We buy trucks in Modesto

The Modesto and Empire Traction Company was established in 1909 and runs five miles, from a Union Pacific connection at one end to a BNSF connection at Empire on the other. It hauls food products, wine, syrup, plastics, paper products and manufacturing commodities.

Carload volumes were not determined, so this page does not put a number on what moves. The commodity list is worth reading on its own, though — it is a food and beverage economy, and that is a different set of trucks from a mining or timber one.

Those yards are also fewer than the list suggests. Modesto Yard and Modesto Terminal Yard lie 0.4 miles apart and are a probable duplicate pair distinguished only by a descriptor. Rogers Yard falls inside Ceres, which has a page of its own, and Riverside Yard falls outside any incorporated place at all.

That leaves a smaller and more honest picture than four rows would imply. We would rather say that than count them and call it a freight hub.

So whatever you drive, the offer does not change — we buy all of them. A commodity list running to wine, syrup and paper products puts box trucks, straight trucks and flatbeds on the road in numbers, along with day cabs working between the plants and the Union Pacific and BNSF connections at either end of that short line.

Farm trucks and grain hauls belong on the list because this is the middle of the valley, and the Empire Traction Company connection is where a lot of it changes mode. Dump trucks and pickups are on the list because they are everywhere. None of that is a preference on our side.

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? However it goes, there is no clock on it: 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.