Gravel, stone and minerals around the valley
The Mine Safety and Health Administration lists the Solvang Plant, a sand and gravel operation, 3.7 miles west of Santa Ynez, and Bee Rock Quarry, which produces crushed stone, 8.1 miles to the south-east. A dump truck or tractor that has shuttled loads out of either site may still be parked at the plant gate or at a yard nearby. Tell us which site and who can let a driver in, and the pickup gets planned around that gate.
Further out, Sisquoc Aggregates sits 20.2 miles north-west, the Acin Ranch dimension-stone quarry 18.8 miles west, and the Imerys Lompoc Plant, an industrial-mineral mine, 20.9 miles west, all on Mine Safety and Health Administration records. If your truck is kept out toward Lompoc or Sisquoc rather than in the valley, give us that address instead of yours. Photos of the bed, the frame and the cab, taken where it sits, are enough to start.
The Mine Safety and Health Administration places Ellwood Pit, an industrial-mineral mine, 16.5 miles south-east of town. Keep any site access paperwork or inspection reports that went with the truck on that run; they travel with the title when we collect.
Ninety carriers, almost all intrastate
For a seller that usually means the truck is registered in California and kept within reach of the valley, so the title and the current registration card are the two papers to find first.
Thirty-two of those 90 carriers are private fleets, per the same federal census, meaning they haul their own goods rather than freight for hire. If your truck belonged to a ranch, a builder or a vineyard operation rather than a trucking outfit, the title may be in the business name; have whoever signs for that business ready to sign the transfer.
One registered fleet in town runs 32 power units with 37 drivers, and the next two run 6 and 5, according to FMCSA’s carrier census. If you are selling several units out of a fleet that size, list each VIN with its location and we can collect them as a group.
General freight is the cargo listed by 24 local carriers in FMCSA’s census, with farm supplies and machinery or large objects at 6 carriers each. A box truck, flatbed or lowboy that carried any of these is the kind of unit we collect here; note the body type and trailer, if one goes with it, when you send photos.
Five Santa Ynez carriers on federal FMCSA records carry passengers. A bus or passenger van registered for that work has its own paperwork; keep the title together with any service records the operator kept, and tell us the seating layout.
Across 13 carriers that report mileage, FMCSA’s census puts the median at 9,313 miles a truck per year. Give us the odometer reading along with the VIN when you contact us; those two figures answer most of our first questions.
Flowers, transplants and farm hauling in the county
USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture counts 1,359 farms in Santa Barbara County, led by cut flowers and cultivated greens, potted flowering plants, and transplants. A refrigerated box or a flatbed that moved nursery stock between growers may be parked out at a farm rather than in town; send the farm address and a gate contact.
Farm trucks are often titled to the grower rather than to a person. If the name on the title belongs to a farm business, have its owner or officer ready to sign, and if the title has gone missing, the state’s title agency issues a duplicate before collection.
The Census Bureau’s LEHD job counts show 1,576 jobs in Santa Ynez in 2023, with 192 of them, or 12.2 percent, in construction. A dump truck, flatbed or service body used on building jobs could be at a job site or a contractor’s yard; tell us which, and whether it can be reached by a tow truck.
If your truck belongs to one of those contractors, gather the title, registration and any maintenance log, and take photos of the body and equipment mounted on it before we arrive.
If your authority is new and you are selling the truck that started it, keep the title, the lien release if the truck was financed, and the registration together.
A truck with a loan still on it can be sold once the lender’s release is in hand; ask your lender for it early, and send us a copy along with the photos so the paperwork matches the truck.
The questions we get asked in Santa Ynez
- Do you take buses and passenger vans from Santa Ynez?Five carriers in Santa Ynez list passengers as cargo in FMCSA’s carrier census, and their buses and vans are trucks we collect. Send the VIN, the seating layout and photos of the interior.