We buy trucks in Canal Point

The Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee is one of the largest sugarcane districts in the country, with Clewiston at its centre and the South Central Florida Express as its railroad. Canal Point sits on the eastern edge of it.

The Florida cane harvest runs roughly October to April, and the haul inside it is unlike most agricultural work: cane moves from field to mill in the shortest time possible, because sugar content falls after cutting. That makes it short-radius, high-intensity and genuinely time-critical — the clock is in the crop rather than in a schedule anyone chose.

Volumes at the yard were not determined, so this describes the shape of the work and not its size.

So a truck in the Everglades Agricultural Area has a duty cycle in two halves, and both of them leave marks.

From October to April it runs hard and often, over field roads as much as public ones, with loading and unloading taking more of the day than driving does. Then it stands. You know better than we do what a few months parked does to a truck that spent the previous six working flat out.

What that means practically is that the hours and the season matter more to us than the odometer, and that a truck which was properly laid up between harvests is a different proposition from one that simply stopped.

Which is worth setting beside the other registration on this page. The Five Stones Mine employs 11 people, and its coordinate sits about six miles from the middle of Canal Point.

Within ten miles of it the National Bridge Inventory records 11 structures in total, and not one is posted for load or coded below legal loads. Eleven structures is a thin network by any standard, and a clean run over eleven says much less than a clean run over two hundred would.

So we publish the count next to the result. What limits a rock haul out here is distance and which way out exists, not a rating on a crossing.

Both of those trades sit under the same weight rule, and Florida writes it in an unusual way.

Most states granting relief name the commodity. Florida names nothing and issues a general divisible-load permit instead, ten per cent over legal gross — and a divisible load is simply one that could be split, which cane and crushed rock both are. So the relief reaches this district without either crop appearing on any list.

The conditions are the road and the body type. It is void on the interstate system, and it never reaches a single-unit dump truck, mixer, waste vehicle or fuel tanker, which Florida holds to 70,000 lb gross against 80,000 lb for a combination.

Fla. Stat. § 316.550(4), with § 316.535(5) and (6). Information, not legal advice.

Those rules stop mattering the day the truck changes hands. We need a title unless the truck is old enough that it never had one.

Everything past that is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route. The plate stays in your name and comes off the truck.

On a farm fleet the question to settle early is which machines were ever road-registered at all, because for those it is a title question before it is a condition question.

Fla. Stat. § 320.0609(1)(a). Information, not legal advice.

All of it is iron we buy. Cane and field trucks off the Everglades Agricultural Area harvest. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the Five Stones Mine, held to 70,000 lb where a combination gets 80,000 lb. Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, box trucks, tankers, rollbacks, service bodies and the pickups that go with a farm crew.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.

• Does it have to run?No. It does have to be complete — if the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Rust is not a disqualifier.
• The engine is out of it. Is that different?Yes, and that is the line. A tired engine is fine; an engine that has been pulled out and sold means we can’t buy the truck.
• It only works six months a year. Is that a problem?No, and in the Everglades Agricultural Area it is the normal shape. Tell us how it was laid up between harvests — a truck that was properly stood down reads very differently from one that just stopped.
• Can you take it mid-season?Yes, and we can buy it where it stands and arrange the tow so nobody loses a day of the Five Stones Mine or field run over it.
• What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there’s a bonded route.

Beyond a truck that has simply done its turns, the reasons are personal ones. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A harvest that finished in the Everglades Agricultural Area and left one truck more than next October needs, standing six miles from the Five Stones Mine with nothing booked for it.

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.