Would you buy this RAM? Carfax confusion

[GORDONS]

Some odd things can happen even with "new" vehicles, as I bought my 2004 Dakota in 2008 with around 250 miles on it. I saw it advertised at a Wisconsin dealership, took the VIN on a search to find out it had come from Virginia (or maybe it was West Virginia). I called that dealership and got ahold of someone who knew about it. He'd wanted to buy it but couldn't as an employee and it had been sent to auction where the WI dealership picked it up. He told me the story of it having been damaged on the lot and also taken in for service for a cam or valve issue, then the dealership had gone under or changed hands and it wound up at his dealership where he wanted it but had to watch it leave for the auctions. Recommended I buy it, change the fluids and just drive it which I pretty much have for the last 157,000 miles. It lost a head gasket and the transmission went into limp mode for an issue they thought was covered by a TSB for a faulty valve body during the truck's span of production, fortunately both were covered under warranty. I got about 2 years of the original 3 bumper-bumper as at some specific point the vehicle had to be registered to Chrysler--maybe the point at which it went to auction.

Weird case, but there's got to be a lot of variations on the themes of what happens with new vehicles, trade-ins, leases, fleet vehicles, etc. even within the framework of what's legal. The first time I took my Dakota to my local dealership for service the technician kept pushing the odometer/trip meter button in disbelief. I explained what I had been told about the truck but none of them had heard of such things.

 

[langillen]

New to the forum, not a RAM owner quite yet but probably will be shortly. I'm strongly considering this one but some of the CarFax is a bit confusing and I'm hoping someone might be able to help me out. It looks like in Feb 2019 it was first sold and registered as a corporate fleet vehicle, then in Sept 2019 it looks like it was traded in... but eventually sold at auction on 6/1/20, so 1) why would a dealer not be able to sell a vehicle that's less than a year old with 12.5k miles in a 9 month period???

Then, 10 days later it looks like it was offered for sale (6/11/20) by "Overdrive USA", assuming that's the party that bought it at auction, but then only 4 days later it was yet again sold at auction (6/15/20).

Then, 12 days later it was offered for sale again (6/27/20) and purchased a month later (7/27/20), with first owner reported on 7/30/20.

Also noticing that owner put 14,486 miles on it in about 6 months.

Now, it's been listed for sale by the current dealership for just over a month.

Is the auction stuff above normal / typical? Maybe the buyer at the first auction installed the lift and tires and flipped it to someone else? No idea how all this works but just seems concerning, any insight would be greatly appreciated!

 

[langillen]

A number of years ago my wife bought a two year old Subaru with 18k from a local Subaru dealer like this. I found on Carfax and NTSB it had 98k on it. Dealer had Carfax pull mileage entries.
Dealer would not do anything for us. Beware of dealers like this and Carfax.