We buy trucks in San Juan Capistrano

The bigger of the two rows here reports 43 employees to MSHA, a surface operation working industrial sand under Lapeyre Industrial Sands, and the list files a second alongside it — Greenstone Materials, two people, construction sand and gravel. The two sit 3.65 miles apart by their own coordinates, both inside Orange County, and both reached this page by town name rather than by a resolved coordinate.

Forty-three is a substantial crew by the standards of everything else in this lane, and it means a real fleet on a real schedule rather than one truck that gets used when there is work. That changes what a truck off it looks like when it is finally sold, and it changes it in the seller’s favour more often than not.

That is not how sand normally lies. The industrial sand rows in this state are metropolitan in a way no other state’s are — this one in Orange County, and others at Simi Valley, Fremont, Upland, Goleta and Littlerock, every one of them inside or on the edge of a major metro. Elsewhere sand is rural county country.

That geography is evidence rather than decoration, and it points one way: a sand operation inside a metro here is far more likely to be serving construction than oilfield, this state’s oil production being away in Kern County. It is still an inference and it is stated as one. But it is the difference between short-radius urban delivery and lease-road work, and those are two completely different lives for a truck.

So whatever you drive, the offer does not change — we buy all of them. Around here that means dump trucks and bulk trailers on the sand runs, flatbeds moving plant, box trucks and straight trucks on delivery rounds, work trucks and service bodies on the trades, and pickups everywhere.

Short urban hauling wears a truck somewhere specific and it is worth saying, because it is the opposite of long-haul: liners, tailgate seals and hoist pivots go on the bulk end, abrasion is constant, and brakes, clutch and tyres carry the rest while the odometer reads low. Dana Point and San Clemente are south on the coast, with Laguna Niguel and Mission Viejo north and Ladera Ranch inland, all of them in Orange County; all five carry pages of their own.

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. On this end of the coast we can come to you and drive it away, come to you and tow it, buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you can drive it to us. Payment is cash or electronic payment.