Something you should consider is that CL buyers are usually cash buyers, and $12,000 is a lot of money, so it’s often not the best place to sell a $12,000 truck. In order to make a CL ad attractive, it should be a better deal than can be found elsewhere.
So, without the diesel, it would be an $8500 truck
There is no way I’m going to spend $8500 for a truck with 260,000 miles on the clock. I might spend that if it had the diesel, but not for a regular gas truck. 12 grand even for a diesel truck that’s 10 years old and has that many miles under its belt is right out.
While the diesel is great and adds value, the rest of the truck still has 260,000 miles on it, which means I know I’m probably going to be dumping a lot of money into it fixing the crap that the previous owner neglected. 12 grand is an awful lot of money to spend just for the opportunity to spend thousands of dollars fixing up an old heap.
Regarding the specific ad, I automatically ignore anything like “it’s regularly detailed and looks great, all highway miles,” etc - - because a lot of people on Craigslist lie, and there’s no way for me to confirm that they’re all highway miles, etc. And I can’t count the number of times I’ve looked at cars for friends that were advertised as being in great condition inside and out, and when I got there there was rust everywhere, the brake pads wore away 5,000 miles ago and the pad backer has cut record grooves into the discs, the head gasket is blown, the “perfect” interior has big rips in the driver seat, etc etc. In short, even if you post pictures, I don’t assume they’re of the actual car you’re selling until I see it in person.
So in other words, all the great things your daughter says about the truck in the ad are being ignored because buyers are assuming that she’s lying. And since in their minds she’s lying, and yet she admits the thing has more than a quarter million miles on it, and she wants 12 grand, they also think she’s nuts.
I’m not saying they’re right – But that’s why the truck isn’t selling.
Add to that the fact that the seller is conveniently out of town, and that sounds like a reverse remote-sale scam that Craigslist warns people about.
Best advice I could give is to stop trying to sell it until he gets back from the fires, and then lower the price.
@shadowfax, you’re engaging in a certain kind of bias. I forget what it’s called, but you can’t assume everyone thinks like you do. When I sold my motorcycle, it was the most informed consumers who balked at the price and attempted to negotiate a lower price. The guy I ended up selling it to was interested in superficial features that others didn’t care about. You can’t assume the things that are meaningless to you are meaningless to other potential buyers, especially since you aren’t really a potential buyer of this vehicle. You aren’t the target audience.
@Whitey By that reasoning, we should have staff automatically delete any questions asking why we think something is happening, since they can’t be answered except by people who aren’t here, yes? 
In seriousness, I get what you’re saying. But let’s take that superficial buyer of your motorcycle and consider a similar case with the truck:
Unlike informed consumers, he probably doesn’t give a flip about it having a diesel because if he even knows the difference, he doesn’t understand why the diesel should make the truck more valuable.
The truck has purely average features for that year, and there are a lot of trucks out there with those features and much lower mileage.
As for not assuming that everyone thinks like me, I don’t. But CL itself warns against not falling for automotive scams every time you browse the cars for sale section. With that warning fresh in someone’s mind, it’s reasonable to think something’s strange, that a seller would put a vehicle up for sale, skip town, and promise to fix it later when he gets back, and before the buyer gets the car.
At the very least this means “I’m not getting that car today if I see it today and like it,” and a lot of people who are shopping CL for a used car need the car now, not next month.
If the seller is dishonest (I don’t think that in this case, but putting myself in the place of a CL browser who does not have the benefit of reading this thread) then it means that he’s conveniently out of town, will probably ask me to write him a check and after it clears he’ll have his cousin deliver it or some BS that means I’m getting scammed.
While I do agree that not everyone is jaded when reading used car advertisements, the ones who know what they’re talking about and therefore are more likely to see the sense in paying extra for a diesel are in fact very likely to read claims that the vehicle is in such great condition with a skeptical eye.
@meanjoe75fan For a truck with the 6.0L powerstroke, it’s actually a good thing that the engine has been "bulletproofed* The 6.0L powerstroke had several design flaws and there’s a whole aftermarket industry built around correcting these design flaws. Having the improved aftermarket cylinder studs is very good selling point. The modifcations done to the engine will greatly improve it’s reliability. It’s not done to improve performance. Anyone who knows this history of the 6.0L powerstroke and who has one and plans on keeping it for a long time will have this stuff done to it.
I’m sort of surprised the more people on this board aren’t aware of the issues that the 6.0L diesel has and what’s necessary to correct them.
As for why it’s not selling, I think the high mileage, and cracked windshield and busted mirror are probably factors, and the fact that the 6.0L’s have a bad rep, and for the same or a little more money you can get into one of the older, but far more reliable 7.3L Powerstrokes, or the later 6.4L Powerstokes, which aren’t as popular, but are about the same price for the mileage.
Outstanding ad. And kudos to your husband for being.a wildland firefighter. That’s a dangerous and physically demanding job. I was in Vandenberg Village, CA (Lompoc) during the early 1990s when a wild fire rolled through the hills within a half mile of my apartment. The firefighters lived in tents across the street in the park and on the apartment property under my windows. All I had to do was put up with the smell of smoke, but they worked hard to prevent damage to the homes. And they were successful. No homes in Vandenberg Village were damaged by fire. I gained an appreciation for the wildland firefighters.