We buy trucks in Stockton

The Stockton Diamond is where the east–west BNSF line crosses the north–south Union Pacific line, and it is the busiest and most congested at-grade rail junction in California. A grade separation will carry the Union Pacific track above the BNSF track on a new structure just east of the current lines, and SJCOG finalised the funding on 27 February 2025.

Every minute a train sits waiting on that crossing is a minute the road traffic around it is doing something else. That is the argument for the structure, and it is also why the trucking here has the shape it has.

That crossing does not stand alone. Within ten miles this city holds two Class I yards, the state’s busiest rail junction, an inland deep-water port, and one of northern California’s largest intermodal terminals — the last at Lathrop, eight miles south, where Union Pacific states that over a thousand trucks enter and exit daily.

Four freight modes inside a ten-mile circle is unusual anywhere, and San Joaquin County holds all four. It is the reason a truck bought here has often worked short, dense, repetitive cycles rather than long-haul ones. You know better than we do what that does to a truck over a few years.

So whatever you drive, the offer does not change — we buy all of them. Day cabs and road tractors on the terminal and port runs, dump trucks and aggregate haulers on the construction side, flatbeds through the yards, box trucks and straight trucks on distribution.

Ardent Mills runs a flour mill here, in San Joaquin County, which puts farm trucks and grain hauls on the same roads. Pickups and work trucks are on the list for the ordinary reason — they are everywhere, and they say nothing about the county.

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.