We buy trucks in Clyde

The Military Ocean Terminal here is the Department of Defense’s primary ammunition seaport supporting the Pacific area of operation, and the primary west coast common-user ammunition terminal, supplying Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps facilities in the region.

It is bigger than a shoreline glance suggests: an inland area of about 115 acres and a tidal area of roughly 6,526 acres, the latter including 2,045 acres of offshore islands. The 834th Transportation Battalion is port manager and runs three piers and an Army-owned rail system that connects to the major public railway lines.

That site was the Navy’s before it was the Army’s. The properties transferred in 2008 under the 2005 round of base realignment, and our node list still carries both ends of that transfer as separate rows under separate cities — the Army terminal filed here and the Navy’s caretaker detachment filed under Concord, 1.69 miles away.

One more label needs reading rather than counting. A row named for the Naval Ammunition Depot at Port Chicago on Suisun Bay describes ground that is now part of this terminal; its current operating status, rail traffic and function were not determined, and its carrier field simply reads U.S. Government, one of only two rows in the state that does.

So whatever you drive, the offer does not change — we buy all of them. This is a tiny unincorporated community beside a major installation, so what is actually on these roads is Contra Costa County contractor and service traffic, running the Suisun Bay shoreline: flatbeds and day cabs, box trucks and straight trucks, dump trucks where there is groundwork, and pickups and work trucks everywhere.

Concord and Martinez carry pages of their own and the working traffic is the same across all of them. If a vehicle sits inside a gate, say so early — access is much easier to plan at the start than to discover on the day.

That is state law rather than anything local, and it is the rule truck sellers misquote most often. CVC sections 35550 to 35558 set a statutory range of 34,000 to 80,000 lb by axle count and spacing, and § 35551(a) is a table rather than the federal Bridge Formula — no formula is declared in the statute at all.

The California table does not exactly match the Federal Bridge Table, including at three and four axles. So a configuration that is legal under one can be over under the other, and “it makes bridge formula” is a claim about which table you mean. If someone has told you your truck makes it, that is worth knowing before you repeat it.

Does it have to run? No. But 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. A missing bumper is nothing.

Do I need the title? We need a title, unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. If it is lost, that is a replacement through the DMV and we will walk you through it. If there is a lien on it, say so on the form — that is why the question asks whether the title is in hand rather than whether you own the truck, because those are different situations and they go different ways.

What if it has been in a wreck? Tell us what happened and we will look at it as it is. California sets no percentage: CVC § 544 makes it a judgement about whether repair is economical, so nothing is decided by a formula before we have seen the truck.

How does it get collected, and how am I paid? There is no clock on any of this. 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. Payment is cash or electronic payment.