We buy trucks in Ozark

Four quarry rows are registered to this town, and every one of them is small. Franklin Stone works dimension stone with five people; Rainbow Stone Company works Holt Quarry with two. Stapp Quarries adds five on common sand, and a fourth row works crushed sandstone with three.

Two of those trades are different from each other in a way that matters at the loading point. Dimension stone leaves as cut blocks on a flat deck; sand and crushed rock leave loose, by the tonne, in a dump body.

The fourth row also sits in a different county from the other three, which is the sort of thing a page should say rather than tidy away.

That fourth row is filed to this town but its county reads Logan County rather than the Franklin County the other three sit in. River Valley Quarries is the operator. Nothing about that makes the row wrong — a registration carries the address a company gave, and an address is not a map reference.

It does mean a seller near here may be working out of either county, and the roads and the posting authority differ between them. Where this page cannot tell which applies to a given yard, it says so instead of choosing.

Whichever county a load starts in, the state weight statute is the same, and for a tandem the axle count is the sharp edge.

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 that one sentence.

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. Flatbeds, dump trucks and aggregate haulers, farm trucks and grain hauls, tankers, rollbacks, service bodies, day cabs and road tractors, box trucks and straight trucks, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew.

Box trucks and straight trucks are not a Franklin 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. Most of what turns up comes off a stone yard like Franklin Stone, a sand pit, or a farm lane that sees neither.

• Will you come out to a two-man quarry?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 Franklin County, including the yards around Franklin Stone, over into Logan, and along the river valley roads between them.
• 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 has been used on-site more than on the road.That is common at an operation this size and it is not a problem. A truck that mostly worked inside a yard has hours rather than miles behind it, and the wear sits in different places. Tell us the hours if the meter has them.

Those answers matter more than the geology does, because the reasons behind the call are ordinary. Retiring. A medical that didn’t go the way it used to. A small yard winding down or changing hands. A truck standing beside a shed since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it doesn’t turn a wheel.

Around Franklin County and the roads out past Franklin Stone 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.