Sandrail Prices on Craigslist

[jage]

I keep seeing these used sandrails on CL for between 12K and 16K... am I missing something? I mean I'm a diehard 4wd guy, but for 15K I'd think you should get a lot more than a tube chassis, 2 seats and a decked out motor... is it just a sandrail culture thing or what?

[JeepcoMJ]

it's the time spent on the welds, the transmission (a 6 rib vw bus tranny is worth 2500), the transmission adapters (if it's a mid-engine rail), a cnc hydraulic pedal assembly runs about 450, the time to build, seats, engine (whether a vw or something else), and the designing of the chassis. plus the front rims run 200 a piece for good ones, and then there's sand tires up front and large tread rears, not to mention the cv joints and suspension system. plus the money for any body panels and flooring, and bras for the roof, windshield if applicable, gauges, switches, short throw shifters (great mod for them btw) etc.

 

for a used vw style sandrail you're looking at 2500 for a quality machine with a dual port motor. around 3k for a street legal one. (they take the vin plate from a vw chassis and rivet it on the sandrail frame)

 

we've had 3 of them, got one for 1300 with a single port crappy motor, built it to a dual port and sold it, then bought 2 that had rusted out the bottoms of the frames from crappy welds and steel flooring for 1000 for the pair. made twice that by reselling just the frames and we still have 3 dual port motors left over...

 

sandrails are FUN. much, much more fun than a dune buggy :D