Pima County
A range of 1,743,426 acres, and no town that can really carry it
One row is filed at this town and it is enormous. The Goldwater range in the south-west of this state runs to 1,743,426 acres of public land along the border, and its coordinate resolves here from 19.87 miles away because there is no incorporated place any nearer to it.
That resolution is worth reading carefully rather than trusting. Ajo is in Pima County; the range coordinate reverse-geocodes to Maricopa County. Both statements are correct, and neither is a mistake in the record — a node covering 1,743,426 acres is simply larger than the counties and towns being matched against it, and the honest conclusion the survey itself reached is that no city page can meaningfully carry it.
So this page is not going to describe the range as though it were the local industry. Its activity and its sortie counts were not established. What is on the record is that the Air Force and the Navy have applied to extend and expand the military withdrawal, and that the outcome of that application was not established either.
So what a seller here is really dealing with is isolation
That resolution over 19.87 miles is the whole point: it exists because there is nothing closer, and nothing closer is what defines this place.
With 1,743,426 acres of restricted range on one side and a border on the other, the ordinary economic depth a town normally has — a couple of yards, a dealer, somebody always looking for another truck — is simply not here. A truck that stops earning does not get absorbed. It gets parked, and the parking is free, which is why it is still there years later.
The one mercy is the climate. Trucks in Pima County do not rot the way they do where roads are salted; they weather, they fade, and they stay mechanically recoverable for a long time. That is the reason a truck that has sat here for three years is usually a far better proposition than one that has sat for three years somewhere wet, and it is worth knowing before anyone writes theirs off.
Arizona weight law
One axle number, and the tolerance is already inside it
Whatever it was doing, it moved under a state figure written differently from most.
Arizona sets the single axle at 20,000 lb under A.R.S. § 28-1100, and the enforcement tolerance is included in that number rather than added on top of it. Alabama is the only other state on file that builds it in the same way — Georgia, Kentucky and Florida all publish a base and then allow something over it. So a driver who has worked one of those states and moved here can arrive expecting headroom this section does not give.
The gross limit is a different matter. It was not extracted from the section text when the rule file was compiled, so this page does not state one. An unverified ceiling is worse than no ceiling, and the section itself is where the answer is.
A.R.S. § 28-1100. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.
Arizona paperwork
We need a title — unless it never had one
Beyond that, the paperwork is one sentence and then a set of fixes.
Everything after that sentence is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement. Where none exists there is a bonded route. Both are ordinary and neither stops a sale.
Arizona has no percentage threshold for salvage. A.R.S. § 28-2091 brands a vehicle salvage where it has been stolen, wrecked, destroyed, flood or water damaged, or otherwise damaged to the point that the owner, the leasing company, the lender or the insurer considers it uneconomical to repair. That is a judgement rather than an arithmetic test, and the wording sits closest to California’s. Four of the seven states on file work this way; Kentucky and Alabama use 75 per cent and Florida 80.
There is also a separate nonrepairable class, and A.R.S. § 28-2095 covers the restored salvage certificate — its inspection triggers were not extracted, so this page does not describe them.
A.R.S. § 28-2091, § 28-2095. Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here, and how it usually goes
Those rules land the same way on every body style, and so does the offer. We buy all of them.
Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds and stake beds, dump trucks and aggregate haulers, water trucks, service bodies, box trucks, rollbacks, and the crew pickups behind them. None of those is a Pima County speciality — they are everywhere — and that is the point: which one you have does not change the offer.
On collection, this is one of the pages where being straight matters most. The usual path here is that we buy it remotely and arrange the tow, and it needs nobody standing in the yard. We do come out and drive it away, we do come out and tow it, and you are welcome to drive it to us. But with the only row on file — 1,743,426 acres of range — resolving in from 19.87 miles because nothing nearer exists, we are not going to write as though somebody driving out is the default in this corner of Pima County.
We buy complete trucks. If the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Small things — a missing bumper — are fine.
Straight answers
The questions we get asked in Ajo
- Does it have to run?No. It does have to be complete — if the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Rust is not a disqualifier and out here it is rarely the issue.
- Will you actually come out here?We do. But most deals at this distance are bought remotely with the tow arranged afterwards, and that is the honest first answer rather than the fallback. Driving it to us stays open too.
- Why is the range filed under Ajo?Because nothing is closer. Its coordinate is 19.87 miles away and reverse-geocodes to Maricopa County, while Ajo is in Pima County. At 1,743,426 acres the node is bigger than the geography it is being matched against.
- It has been parked for years.That is normal here and it is not the problem it would be somewhere wet. We check seals, tyres, batteries and seized brakes rather than assuming the worst about the metal.
- What is the axle limit?20,000 lb on a single axle under A.R.S. § 28-1100, with the enforcement tolerance already inside that number. Do not add anything to it.
- What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. Lost titles have a counter replacement; where none exists there’s a bonded route.
Why people call
Those are the mechanics. The reasons behind a call are more personal than that.
Retiring. A medical that did not go the way it used to. A contract that ended, or an outfit that has grown out of one truck and into another and needs the first one gone. When the only thing on a town’s record is 1,743,426 acres of restricted range resolving in from 19.87 miles, and no employment figure attached to it at all, there is nothing here that functions as a local buyer.
Most of those aren’t happy reasons, and we don’t treat them like they are. Somebody wants a straight answer and the truck gone by the end of the week. That’s what we’re here for, in Ajo and across Pima County.