2014 F150 - Drive Shaft tied under?
 

Hi Guys...

so i have always been a ford ranger guy but this Saturday at an auction, I end up picking up a 2014 F150 XL with a V8 engine with 200k miles (utility vehicle-Duke Energy).

Yesterday as I was detailing the vehicle i found a red paper and it says "Driveshaft tied under - Ready for auction - Do not operate Transmission".

So this really got me worried. the vehicle drove fine from auction to home which was about 15 miles.

I dont see an issue but what exactly does this mean what it says on this tag that was found inside the vehicle?

are there any known issues with drive shaft?
i'll appreciate any input so i can plan for any repairs before I start using this as my daily driver.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.f15...7f8246990b.png
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.f15...fa36b267ed.png



anything i should be worried about?

I'm guessing they removed the driveshaft from the rear end to make it easier to move around. If you operated the trans that way or it would move the end tied up, make it fall and damage it. My best guess. Probably nothing wrong with it.

uhm.

Forgive me for asking, but since you didn't mention anywhere.....have you gotten underneath to look for yourself?

Not trying to scare you, YMMD, but I'd be VERY leery about buying any vehicle that was used as a fleet truck.
I worked 29 years at a Southeast Michigan power company, at their largest powerplant. We had a umber of vehicles assigned to our department, operations. Talk about beat on trucks, and very piss poor maintenance. Our so called mechanics had no maintenace program to speak of as far as oil changes etc. The oil was changed when the truck came in for other repairs.
We had a couple 7.3 Powerstrokes, anyone that ever owned one will know how critical oilchanges are on those, boneheads could never figure out why they had so much problem with them. The trucks were repeatedly idled for days at a time, again, not good. A 100k truck would wind up with liiterally thousands of hours of idle time. Let alone the cosmetics that were always repaired when being auctioned off.
Some locations, the trucks were better treated, but how does the typical guy at auction know that?

Yeah, Fleet vehicles tend to have a hard life. At least my employer (the City of Wichita Falls), requires every vehicle to have their oil changed every 5000 miles, regardless of what the intelligent oil minder says (in vehicles equipped with it), or if its a heavy duty truck that can go 30,000 miles between changes (the Mack trucks), they still change them every 5000 miles (even change out the air filter and fuel filter every 5000)

This is probably right.

Depending on how it was towed the driveshaft must be removed. That note was probably on the dash at one time warning anyone not to engage the transmission. Once the driveshaft was reinstalled there shouldn't be a problem.

You guys are a genius
 

You guys are a genius....
thats exactly it was. They removed the drive shaft for towing purpose.
I decided to call the number I found on the tag and see who was at the other end. It was their fleet service guy. I told him the situation with truck number (which I could read from removed decal) and he said the same thing that before the auction they remove the drive shaft so it can be towed to the auction place and then they put it back together once it’s delivered.

That's good to hear. Did you get any maintenance information off of him?

So basically I work for a power company also and we deal with them a lot so I know they are very aggressive in maintenance of their vehicles just like our fleet services. That’s the only reason I bought their vehicle. They change oil every 5k miles and any issues comes up it they have contracts with ford dealers who fix the issues. They start auctioning vehicles based on mileage regardless of age. He said it’s a great truck and don’t need anything. I only paid $3200 so for a 2014 V8 5.0 I think it’s a decent deal.