We buy trucks in Kendall West

West Miami-Dade County is the Lake Belt: the largest limestone quarrying district in Florida, supplying most of the state’s aggregate. The row filed here carries the name General Cement, and whether that identifies a current operator was not determined, so we treat it as a label off the source layer rather than as a company.

What is not in doubt is what does the hauling. A great deal of south Florida aggregate moves in single-unit dump trucks — and Florida’s divisible-load permit expressly does not apply to single-unit vehicles.

So the heaviest, shortest, most thoroughly off-interstate haul in the state is done largely by the one vehicle class the relief excludes. It is the sharpest instance of that exclusion anywhere in our file.

So it is worth spelling out, because on most pages in this state the single-unit cap is a footnote and in the Lake Belt it is the whole economics of the run.

The permit adds ten per cent over legal gross and is void on the interstate system. Lake Belt hauls almost never touch an interstate, so on the face of it this is exactly the district the relief was made for. Then the body-type condition removes it from the trucks actually doing the work.

A single-unit dump truck is held to 70,000 lb gross where a combination gets 80,000 lb. Ten thousand pounds, decided by configuration, on the shortest and heaviest legs in Florida — and no permit available to close it.

Which is what it does to a truck, and it is worth telling us about because it is invisible on the dash.

More trips for the same tonnage means hours rather than miles: loading cycles, low-speed manoeuvring on a pit floor, and a great deal of idling in Miami-Dade County traffic between the quarry and the pour. A Lake Belt truck with a modest odometer and a very large hour count is the normal shape.

Over at Medley the same district runs the same pattern out of a plant and a quarry on one site. Same trade, same ceiling, same answer.

Those two figures are statutory and it is worth having them exactly, because a good deal of argument on a weighbridge comes down to which subsection applies.

Florida sets a single axle at 20,000 lb and a gross at 80,000 lb including all enforcement tolerances. A separate subsection caps a single-unit vehicle used as a dump truck, a concrete mixer, a waste collection vehicle or a fuel tanker at 70,000 lb. The ten per cent permit sits in a different section again and excludes exactly those vehicles.

Fla. Stat. § 316.535(1), (4), (5) and (6), with § 316.550(4). Information, not legal advice.

Both of those 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.

Where an insurer has paid a total loss, an electronic lien recorded on the title is the thing that actually holds it up.

Fla. Stat. § 320.0609(1)(a) and § 319.30. Information, not legal advice.

All of it is iron we buy across the Lake Belt and the rest of Miami-Dade County. Single-unit dump trucks held to 70,000 lb, and combinations at 80,000 lb. Mixers off the cement side. Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, box trucks, tankers, rollbacks, service bodies and the pickups that go with a pit 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 is a single-unit, so it never got the permit. Does that count against it here?No. In the Lake Belt that is the standard truck for the standard job — 70,000 lb against a combination’s 80,000 lb — and it tells us to read the hours rather than the odometer.
• 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.

Beyond a truck that has simply done its turns, the reasons are personal ones. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A job that finished and left one dump truck more than the next one needs, standing on the Lake Belt in Miami-Dade County 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.