Fourteen structures, and two of them decide the load
The quarry here employs three people and sits about a mile from the middle of town. Within ten miles of it the National Bridge Inventory records 14 structures — a thin network by any standard — and three of them are posted for load while two are coded below legal loads.
Both of the rated ones are county-maintained, and the nearest is 4.29 miles from the gate. On a network of fourteen, two restrictions is a high proportion, and that is worth saying alongside the count rather than as a percentage on its own: a rate computed over fourteen structures is a rate for those fourteen.
Statewide only 4.4% of Florida structures are coded below legal loads, which is among the mildest environments we have measured. This corner is not typical of it.
So the number that matters is what the nearest one admits
So the useful figure is not how many but how much. That crossing is rated 17.5 metric tonnes, and National Bridge Inventory ratings record the gross weight of the vehicle rather than the load it carries.
Take off the tare of an empty tandem dump — about 11 tonnes — and roughly 6.5 tonnes of stone goes over. That is the middle band: not enough for a legal load to cross whole, far more than nothing, so a truck goes over part loaded or takes the long way round from 4.29 miles out.
A three-person operation will have made that decision on every loaded trip for years. It is exactly the sort of history worth telling us about, because it is invisible on the dash.
Which is more trips for the same tonnage, and that is hours
Which is the practical consequence, and it compounds with the other ceiling this trade meets.
A single-unit dump truck is held to 70,000 lb gross where a combination gets 80,000 lb. Put that together with a crossing 4.29 miles away that only takes a part load, and the same tonnage takes noticeably more journeys than the mileage figure implies.
So on a truck out of this quarry the hour meter is the number we would rather have. Loading cycles and low-speed pit work do the wear; the miles are almost incidental.
Florida weight law
And the permit that does not reach this trade
Both of those numbers are statutory, and neither is recoverable by permit.
Florida allows 80,000 lb gross including all enforcement tolerances and 20,000 lb on a single axle, and caps a single-unit dump truck, mixer, waste vehicle or fuel tanker at 70,000 lb. The divisible-load permit adds ten per cent over legal gross off the interstate system only, and it explicitly does not reach those single-unit vehicles.
Fla. Stat. § 316.535 and § 316.550(4). Information, not legal advice.
Florida paperwork
We need a title — unless the truck never had one
Those numbers stop mattering the day the truck changes hands, and the paperwork is what is left.
A lost title has a counter replacement. Where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither is unusual and neither stops a sale.
The plate is the Florida detail people miss: it stays in the owner’s name and comes off the truck, to be moved to another vehicle of the same class or surrendered to the county tax collector.
Fla. Stat. § 320.0609(1)(a). Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
All of it is iron we buy. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the quarry, held to 70,000 lb where a combination gets 80,000 lb and part loaded over the crossing 4.29 miles out. Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, box trucks, tankers, rollbacks, service bodies and the pickups that go with a three-person outfit.
Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.
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. Small things — a missing bumper — are fine.
Straight answers
The questions we get asked in Inglis
- 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 has run part loaded for years. Does that show up as damage?No. It shows as more trips for the same tonnage — hours rather than miles — and at 4.29 miles from the gate, against a 70,000 lb single-unit ceiling, it happened every working day.
- 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.
- How do you pay?Cash or electronic payment, whichever suits you.
Why people call
Beyond a truck that has simply done its turns, the reasons are personal ones. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A quarry contract that ended and left one dump truck standing with nothing booked for it, 4.29 miles from the crossing that set every load it carried and held to 70,000 lb besides.
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.