Meet The Man Gaming Facebook Marketplace To Make a Residing Promoting Previous Jeeps

The Jeep Wrangler could be essentially the most well-known Jeep in America, however the XJ-generation Cherokee is unquestionably my favourite. The uncomplicated design, no-nonsense mechanicals, and iconic sq. face exude a way of blissful, workhorse-like simplicity you’ll be able to’t discover in lots of different SUVs.

Despite being out of manufacturing for twenty-four years (in America, anyway; a Chinese firm referred to as BAW constructed XJs up till 2014), these SUVs are in all places. Jeep made an astounding 2,884,172 Cherokees from 1984 to 2001, which suggests they continue to be inexpensive on the used market.

Of course, simply because XJs are inexpensive doesn’t imply they’re resistant to time. An enormous swath of these bought new have been devoured by rust, left to rot in junkyards, or crushed. Solid, good-running examples have gotten more durable and more durable to seek out. That’s the place Drew Hayes is available in.

Hayes, a 24-year-old automotive vendor situated in Fort Collins, Colorado, has made it his life’s mission to maintain XJs on the street, shopping for drained examples, bringing them as much as good well being, after which promoting them to fellow Jeep lovers. And he’s doing all of it by Facebook Marketplace’s ecosystem.

Legendary Origins

“I’ve been flipping cars in Jeeps since I was able to drive,” Hayes advised me over the cellphone. “I bought my first car when I was 14, so 11 years ago.”

Normal 14-year-olds don’t simply begin shopping for vehicles and flipping them. Sure sufficient, Hayes bought it from his dad as they took street journeys from their house in Michigan to go to household.

“My dad would always take us out west on road trips, because we have family out here, and inevitably, stuff would just break down,” he says. “So there were a few instances where we would end up buying something just to make it home.”

Hayes recounts one occasion when his Toyota broke down in Arizona. Instead of fixing it, they purchased a whole-ass RV as a substitute (one thing that changed into a nightmare of its personal).

“The Toyota pickup’s transfer case blew up when we were climbing a volcano in Arizona, so we bought the RV to continue our planned road trip around the west and tow the pickup home,” he tells me. “We figured we could flip the RV to pay for everything, but ended up blowing a spark plug clean out of the cylinder head.”

“That’s how we got into it, really,” he continued. “I have always had a desire to hit the road thanks to my dad exposing me to the west at a young age, and the way I made it work was buying stuff to flip to pay for the travels.”

Early on, Hayes found the demand for rust-free vehicles in rustbelt states. Anyone who’s shopped for an outdated automotive within the Northeast or northern components of the Midwest is aware of that if you wish to discover a automotive that hasn’t been contaminated by the winter salt, you need to journey to the west or to the south (or ideally, each). So that’s precisely what he did.

“We’d buy [cars] out west, where there’s no rust for the most part, and we take it back to Michigan, where I used to live,” he says. “We ended up selling a few of those cars and making a lot of money on them just because of that rust appeal. So as soon as I graduated high school, I, of course, wanted to be out west as much as possible, so that [was an] outlet that I found to make money while also being able to travel.”

So Hayes moved to Fort Collins, and he’s been flipping vehicles and SUVs ever since.

Why The XJ?

Hayes estimates he’s flipped round 100 to 200 vehicles since he began within the enterprise, with 40-50 of these vehicles being XJ Cherokees, particularly. He advised me he loves traditional four-wheel drive SUVs and pickups, in order that’s the place he focuses his time.

“The vast majority is just anything four-wheel drive, really,” he says. “Pretty much everything I buy, nothing’s newer than 2005. With the go-tos, it just became Cherokees because there are so many of them, and they’re so easy to work on.”

And they do want work. These Jeeps are 24 years outdated at their youngest, and 41 years outdated at their oldest. So issues want fixing. Hayes says he and his mates lease a “big property” with a barn the place he fixes up his vehicles.

“Every XJ I buy needs work,” he tells me. “I restore a lot of them and do a lot of work to basically every one I buy. A lot of times it’s just a head gasket. It’s pretty common on these. It’ll overheat and then, you know, that’s a pull-the-engine-apart [job].”

Over the handfuls of XJs Hayes has handled, he’s grow to be accustomed to the stuff that continually wants addressing.

“Windshields are common,” he tells me. “A lot of them get death wobbles. A lot of them need different bushings and stuff. A huge thing is just fender flares. People will pay $2,000 more for an XJ if it has the stock fender flares, and you’ll always find them just missing fender flares. Just simple stuff like that, simple cosmetic stuff that just makes them present better.”

It’s essential to notice that Hayes isn’t some big-time automotive restoration specialist for XJs. You received’t discover him disassembling the vehicles to the naked steel and restoring them, just like the Davis AutoSports construct above. Rather, he’s a smaller operation that brings drained Jeeps (amongst different equally outdated 4x4s) that want some love again to good, trustworthy, operating situation. For most consumers of those vehicles, that’s greater than sufficient.

Machine Learning

While I wouldn’t describe myself as a Facebook Marketplace “power user,” I do use the service each single day to browse for affordable, attention-grabbing vehicles on the market. Just a few occasions a 12 months, I’ll purchase and promote stuff by the location, too. I’d estimate I’m most likely within the high 5% of customers. I believe Hayes is within the high 0.1%.

“I used to use Craigslist a lot, but it’s pretty much just all Facebook now,” he says. As of this writing, Hayes has 9 vehicles listed on Marketplace, together with 4 XJs. In his years of working with Facebook, he’s discovered tips on how to manipulate the location to squeeze essentially the most attain from his listings.

It’s simply coping with the algorithm,” he says. “With every car, I take three sets of pictures so I can repost every week. The algorithm won’t recognize it as the same car, so it’ll it’ll keep your views high. You’ve got to change the description every time.”

Hayes additionally makes use of Facebook Marketplace’s “Boost” function, which permits customers to pay a small greenback quantity to push their listings to a bigger viewers. It’s a standard transfer for people who find themselves prepared to put money into the system within the hopes {that a} purchaser will attain out sooner. Hayes has even discovered tips on how to inform whether or not it’s really working.

“Right after you post [a car], you can boost it,” he says. “You’ll know right away if you’re getting shadow-banned. Because if you hit the Boost button and it’ll tell you, ‘You can pay ten bucks for 100 views.’ But if you’re not [shadow-banned], it’ll be $10 for 2,000 to 3,000 views.”

Hayes has grow to be pretty well-known within the XJ neighborhood for his capacity to supply and repair up XJs, to the purpose the place individuals are coming from throughout the nation to snag one in every of his finds.

“A lot of my buyers still come from out east, just because of those [Facebook] groups,” he says. While he does get individuals reaching out to assist them supply vehicles, the vast majority of Hayes’ gross sales, he tells me, are merely by individuals scouring Facebook Marketplace searching for a driver-level XJ.

Unsurprisingly, Hayes additionally makes use of Facebook Marketplace to acquire his tasks.

“I think there are just so many XJs that it’s kind of impossible to monopolize the market,” he tells me. The most Hayes will journey for a automotive is three to 4 hours, which reveals simply what number of forlorn XJs exist on the earth (or Colorado, no less than).

Of course, XJs aren’t the one issues Hayes sells. He’s additionally bought a number of Toyota 4Runners listed, and two classic vehicles.

“I actually have like four classic trucks [right now],” he says. “[I’ve] got a couple of old Fords and Chevies and Internationals and stuff. I like the old stuff for sure. I’d like to shift more into classic four-wheel drive pickups and Broncos and such.”

Even if Hayes expands into different specialties, I hope he retains a rotation of XJs in his stock. In addition to being his bread and butter, it’s good to see them getting the eye they deserve.

Top graphic picture: Drew Hayes