We buy trucks in Lucerne

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration lists 15 active motor carriers based in this town and 14 registered power units between them (Company Census File, 2026). There are more carriers on the register than there are trucks to put under them.

Averaged across all fifteen that is under one power unit each, so most of those authorities are a single truck — or a licence somebody has kept current while the truck sits. Set it against the population the Census Bureau records here, 3,435 on the American Community Survey five-year estimates, and it works out at roughly one registered truck for every 250 people.

Which is to say we are usually talking to the person who drives it, not to a fleet manager working down a disposal list. Tell us what it is and what it has been doing, and say if it has been standing.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration register lists five operations in Lake County and all five are aggregate: crushed stone at Kelseyville, sand and gravel at Lakeport, two more at Clearlake — one of them Clearlake Lava — and sand and gravel at Clearlake Riviera.

That is what the register holds, which is not the same as what the county does; plenty of work never appears on a mine register at all. But it does say what the heavy trucking here is built around, and pits that size run when there is work rather than continuously.

So the trucks that come to the end of their working lives around here are the ones off the pits and the ones doing everything else — dump trucks and aggregate haulers, flatbeds, box trucks, farm trucks and pickups. We buy all of them, and the offer does not change with the type.

We can buy it remotely and arrange the tow, and on a town this size that is often the straightforward way rather than the fallback. We can also come to you and drive it away, come to you and tow it, or you can drive it to us. Whichever of those happens, it is settled before anyone sets off.

Kelseyville, Lakeport, Clearlake and Clearlake Riviera all carry pages of their own in Lake County, and it is the same form whichever one you start on. If the truck is not standing where you are, start anyway and tell us where it is.

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 can buy it remotely and arrange the tow, come to you and drive it away, come to you and tow it, or you can drive it to us. Payment is cash or electronic payment.