierce which has a minimum entry bid of $85,000 had several photos of it placed within the listing and they were apparently taken outside the engine house.
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A little later, Chief J. was looking through the February issue of Fire Trader when he came across a full-page ad placed by Firehouse66.
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Down on the lower left corner of the page a picture caught his eye. It was the same photo that he saw on the Odessa auction photo gallery. Recalling our previous story on Firehouse66, Chief J. asked Firegeezer how could two different people be selling the same fire engine? The answer is, They can’t.
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In an interview with Firegeezer, Rene Bates, the McKinney, Texas, auctioneer who is handling the sale explained that the City of Odessa still owns the fire engines and they have possession of them. The only way that the title to them will transfer is when the winning bidder pays the full amount of the sale and shows up to remove the trucks.
Mr. Bates has been in the auction business for 42 years and he currently specializes in selling surplus equipment for over 270 Texas municipalities and public utility companies.
A phone call to Firehouse66 inquiring about the pumper in the ad brought the admission that they did not yet have possession of the three pumpers (that Odessa is selling), but that “they will be coming in in about 2 weeks.” Then they will be available for purchase.
Seemingly, Firehouse66 is staying a half-step within the legal boundaries by not actually stating that they have the Odessa pumpers for sale. That explains the lack of a selling price on the advertisement. But they are being deceptive by giving the impression that they are selling them. In actuality they are trying to pre-sell them and are gambling on being the winning bidders.
And why would they take such a risk? For the answer to that we turn to our staff apparatus expert LightRock who tells us:
Depending on what you use as your benchmark, sales in the new fire apparatus market were off 10-20% in 2007, with slightly under 5,000 units sold during the calendar year. So, what are the implications for the used market?
After talking to my industry sources, here are some key points…
* Demand for used fire apparatus, especially newer or late model units is very strong. The market is not suffering from a lack of buyers.
* Supply of newer or late model apparatus is currently low. The reason(s) for this aren’t clear, but a reasonable assumption is that some departments that were turning their fleets over while they were fairly “young” may have pulled back a bit for budgetary reasons, which would account for both some of the softness in the new market, as well as the lack of good late model trucks in the used market.
* Most of what is coming into the used market currently is pretty old…older than usual…which would indicate that much of the buying going on in the new market is “necessity” based rather than more discretionary.
* Strong demand for good used apparatus, in combination with limited supply and very low interest rates to finance new purchases could be a triple ripple that fire departments should consider when deciding whether or not the time is right to make a new purchase. Even though the economy is a bit soft, now could be more “right” than it might at first appear.
We can’t emphasize enough how you need to be careful when you set out to spend large amounts of money for fire trucks. And before you go shopping, be sure to review our article (and the comments) on How To Buy A Used Fire Truck HERE.
