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Purchase from Guam or Hawaii

govt

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Anyone purchased trucks or other items from GL locations in Guam or Hawaii. I was curious about the transportation cost and logistics to the Continental United States.
Thanks!
 
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m16ty

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I have enough trouble getting trucks home from the continental US. Don't know what it would cost but it would be time consuming and pricey.

I did almost bid on a truck in Guam by mistake one time :shock:.
 

exbrown

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I use to purchase used farm and construction equipment from Japan. It cost about $3,500 to move a 40' shipping container to the US. That was about 10 years ago. Not sure what it would cost now.

You would also have to get someone to load it in the container and deliver it to the ship yard. I would bet that there is not much being shipped from Guam or Hawaii. It may be cheap. I would bet on it being prohibitively expensive though.
 

4x4 Forever

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depending on what you get. you can go online and get prices. i would not think it would be that expensive from hawaii but guam would be another animal all together. it will most likely have to go through another port of call before it hits the west coast. i do not know of any direct shippers from/to guam. with the prices i have seen lately on equipment in hawaii, it might not be bad.
 

emr

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One day last year while driving down a dusty road in hawaii, WHAT! A Super nice all done 24087 with stars Mutt parked at a little country Japanese resturant...So My sweethart spun our Jeep around and we walked in and saw a group of guys sitting at a table who just , well U know we can tell...:-D... I walked up and asked who owned the Beutiful Mutt out side and it turned out ALL the Military Vehicle owners on the Island were there, all 20 something of them !!!! They used to have a club, But have only 2 or 3 parades they do a year and just do not have enough activity to meet regularly, As usuall A GREAT bunch of Guys !!SO We ended up later that week at one of there houses and Talked alot about how they get stuff, Turned out there deuces were going for the same as here, and shipping from just one island to another was a real pain and doubled the cost of what they buy, He had like 30 reall nice Humvee trailers all lined up full of parts for his stuff, man those trailers were nice, He said they were Cheap But getting from one island to the next like said before was the problem, Oh He had a really really nice GAZ also in the garage what a treat that was...!!!...:-D
 

NDT

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I've been to Guam and trust me, everything there is rusty, and I mean really really rusty. The salt air on that tiny island eats up everything.
 

area52

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If you can fit stuff into a shipping container then you can get a good deal on shipping back to the US from Hawaii. But since the trucks (deuces and 5 tons) don't fit real well into a container, they have to be RORO or roll on roll off, basically driven onto and off the ship.

I won a couple of M109A3's in Hawaii in 2002 and the estimate to ship one back was like $5000!! I let GL keep em!
 

BKubu

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It costs a lot more than you think to move a truck of unknown running condition. If it can be brought up to running condition, it is cheaper because you may be able to go RO-RO. If it does not run, or cannot be made to run economically, it will have to go into a container. When I did it, I remember being told there are two types of shipping containers...standard and overheight. Unless you take your truck apart...remove windshield or lower, remove exhaust stack and spare, remove tires/rims...you will need to go with an overheight shipping container. They are more expensive. I last did this in January 2001 and opted to have the truck's overall height lowered to fit into a standard container, and it cost me $6500 to move the truck from Hawaii to MD and that included trucking. Some of the additional costs are:

*towing the truck to a location where it can be worked on or taken down so it will fit into a standard shipping container.
*labor to do the above referenced work.
*rental fee on a large forklift, wrecker or crane to lift the truck into the shipping container.
*container fee.
*movement of the container to the port.
*shipping.
*cost on the west coast to reverse the process.
*trucking.

Trust me when I say there is a reason trucks go cheaply in HI and Guam. It is difficult and costly to get your truck out. For a fee, I know someone who will handle all the details for you. I am not saying I would NOT bid there again. However, I better get the truck CHEAP. I am talking $2K or less. Do the math and add the shipping, handling and trucking to the price and you will see that it rarely makes sense to get something in HI. I happened to do it because (a) I was ignorant and thought I could get the truck home cheaper, and (b) I wanted that exact truck and that model was not available at the time in the continental US. Some guys claim to be conduits through which money flows. If money is not an issue, bid away. If you are on a budget like most guys (specifically those guys who don't even factor trucking), getting a truck out of Hawaii is a pipe dream.
 

BKubu

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By the way, when I mentioned a "fee," I did not mean a fee paid to me. My friend will handle things for you and HE charges a fee.

I would guarantee that the prices have gone up since 2001.
 
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rchalmers3

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I have considered bidding from trucks from both Hawaii and Puerto Rico, due to the reasoning that whatever I get will have to be shipped to my location anyway. My experience is the Hawaii trucks get about $300-$500 less in price.

BKubu mentions the exact things that stop me: a non-running truck makes it almost impossible to Ro/Ro. I know shippers must occasionally deal with non runners, but as a rule the liner services I have contacted do not accept non-runners as Ro/Ro.

I have looked at this puzzle for some time and can't seem to find a way to beat the value of purchasing a running truck locally, either at auction or private party. A thousand miles adds hundreds or thousands of dollars to the total price, if it drives or if it's transported.

Rick
 

armytruck63

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A friend of mine looked at a 900 series cargo truck near San Francisco. The truck had just been shipped in from Hawaii. It was very rusty. When my friend opened the driver's door, it almost fell off in his hands. Needless to say, he didn't buy the truck.

Beware of South Pacific rust!
 

SCSG-G4

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I got a small lot out of HI early last year. About 150 pounds, back when the minimum bid was $50, so it was less than $65 including the GL commission and sales tax. Shipping via UPS was $365 (three hundred, sixty five dollars). It was stuff I really wanted, so I paid, but never again!
 

BKubu

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The HI trucks do tend to be rusty. With that said, and in violation of one of my cardinal rules, I bid on the truck based upon the pics. The truck, overall, looked to be in rust-free condition...except the hard top for some reason. When I got it, the truck was basically rust-free. The hard top was toast. There was a small hole in front of the driver's windshield that you could put your pinky into. That was the it. The rest of the truck was nice. It was an Air Force truck and, for some reason, they put a strip of silicon caulking in all seams. I was told that the truck was also kept in a hanger, but I bet the caulking helped keep the truck in nice shape. As an aside, the truck had a really cool stencil inside the driver's door the size of a dinner plate. It was of a colonial patriot wearing a three sided hat with three jets flying overhead and it said Hawaii Air National Guard beneath it. Unfortunately, John Winslow painted over it when he painted the truck even though I asked that he not do so. Oh, well. John does such good work that I never busted his b**** over that one. :-D To be honest, I bet it was one of his helpers anyway!
 

emr

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So true about the rust!!!!!! i was told, the Fellows from there that collect say there are a thousand ww2 Jeeps in the weeds around the Island But ALL are just a pile of rust, Like nothing good on anything left out there for any length of time,and everything they have is a rust battle. I would go with a blown motor or no drive train before buying a rust bucket.
 

4x4 Forever

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Rust might be a problem, but the auctions i have seen in the past 6 months showed the trucks in pretty good shape. With the prices I saw some trucks go for about 4 months ago, it would have been cheaper to transport from Hawaii than purchase on the mainland. Even with estimating transport costs at $2-3000 from hawaii.. There were several m35a3's that went for 1000 to 1500. And they looked REAL nice.

As far as shipping goes, it is now cheaper to transport via container or roro than ever before. the ships are not getting filled up at all. That is when they bring the costs down just to get the ships as loaded as possible.

You also do not need a roro for a deuce or other piece of equipment. The shipping companies have flat racks for trucks or equipment that is too big for a container. Be advised that if you do go that route, it is worth having it covered with plastic or a tarp because they will put it up top, in front (worse place) or in the back as they cannot stack on top of a flat.

Hawaii should be cheap to ship from/to but Guam is not. Hawaii is a straight shot but Guam is not. Unless it is military stuff, it usually goes through another port before it gets there.
 

stampy

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Seems like you are in a great state for trucks why the interest in dealing with Guam or Hawaii? Seems to me that it would be a real hassle. But, if I had a friend who could check out the truck for me over there and it was RO/RO and you could get a reasonable shipping quote from the island to the mainland and you could buy the A3 right and you could get a reasonable quote to ship it from California to Louisiana..........wait I think I just figured out why I wouldn't do it:wink::wink:
 

4x4 Forever

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Would I do it? Probably not. If I got good prices on everything, I would consider it. If someone lived on the Westcoast, it would be a deal, if you got them for the prices I saw. What I'm saying is, dont just discount the process, just be informed. Hawaii would be a very good possibility. Guam, no way.

The prices on transporting everything have come way down, marinewise. We had anchor handling supply boats going for upward of 70K a day last year that go for 20K a day today. Container pricing has done the same and the container companies are most likely not going to be very viable for the next year or two. This means we get great pricing in the meantime. :wink:
 

m16ty

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The HI trucks do tend to be rusty. With that said, and in violation of one of my cardinal rules, I bid on the truck based upon the pics. The truck, overall, looked to be in rust-free condition...except the hard top for some reason. When I got it, the truck was basically rust-free. The hard top was toast. There was a small hole in front of the driver's windshield that you could put your pinky into. That was the it. The rest of the truck was nice.
I bought a M1008 out of FL and it had rust but not in the usual places. The only rust on it was around the windshield and cab top. Kind of like your truck from HI. Most trucks around here rust on the bottom. Must have something to do with the salt in the air near oceans.
 

BKubu

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With regard to the trucks that go for $1000-1500, do the math. With trucking rates at $2/mile (higher than when I got my truck home almost nine years ago), and I bet the shipping rates have also gone up, I bet I would be looking at $7500 to get a truck home (HI to MD). Do the math for your own location at $2/mile and figure $5500 for the shipping? Does it make sense to buy an M35A3 for even $1000 when I will have almost $9K in it when I get it home? You can get them in the continental US for that (except winch trucks in WI for some reason!!!). THe truck I got was an M932 tractor. At the time, you could not find one so I bid. I paid $4111 plus the bidder's fee and tax...plus the $6500 to get it home? Did I save any money? No, but I got the truck. Heck, I have seen M932s go for less than that since, but it was the first one I had seen and probably one of the first M939s that came out intact. If guys think it will be easy and cheap to do, have at it! I bet people would not even know where to start. It is a daunting task to say the least. Good luck. I won't be bidding there again unless something really spectacular comes up (think nicer than an M939 series)!
 
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