We buy trucks in Gibson

One row carries this place, and it is a National Guard installation — Camp Joseph T Robinson — whose coordinate sits 3.75 miles out and reverse-geocodes to Pulaski County.

That is a name from one place filed under another, and it is not a one-off: twenty-five rows across the national list now do it, and in every case the list holds the real place and simply does not use it. Reading a name as a location would put a facility here that is not here, so this page does not.

What is left is a small place inside a large county, and the law everybody here sells under.

That law starts with weight, and for a tandem the sharpest edge in it is an axle count.

Ark. Code § 27-35-203 holds a single axle to twenty thousand pounds and two or more consecutive axles to thirty-four thousand. Where a vehicle takes the section’s axle variance, three axles may not exceed seventy thousand pounds gross and four or more may not exceed eighty thousand — ten thousand pounds settled by the axle count alone, 31.75 metric tonnes against 36.3.

A second limb reaches older equipment. Where a vehicle carries no plate attached by the manufacturer giving its axle and gross ratings, the maximum allowed on the front or steering axle is twelve thousand pounds, which turns a rating question into a statutory one on any truck old enough to have lost its plate.

Ark. Code § 27-35-203. Information, not legal advice.

Beyond the weight rules, the paperwork is one sentence: we need a title, unless the truck is old enough that it never had one.

Everything after it is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither stops a sale.

The salvage rule brands a vehicle where it is water-damaged as the rule defines that — a limb of its own, needing no percentage — or where other damage reaches seventy per cent of average retail value in a pricing guide the Commissioner has approved. It does not apply to vehicles more than seven model years old before the year of the occurrence that caused the damage, which is most of what we buy.

Arkansas DFA administrative rule 006.05 2007-8, read alongside § 27-35-203. Information, not legal advice.

None of that narrows what we will look at. Work trucks and pickups, dump trucks and aggregate haulers, day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, tankers, rollbacks, service bodies, farm trucks, box trucks and straight trucks.

Box trucks and straight trucks are not a Pulaski County speciality — they are everywhere. They are on the list because we buy them here too.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them. Around here most of it is behind a house or a small yard rather than in any fleet, and none of it is at the Camp Joseph T Robinson coordinate.

• Will you come out for a single truck?Yes, and often we don’t need to. We come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, we buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you drive it to us. Anywhere in Pulaski County, including the lanes out past Camp Joseph T Robinson.
• 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.
• The engine is out of it. Is that different?Yes, and that is the line. A tired engine is fine; an engine that has been pulled out and sold means we can’t buy the truck.
• 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. A lienholder means a payoff and a release, and that is the slow part.
• It is a pickup with a service body, not a lorry.We buy those. A crew truck or a service body that has done its years on job sites is ordinary stock for us, and the same rule applies as to anything else: whatever shape it is in, as long as it is all there.

Those answers matter more than any registration does, because the reasons behind the call are ordinary. Retiring. A medical that didn’t go the way it used to. A contractor scaling back, or a family clearing a yard. A truck standing beside a house since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it doesn’t turn a wheel.

Around Pulaski County and the roads out past Camp Joseph T Robinson there is usually one waiting.

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.