When buying a new vehicle, most consumers have the ideal that they will take care of their new baby, and when they have outlived it’s use, will sell it for a great price because of the pains they have taken to maintain its value.  Realistically, the common practices to attempting to hold the resale value of a pickup truck, if looked at objectively, are just ridiculous.

The Bedliner

Most pickup truck owners will whip out the credit card and invest in a bedliner, soon after purchasing the vehicle, because it somehow helps maintain the value of the truck to not damage the inside of the bed.  This logic would hold if you could remove the bedliner prior to resale and expose this spanking new, never been used bed to the world, but you can’t.  Since the bedliners are riveted to the bed frame, and breaking the rivets would expose holes that would then be susceptible to rust, the bedliner cannot be removed.  And the bedliner shows wear.  So how is this maintaining the value of the vehicle?  The bed could be completely trashed under the liner.  It would make more sense to just use the truck for it’s intended purpose, then install a liner immediately before selling.  It wouldn’t change the wear condition of the vehicle, but at least the new owner will have a nice new looking truck from inside the bed.

Reupholster the Interior

Yes, I know of one man who actually purchased $6/yard heavy grade felt, in the same color as his new truck carpeting, and upholstered over all of the carpeting to maintain the resale value of the vehicle.  His logic is that, when he goes to sell the truck, he can pull up the felt and the carpet underneath will be brand new.  My logic is, you paid for a brand new truck 10 years ago, in which you loved the look of the interior, and have not been seen the actual interior you paid for since you bought it.  Kind of like buying beautiful new furniture and covering it in plastic for protection.  Except that you can actually see the furniture through the plastic…

Don’t Drive the Terrain

This is my favorite.  Men who purchase a 4 x 4 truck, and will not settle for less, but refuse to go off-road with it because they don’t want to scratch the paint. 

I know one such man, I assume there are others.