We buy trucks in Bridgeport

The water is the reason anything heavy is here. The Port of Bridgeport sits about 2 miles from the middle of town on Long Island Sound, and the liquid bulk terminals either side of it — Inland Fuel about a mile and a half out, Global a little over 2 miles — are most of what that port traffic actually is. It arrives on the water and it leaves on a road.

The stone trade runs the other way, inland to shore. The Brennan quarry at Shelton is about 10 miles north-east and Beacon Falls Quarry, above Naugatuck, is about 18 miles north. Neither of them is on the water, so the whole distance is a truck.

Those two trades put the same shape of work on a truck. Fuel out of Inland Fuel and Global runs a few miles to a customer and back. Stone comes down 10 miles from Shelton, or 18 miles from Beacon Falls Quarry, into shore traffic that does not move. Loaded one way, empty the other, several times a day.

None of that is the steady highway mileage that is actually easy on a driveline. It is starting, stopping, idling and loading, and an odometer records none of it. You know better than we do what that does to a truck over a few years.

Those loads run under a state rule put together differently from most. Under C.G.S. § 14-267a the maximum allowable gross weight is set by number of axles and vehicle configuration, and in most cases the section provides an alternative — the Federal Bridge Formula. Between 73,001 and 80,000 lb that formula is the only route: no configuration table reaches the top bracket. 80,000 lb is the maximum without a special permit.

So whether a given truck can legally reach the top of the ordinary range depends on how far apart its axles are, and two trucks of the same nominal capacity may not share a legal payload. That bites hardest on short heavy runs like these, because a tanker or a stone truck is bought for what it can carry rather than for how far it can go.

C.G.S. § 14-267a, via docs/state-rules/connecticut.md. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.

Beyond the weight rules that is the whole of it in one sentence, and everything after it is a fix rather than a category. If the title is lost there is a counter replacement. If the truck is old enough that it never had one, there is a bonded route. Both are ordinary and neither stops a sale.

One thing here runs the opposite way to several other states. There is no fixed total-loss percentage: under C.G.S. § 14-16b a vehicle is a total loss when the cost of repairs plus its salvage value equals or exceeds its fair market value before the loss. And a vehicle that passes the safety inspection afterwards is issued a new title with no salvage stamp on it at all, marked rebuilt. The brand comes off here, where in some states it is permanent.

C.G.S. § 14-16b, via docs/state-rules/connecticut.md. Information, not legal advice.

Both of those worlds run different iron, and whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change — we buy all of them. Day cabs and road tractors off the drayage work. Tankers and straight trucks on the fuel runs out of Inland Fuel and Global. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers coming down the 18 miles from Beacon Falls Quarry, flatbeds, service bodies, and the box trucks and pickups that keep the rest of it moving.

Most of it works out of the same few places — the Port Authority berths, the terminals along the shore, and the yards behind them.

• Does it have to run?No. It does have to be complete, though — 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 fine. A missing driveline is not.
• Do you actually come to Fairfield County?Yes. 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. Nothing here is hard to reach — the terminals, the Port Authority berths and the yards behind them are all within a couple of miles of each other.
• What if I can’t find the title?We need a title — unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. If it’s lost, there’s a counter replacement. If there was never one to lose, there’s a bonded route. Neither stops a sale.
• There’s still money owed on it. Now what?That’s a payoff and a lien release, and it’s the slow part rather than the hard part. Tell us up front and we’ll work it into the paperwork.
• How do you pay?Cash or electronic payment, whichever you would rather have.
• How far out do you come?All of Fairfield County and well past it — up the shore to New Haven, west to Norwalk Harbor and Stamford, and inland past Shelton. Distance has not stopped us yet.

Beyond the trucks themselves, the reasons repeat. A DOT physical didn’t go the way it used to. A fuel contract that filled the week for nine years went to somebody else. The truck is just sitting behind a yard off the shore road, and every month it sits is another month of insurance on something that isn’t turning a wheel.

The yards behind the Port Authority berths, and the lots along the Fairfield County shore between them and Norwalk Harbor 12 miles down the coast, hold a fair number of trucks in exactly that position.

Most of those aren’t happy reasons, and we don’t treat them like they are. Somebody wants a straight answer and the truck gone by the end of the week. That’s what we’re here for.