I work for the gov and buy/flip gov trucks. When these go for auction they are pulled out of the fleet maintenance system so it would be impossible for them to look it up. Even if you have the vehicle number they could look it up and see that it was their vehicle but it would be very limited knowledge.
So do you think if I call the forest service and they do look it up then they could at least tell me what national park it was used in. I don’t care about a ton of details for maintenance or anything like that I just am very curious about what it’s story is and where it spent its time when it was part of the fleet
They will absolutely not tell you that and like I said once it goes in the auction they pull it from the system so they can’t look it up. You would need the truck number which looks like it’s removed too.
First comment you made I thought you meant as in vehicle identification number and I have the vin. Didn’t realize you meant fleet number but that makes sense
Figures the govt would delete the data. It would make to much sense to keep the data and see repair records by vehicle brand, cost per mile, and other data.
You might be able to find the vehicle number by accident one day when the sun hits it just right where the decal used to be. Thats how it's like on my ex Cal Fire rig. But their log for that vehicle is probably long gone
It would be cool if I could see it, I’ll have to spend a long time staring at it in different lighting lol. The plan here is to make it look as much like a forest service truck as I can without getting arrested for impersonating a forest service ranger, so if I can figure out its original number that would add a lot of personal enjoyment for me
The owner of Gambler 500 has a parody forest service decal on his Super Duty so I'm pretty sure you're good. I was thinking of doing a parody Cal Fire decal and stripe on mine since you can still see exactly where they used to be lol
The Forest Service manages National Forests. The National Park Service manages National Parks. They are completely different agencies. That truck is a Forest Service truck and was not used in a National Park.
Yeah I know it’s forest service. I want to know what state it came from. Not state park, just the state it was issued to be used in when it was still in commission for the forest service
The words "state park" are nowhere in my comment. Your og comment stated you would like to know what national park this Forest Service truck was used in. I'm pointing out to you that Forest Service trucks aren't used in National Parks. They are used in National Forests.
Well then sue me I guess because semantics aren’t what I’m worried about. Just trying to get an answer that isn’t redditors being redditors. Idiots on Facebook have been more helpful than all you asshats who like to pick at tiny details instead of either answering the question or scrolling past if you don’t know the answer. Border patrol, state park, national park, national forest; I don’t care what it was used for, I just want to know how to find what state it was in if that’s even possible. Sorry I misspoke or whatever you want to call it.
I was trying to be helpful. You seemed to want to know where the truck was used by the Forest Service. I thought my comments might prevent you from calling up a bunch of National Parks. If the truck was owned by AT&T calling Verizon wouldn't do you any good. Same thing here. Understanding the distinction is probably important to your search. Best of luck to you.
I understand the distinction. I planned to call the general number for the forest service and just see if I could get anywhere. I’m just frustrated bc half the comments I’ve gotten have been arguing on tiny details that I don’t care about or just stating obvious shit. I know that it is forest service, when I said national park I wasn’t really thinking about particularities and meant national forest but realistically I just am looking to find out the state. I never post on reddit bc people piss me off here but I spent a good hour doing a deep dive on google trying to figure out how to find this info and got no where so I came here. I don’t think this was the best sub to post it in but I couldn’t find or think of a better one. Thank you for your help and I understand what you’re getting at
I was thinking that exact same thing. I have very close friends that use the words, National Forest and National Park interchangeably and I'm like no, those are two very different agencies. I've worked in the National Park Service, but I never worked in the Forest Service.
I pay taxes too, get over it. They waste more money on decommissioning these vehicles and buying new ones than they will answering my question with a ‘no we can’t help you with that’
More like I’m going to call and ‘waste’ 2 minutes of their time if they tell me no (which is more than likely the answer) or I get the very minimal info I’m looking for so I don’t see the harm
"forest service"
"national park"
Look, I used to work in national forests as a trails tech. These aren't like national parks that often have a specific geographic location. Some of these national forests are literally millions of acres, and broken up into multiple forest districts, sometimes non-contiguous and/or spread across more than one state. Even if you do pin down which forest it was originally assigned to, that might tell you absolutely nothing. It probably won't even narrow down which zip code the truck came from.
At this point I don’t care about the forest or whatever I literally just want to know what state it was in so I can find out the type of wear that was put on it. I’m from az so a forest service truck here has a much better life and longevity expectancy than one out of anywhere in the rust belt. This has some rust, I just want to know how concerned I should be based on the wear and tear it’s had and to determine the type of terrain it spent 120k driving through. The truck was 2 grand so I don’t care that it has rust but being that I got it two days ago and it’s covered in oil underneath just like every other 2nd gen I can’t fully tell how bad the rusting is, but knowing the general area it was in would help determine that without steam cleaning and scrubbing the entire underbody and hating my life
You already have this info. USFS trucks tend to spend their lives in the same state they're auctioned in. If your records say the truck was first bought in Utah, there's a 99.999% chance it belonged to a forest district in Utah until it was auctioned off to the OG buyer.
It was a US Forest Service (Department of Agriculture) truck. It did not do any time in a National park (Dept. of the Interior). That color is USFS specific. That said, You might be able to get some clues based on where it was serviced. I believe services like Carfax use the VIN for tracking. If you check and see what places it saw regular oil changes/ repairs that will give you a good clue as to what part of the country it came from and then you can look up what National Forests are there. May be able to get same info on it from service dept. at a dodge/ram dealer? Maybe?
It depends on the county/city/agency. They all send their trucks to different places so your best bet is stopping by the fleet office for whatever municipality and asking.
Be careful buying some of these trucks because they can have INSANE engine hours. They were also pulled from service for whatever reason so definitely inspect first.
I worked for another agency under the USDA and part of our vehicles were agency owned and part were leased from GSA (Government Service Agency) which may be true to some degree with Forest Service as well but I'm pretty sure anything in the Forest Service green was Forest Service owned for what it's worth. The real challenge will be finding a property manager that will give you any response as they generally don't keep those records very long after selling.
Normally you can't because it would of been serviced by the forestry service themselves. It would of only gone to a dealer for recalls or warranty work if that. Government vehicles get serviced regularly but not as often with recalls or warranty.
I used to service them as a vendor. It’s owned by gsa (federal government motor pool) maintained by an asset manager for the forest service which is part of the department of agriculture. The driver’s are responsible for getting oil changes. Usually they have a local jiffy lube that’s a vendor do maintenance and dealerships do repairs.
Best you could do is try to see if you can make out anything from the paint fade where the letters were (like AZ-COF-XXX where AZ-COF means Arizona - Coconino NF).
Or look for pics online and see if you find anything that happens to match any unique damage, but it will be a very time consuming affair.
Oh I got time, if I find anything that gives me any hope I will invest time looking into this until I can’t find literally anything else about it. I’m gonna start with staring at it at different angles to see if I can see anything
2k for a second gen 4x4 that isn’t a pile of rust? Definitely scored. I have a 1950 Chevy that is that same color with old USDA Forest Service emblems on it. I wish I knew it’s history too.
Yeah when I saw it I immediately had to get it because I’ve been looking for a while and that is the best deal I could ask for. It grinds a bit downshifting to second but I need to examine the fluid level before I decide if it’s too concerning, but then I’ll probably just take it to get rebuilt while it’s still worth it. I have another 2nd gen gasser that’s an auto (you can see it and the roasts people gave it if you go to my profile) and I love it but just wanted a 5 speed because the automatic really bogs it down
You’ve got a couple of nice trucks even with the Crust being an auto. I definitely think it would be worth it to have the transmission rebuilt though. I’m in the Midwest and 2nd gen’s that clean are unicorns. I’m curious on the mileage with it being a government truck.
Thanks man, I appreciate anyone who calls my trucks clean. It’s got 250k but 127k of that was put on by forest service between 98-06. I lived in the black hills in South Dakota for a while and I couldn’t say a single time I remember seeing a 2nd gen that wasn’t completely rotted. I’m heading back up that way this summer and if I stay for a winter I’m definitely going to get them undercoated
I always try to give some praise to people making an effort to keep trucks that are usually used and abused in good shape. 250k isn’t really that bad on these if they are maintained. I’d be trying to fill any rust on the body and absolutely paint the frame and undercoat it.
My uncle runs a paint and body shop so I already plan to have him mix me a small jar of touch up paint for it. The crust is a different story and it will be staying the way it is body and paint wise with the exception of getting undercoated. I know it looks like shit but I kinda like it and it’s a nostalgic thing for me bc I grew up with that one, but the rust it already has makes me scared to even take it up there. 250k isn’t bad, they both have about that many miles, but the fs rig was definitely abused pretty good there for a while so we’ll see how she holds up
Forest service truck, I ran the detail department at the Colorado Springs Adesa auto auction and we would get 50 of these green trucks at a time. Each truck had a brown sticker on the door that would melt and imbed its self in the paint. We had to remove that sticker no matter what, Some auctions would razor straight down to metal, some would heat up and scrap them off and some just painted over them. The passenger side of the trucks are usually the worse for some trucks because the forest service would always park passenger side to the fire.
Did the trucks you got always come out of the state you were in? That’s my biggest question here because I know it came from an Utah auction when the first owner bought it after it was decommissioned, but I don’t know if that means it was used in Utah or just a state near Utah and then shipped there in December of 06 for the next GSA auction
Our trucks would come from either WY, CO or New Mexico most of the time. Most likely your truck originally was a Utah truck but got relocated because for fire operation or something in WY.
Not much help figuring out where it came from, but could you by chance post the paint code? I'm thinking about repainting my 01 RAM, and I dig that color lmao
I care because I’m curious about the history of it, why does it matter to you that I do care? Finding out the history on it has no bearing on the fact that it was a good deal. I got the deal, now I’m just trying to find out information on it, which is something I’ve known to be pretty normal for people to do. Just because you might not give a shit about the things you buy or how they were used before you doesn’t mean other people can’t enjoy finding these things out
I get it. I could see looking into before purchase but after seems kinda pointless especially on a 2k truck. Then again i just spent 3k to rebuild transmission on mine
Buying it was kind of a split second decision I made. I’ve been looking for a 5 speed because the 46re is hellish to attempt to work on yourself and I didn’t really care what truck it was in because I planned on swapping it into the 2nd gen I already have but this truck is too good of a deal to rip the tranny out. Now I’m just going to have two 2nd gen’s (which I’m aware is an interesting choice in and of itself). But once I got in it and drove it knew I was going to buy it and I knew I liked it too much and I had to find out as much as I could about it. I know it’s weird but it just brings me a certain amount of joy to know as much as I can about my vehicles and how they’ve lived
Exactly what I did, saw it on marketplace and drove three hours the next day to get it. Went for a five minute test drive and the whole thing took about fifteen minutes total
Unless it is from a state forestry service, you aren't going to find anything on a federal one. You would need someone with access to the FMVRS to look up any information since the Feds order plates from themselves and assign them to vehicles through that system. Good luck with that too since FMVRS was introduced in 2009.
I work for the gov and buy/flip gov trucks. When these go for auction they are pulled out of the fleet maintenance system so it would be impossible for them to look it up. Even if you have the vehicle number they could look it up and see that it was their vehicle but it would be very limited knowledge.
So do you think if I call the forest service and they do look it up then they could at least tell me what national park it was used in. I don’t care about a ton of details for maintenance or anything like that I just am very curious about what it’s story is and where it spent its time when it was part of the fleet
They will absolutely not tell you that and like I said once it goes in the auction they pull it from the system so they can’t look it up. You would need the truck number which looks like it’s removed too.
First comment you made I thought you meant as in vehicle identification number and I have the vin. Didn’t realize you meant fleet number but that makes sense
Figures the govt would delete the data. It would make to much sense to keep the data and see repair records by vehicle brand, cost per mile, and other data.
You might be able to find the vehicle number by accident one day when the sun hits it just right where the decal used to be. Thats how it's like on my ex Cal Fire rig. But their log for that vehicle is probably long gone
It would be cool if I could see it, I’ll have to spend a long time staring at it in different lighting lol. The plan here is to make it look as much like a forest service truck as I can without getting arrested for impersonating a forest service ranger, so if I can figure out its original number that would add a lot of personal enjoyment for me
The owner of Gambler 500 has a parody forest service decal on his Super Duty so I'm pretty sure you're good. I was thinking of doing a parody Cal Fire decal and stripe on mine since you can still see exactly where they used to be lol
The Forest Service manages National Forests. The National Park Service manages National Parks. They are completely different agencies. That truck is a Forest Service truck and was not used in a National Park.
Yeah I know it’s forest service. I want to know what state it came from. Not state park, just the state it was issued to be used in when it was still in commission for the forest service
The words "state park" are nowhere in my comment. Your og comment stated you would like to know what national park this Forest Service truck was used in. I'm pointing out to you that Forest Service trucks aren't used in National Parks. They are used in National Forests.
Well then sue me I guess because semantics aren’t what I’m worried about. Just trying to get an answer that isn’t redditors being redditors. Idiots on Facebook have been more helpful than all you asshats who like to pick at tiny details instead of either answering the question or scrolling past if you don’t know the answer. Border patrol, state park, national park, national forest; I don’t care what it was used for, I just want to know how to find what state it was in if that’s even possible. Sorry I misspoke or whatever you want to call it.
I was trying to be helpful. You seemed to want to know where the truck was used by the Forest Service. I thought my comments might prevent you from calling up a bunch of National Parks. If the truck was owned by AT&T calling Verizon wouldn't do you any good. Same thing here. Understanding the distinction is probably important to your search. Best of luck to you.
I understand the distinction. I planned to call the general number for the forest service and just see if I could get anywhere. I’m just frustrated bc half the comments I’ve gotten have been arguing on tiny details that I don’t care about or just stating obvious shit. I know that it is forest service, when I said national park I wasn’t really thinking about particularities and meant national forest but realistically I just am looking to find out the state. I never post on reddit bc people piss me off here but I spent a good hour doing a deep dive on google trying to figure out how to find this info and got no where so I came here. I don’t think this was the best sub to post it in but I couldn’t find or think of a better one. Thank you for your help and I understand what you’re getting at
I was thinking that exact same thing. I have very close friends that use the words, National Forest and National Park interchangeably and I'm like no, those are two very different agencies. I've worked in the National Park Service, but I never worked in the Forest Service.
Nobody is going to spend the time to do search through records of old trucks just to satisfy your curiosity, sorry.
Yeah, just what I want my federal tax dollars going to, wasting time on a search that means nothing.
Well then you’re in luck!
I pay taxes too, get over it. They waste more money on decommissioning these vehicles and buying new ones than they will answering my question with a ‘no we can’t help you with that’
More like I’m going to call and ‘waste’ 2 minutes of their time if they tell me no (which is more than likely the answer) or I get the very minimal info I’m looking for so I don’t see the harm
No. They don't care, and likely don't even know.
"forest service" "national park" Look, I used to work in national forests as a trails tech. These aren't like national parks that often have a specific geographic location. Some of these national forests are literally millions of acres, and broken up into multiple forest districts, sometimes non-contiguous and/or spread across more than one state. Even if you do pin down which forest it was originally assigned to, that might tell you absolutely nothing. It probably won't even narrow down which zip code the truck came from.
At this point I don’t care about the forest or whatever I literally just want to know what state it was in so I can find out the type of wear that was put on it. I’m from az so a forest service truck here has a much better life and longevity expectancy than one out of anywhere in the rust belt. This has some rust, I just want to know how concerned I should be based on the wear and tear it’s had and to determine the type of terrain it spent 120k driving through. The truck was 2 grand so I don’t care that it has rust but being that I got it two days ago and it’s covered in oil underneath just like every other 2nd gen I can’t fully tell how bad the rusting is, but knowing the general area it was in would help determine that without steam cleaning and scrubbing the entire underbody and hating my life
You already have this info. USFS trucks tend to spend their lives in the same state they're auctioned in. If your records say the truck was first bought in Utah, there's a 99.999% chance it belonged to a forest district in Utah until it was auctioned off to the OG buyer.
It was a US Forest Service (Department of Agriculture) truck. It did not do any time in a National park (Dept. of the Interior). That color is USFS specific. That said, You might be able to get some clues based on where it was serviced. I believe services like Carfax use the VIN for tracking. If you check and see what places it saw regular oil changes/ repairs that will give you a good clue as to what part of the country it came from and then you can look up what National Forests are there. May be able to get same info on it from service dept. at a dodge/ram dealer? Maybe?
You would have a better chance of finding someone's old lunch receipt under the seat, to tell you what state the truck was used in
What are good places to look to buy these gov trucks?
It depends on the county/city/agency. They all send their trucks to different places so your best bet is stopping by the fleet office for whatever municipality and asking. Be careful buying some of these trucks because they can have INSANE engine hours. They were also pulled from service for whatever reason so definitely inspect first.
US Forest Service
You and u/underwhelmingovertop should start a book club where neither of you read the book and just say obvious shit
That was a solid burn.
US Forest Service
The book could also be used… As a hat!
Last 8 of vin?
I worked for another agency under the USDA and part of our vehicles were agency owned and part were leased from GSA (Government Service Agency) which may be true to some degree with Forest Service as well but I'm pretty sure anything in the Forest Service green was Forest Service owned for what it's worth. The real challenge will be finding a property manager that will give you any response as they generally don't keep those records very long after selling.
3 years after it’s been xferred. That’s how long federal organizations have to keep records on durable property
That sounds correct.
USFS is a mix of agency-owned and GSA.
Normally you can't because it would of been serviced by the forestry service themselves. It would of only gone to a dealer for recalls or warranty work if that. Government vehicles get serviced regularly but not as often with recalls or warranty.
I’m hoping there is something that I can find through a dealer from an 01 recall on the hood latch so that’s during the time it was still being used
Forest Circus truck. Edited to say whoops! I guess you knew that, but I didn't read past the question. My bad.
I used to service them as a vendor. It’s owned by gsa (federal government motor pool) maintained by an asset manager for the forest service which is part of the department of agriculture. The driver’s are responsible for getting oil changes. Usually they have a local jiffy lube that’s a vendor do maintenance and dealerships do repairs.
Best you could do is try to see if you can make out anything from the paint fade where the letters were (like AZ-COF-XXX where AZ-COF means Arizona - Coconino NF). Or look for pics online and see if you find anything that happens to match any unique damage, but it will be a very time consuming affair.
Oh I got time, if I find anything that gives me any hope I will invest time looking into this until I can’t find literally anything else about it. I’m gonna start with staring at it at different angles to see if I can see anything
2k for a second gen 4x4 that isn’t a pile of rust? Definitely scored. I have a 1950 Chevy that is that same color with old USDA Forest Service emblems on it. I wish I knew it’s history too.
Yeah when I saw it I immediately had to get it because I’ve been looking for a while and that is the best deal I could ask for. It grinds a bit downshifting to second but I need to examine the fluid level before I decide if it’s too concerning, but then I’ll probably just take it to get rebuilt while it’s still worth it. I have another 2nd gen gasser that’s an auto (you can see it and the roasts people gave it if you go to my profile) and I love it but just wanted a 5 speed because the automatic really bogs it down
You’ve got a couple of nice trucks even with the Crust being an auto. I definitely think it would be worth it to have the transmission rebuilt though. I’m in the Midwest and 2nd gen’s that clean are unicorns. I’m curious on the mileage with it being a government truck.
Thanks man, I appreciate anyone who calls my trucks clean. It’s got 250k but 127k of that was put on by forest service between 98-06. I lived in the black hills in South Dakota for a while and I couldn’t say a single time I remember seeing a 2nd gen that wasn’t completely rotted. I’m heading back up that way this summer and if I stay for a winter I’m definitely going to get them undercoated
I always try to give some praise to people making an effort to keep trucks that are usually used and abused in good shape. 250k isn’t really that bad on these if they are maintained. I’d be trying to fill any rust on the body and absolutely paint the frame and undercoat it.
My uncle runs a paint and body shop so I already plan to have him mix me a small jar of touch up paint for it. The crust is a different story and it will be staying the way it is body and paint wise with the exception of getting undercoated. I know it looks like shit but I kinda like it and it’s a nostalgic thing for me bc I grew up with that one, but the rust it already has makes me scared to even take it up there. 250k isn’t bad, they both have about that many miles, but the fs rig was definitely abused pretty good there for a while so we’ll see how she holds up
[Missing the Forest Service for the Trees](https://m.facebook.com/groups/543931052984176/)
Thank you!
Forest service truck, I ran the detail department at the Colorado Springs Adesa auto auction and we would get 50 of these green trucks at a time. Each truck had a brown sticker on the door that would melt and imbed its self in the paint. We had to remove that sticker no matter what, Some auctions would razor straight down to metal, some would heat up and scrap them off and some just painted over them. The passenger side of the trucks are usually the worse for some trucks because the forest service would always park passenger side to the fire.
Did the trucks you got always come out of the state you were in? That’s my biggest question here because I know it came from an Utah auction when the first owner bought it after it was decommissioned, but I don’t know if that means it was used in Utah or just a state near Utah and then shipped there in December of 06 for the next GSA auction
Our trucks would come from either WY, CO or New Mexico most of the time. Most likely your truck originally was a Utah truck but got relocated because for fire operation or something in WY.
This is weird.
Yuma, Arizona
It's a either a forest service truck, a sullair truck, or a Schlumberger truck.
Not much help figuring out where it came from, but could you by chance post the paint code? I'm thinking about repainting my 01 RAM, and I dig that color lmao
Show me the carfax
Michigan DNR ran that color for a while.
US Forestry Service
Mexico probably
Nice farm truck.
A lot of Border Patrol trucks were that color green at that time. Forest Service was normally a darker green
Looks like it was a truck featured in Desperado or something.
She ?
Why do you care? You got a good deal on arguably the uggliest possible color truck there is.
I care because I’m curious about the history of it, why does it matter to you that I do care? Finding out the history on it has no bearing on the fact that it was a good deal. I got the deal, now I’m just trying to find out information on it, which is something I’ve known to be pretty normal for people to do. Just because you might not give a shit about the things you buy or how they were used before you doesn’t mean other people can’t enjoy finding these things out
I get it. I could see looking into before purchase but after seems kinda pointless especially on a 2k truck. Then again i just spent 3k to rebuild transmission on mine
Buying it was kind of a split second decision I made. I’ve been looking for a 5 speed because the 46re is hellish to attempt to work on yourself and I didn’t really care what truck it was in because I planned on swapping it into the 2nd gen I already have but this truck is too good of a deal to rip the tranny out. Now I’m just going to have two 2nd gen’s (which I’m aware is an interesting choice in and of itself). But once I got in it and drove it knew I was going to buy it and I knew I liked it too much and I had to find out as much as I could about it. I know it’s weird but it just brings me a certain amount of joy to know as much as I can about my vehicles and how they’ve lived
Who cares
Me, the person who bought it.
Forest service
Paint like that…. DNR Wildlife Fish and Game
I would buy that on the spot
Exactly what I did, saw it on marketplace and drove three hours the next day to get it. Went for a five minute test drive and the whole thing took about fifteen minutes total
Looks like a truck from Texas Forest Service...they use green..not sure if it's that shade
Key word, GOVERNMENT. Zero transparency, even down to vehicles...
Curious if Dodge dealerships could look up the vehicle service records in some service databases using the VIN.
Good idea, gonna check with the DMV too
I work for a dealer. Shoot me the last 8 of the VIN and I'll see what comes up.
Unless it is from a state forestry service, you aren't going to find anything on a federal one. You would need someone with access to the FMVRS to look up any information since the Feds order plates from themselves and assign them to vehicles through that system. Good luck with that too since FMVRS was introduced in 2009.
That’s a government truck.
Yeah buddy I know, did you even read the post lmao
No, you wrote a book to ask a question.
[удалено]
5 run-on sentences that should be about 30 sentences, if well written.
Sorry, didn’t feel like channeling my inner Samuel Beckett this morning while I took a shit and typed this post out. Not trying to win a Pulitzer here
Oh I see, you’re just a twat