ok, i have read the Expedition and the Tahoe threads three times and my wife has agreed to "look." i found a 2020 GMC Yukon XL SLT on the m&a listing at a lender yard in Ohio, 61,300 miles on the dash photo, 5.3, bench second row. Ohio to Indianapolis is nothing, so delivery is free.
i paid $45 for a history report on the VIN from the listing. here is where it does not quite match, and i do not know which things matter:
1. last odometer reading on the report is 58,900 from a Valvoline in Columbus in november 2024. listing says 61,300 now. 2. there is a "minor damage reported" entry from 2022, rear, no airbag, no details. the listing photos of the rear bumper look fine to me. 3. no service records at all after that Valvoline visit, which i guess is when the payments stopped.
odometer: 2,400 miles in roughly 5 months before it was picked up is normal driving. the thing to watch for is the opposite, a listing number lower than an older report. that would be a real problem. yours goes up, which is what you want.
minor damage, rear, no airbag: usually a parking lot bump or somebody backing into a pole. ask for close photos of the rear bumper cover, the gaps on both sides of the liftgate and the spare tire area under the floor. repainted bumper covers show orange peel and overspray on the rubber seals. if the gaps are even and the floor is dry, i would not lose sleep.
no service records after november: assume it needs an oil change and fluids on arrival and budget it. the bigger thing on a 2020 5.3 is the lifter talk from the Tahoe thread, ask for a cold start video like tulsa did.
the cold start video was the best thing i asked for. also ask whether the truck comes with both keys. mine came with one and a second Tahoe key fob programmed at the dealer is about $300. that was not in my thread because i was embarrassed i had not asked.
mike here. we did the same thing before our Max, history report first, then questions. two things that helped us.
write down every claim in the listing before you bid, mileage, trim, options, "no accidents" if it says that. the 30 day money back guarantee on mandaautollc.com is for when a lot was materially misrepresented, so it covers the listing being wrong, not a used truck needing brakes. you want a record of what they said. screenshots with the date, all of them.
and decide your number before you look at the bid page again. jen made me write ours on a sticky note on the fridge so i could not creep it up at 11 pm.
adding one free check people skip. NMVTIS, the federal title database, is what the paid reports pull from for brands like salvage, flood and junk. any of the approved NMVTIS providers will run a title brand check for a few dollars. you already have the bigger report, but if you ever look at a truck with a gap in the history, run that one too. and per the house rules, please post the outcome either way, a lost bid helps the next person as much as a win.
outcome, as promised. asked for the rear photos and a cold start video. the photos came in 2 days: even gaps, dry spare tire well, and you could see a faint repaint line on the bottom edge of the bumper cover. the video was clean.
we bid $36,200, which was the sticky note number. we did not get it. no idea by how much. my wife was more disappointed than i was, which i did not see coming three weeks ago. there is another Yukon XL listed on m&a right now out of Kentucky and we are doing the whole checklist again.
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