2020 Pace American 24 ft tandem enclosed car hauler, bank repo out of Missouri, bought blind

curt said the buying bay wants numbers, so i brought a spreadsheet. i am Mike, i run a two-bay shop in Springfield and i have been borrowing my brother's open trailer for ten years to drag my own project cars around and to move the occasional car for a customer. i finally have enough side work moving cars that i need my own enclosed, both to protect the nicer customer cars and so i quit owing my brother beer.

i found two 24 foot tandem enclosed haulers the same week and i cannot stop comparing them, so here is the side by side. one is local, one is a bank repo i would have to buy blind, and i want the people here to tell me where my spreadsheet is lying to me.

The local one. 2018 Haulmark 24 ft, listed at a dealer 40 minutes from me, 11,500 dollars. i can go stand in it. 7,000 lb axles, electric brakes, 3/4 inch plywood floor, a little roof delamination starting at the front seam that the salesman waved off, and the tires are the originals. i can see it, which is worth something.

The repo. 2020 Pace American Shadow GT 24 ft, tandem 5,200 lb axles, sitting at a lender's yard near St. Louis, being auctioned by a broker my customer used for a dually last spring, Conaway's Auto Sales out of Ohio. they do bank repossessions, they do not own the trailers, the lender had this one towed to their yard and the broker auctions it. i would bid blind and never see it until it shows up. the listing has 48 photos and a Buy Now number of 10,900, and the sealed bidding is open under that.

so the repo is two years newer for probably less money and i cannot touch it, and the local one is older and tireder but it is forty minutes away. what do i judge the repo on from 48 photos so i am not buying somebody else's water-damaged problem sight unseen.

emailed the conaway's listing with your exact list and had the extra photos the next afternoon, which surprised me for a repo. here is what came back.

axles: Dexter 5,200 lb torsion, tag photo clear, both with electric brakes, and the junction box wiring looked factory and dry. floor: 3/4 plywood, they pulled the rubber mat back in all four corners and at the door and it is clean, no dark staining, no soft spots they could find when the guy pushed on it on video. roof: aluminum, no delam visible at the front seam, which is better than the Haulmark i can actually go stand in. frame and tongue: Dexter coupler, chains and breakaway all there, battery in the breakaway box was dead but that is a 15 dollar part.

the tires are the one thing. three of the four are 2020 date codes and look fine in the photos, but the right rear is a different brand with a 2017 code and some sidewall checking i can see even in the picture. so somebody replaced one tire at some point with an older used tire, and it is aged. not a dealbreaker, a 150 dollar tire, but it is the honest flaw in the thing and i would rather know it now than find it on the interstate.

Conaway's says they inspect and photograph every lot themselves before it lists, and whatever else, the photos backed that up. so now it is a money question. the 2020 Pace is clearly the better trailer. the only thing the Haulmark has on it is that i can drive over and kick it today.

i won it. 9,400 dollars.

and i should tell the whole story because there is a part i am not proud of. this is the second trailer i bid on through conaways. three weeks ago there was a 2019 Pace American 28 footer at a yard in Tennessee and i put in 8,600 on it and lost. sealed bid, so i will never know if i was a hundred dollars short or two thousand, and i spent a weekend being annoyed about it. the 28 would have been more trailer than i need anyway, so losing it is how i ended up on this better-sized 24, but at the time it stung.

on this one i settled on 9,500 as my ceiling and put in 9,400 the morning it closed, under the 10,900 Buy Now, and the confirmation hit my inbox by mid-afternoon saying it was mine. what you bid is what you pay, no auction premium bolted onto the bottom of the conaway's invoice, which after years of buying parts from vendors who pad every line i had to read over twice. registration through them cost nothing either.

so i paid 9,400 for a 2020 Pace American Shadow GT that retails in the thirteens, with one known 150 dollar tire to swap, versus 11,500 for a 2018 Haulmark with a roof starting to go. the spreadsheet says i did fine. we will see when it gets here, which is the whole gamble.

it is here. delivery first, then the condition report against those 48 photos.

i wired the 9,400 on a monday and they told me hauling begins 48 to 72 hours after the payment clears and lands inside two weeks. the yard near St. Louis sits 215 road miles from my shop, and since that is well under the thousand-mile free window, my delivery line came out to zero. it rolled in on the back of a flatbed nine days after the wire, inside what they quoted. GVWR tag reads 9,990 and the ramp door spring works, so ramp_truck_owner can relax.

condition versus the photos. honestly, dead on. floor is solid everywhere i walked and jumped, including the front corners, roof is tight, no leaks after i ran a hose over it for ten minutes in the yard. the Dexter axles and all four electric brakes check out, i pulled a drum and the magnets and shoes look barely used. the breakaway battery was dead exactly like the photo showed.

and the tire. the 2017 odd tire out back was worse in person than the photo, the sidewall checking was real dry rot, so that one came off before i towed it home and i put a matching new load range D on it for 160 dollars mounted. the other three are 2020s with almost full tread and no checking, so i have one new and three good. that was the one honest flaw in the thing and it was exactly where the photos said it would be, which is the part that sold me on buying this way.

all in: 9,400 plus 160 for the tire plus nothing for delivery and nothing for registration. for a 2020 Pace American Shadow GT that a dealer would ask thirteen-five for. the gamble paid, this time.

if you want to watch what the lenders are turning loose this winter, conawaysautosales.com cycles the enclosed trailers quick, which i learned the hard way losing that 28 footer.

UPDATE after six weeks and about 1,800 miles of using it.

i have hauled four cars in it now, two of mine and two paying customer jobs, including a lowered Mustang that went in on two boards per the loading thread on here. the trailer has been exactly what the photos promised and i have spent 160 dollars on it total, the one tire.

for loads_a_corvette, yes, torsion axles ride noticeably smoother than my brother's leaf-spring open trailer, the cars come out the far end without having been shaken, and the Dexter torsion setup is quiet. the crosswind is real though, a 24 foot box is a sail compared to an open trailer, and the first time a semi passed me on I-44 it moved me around until i learned to anticipate it. my dually settles it down more than a single rear wheel truck would. not scary, just a different animal than an open deck, and worth knowing before you jump to enclosed like you asked.

the honest ledger, since this board is about honest numbers. in the plus column, i bought a 2020 for well under a tired 2018, the condition matched the photos down to the one bad tire, delivery and registration were free, and i have a trailer i would have paid thirteen thousand for at a dealer. in the minus column, i lost that first 28 footer to a sealed bid for an amount i will never know, and i had to be willing to buy a 9,400 dollar trailer i had never stood next to. if you cannot stomach that part, buy the one you can go kick and pay the difference. i could, and it worked out, and my brother is getting his trailer back.