We buy trucks in North Key Largo

The row filed under North Key Largo is an Ardent Mills facility, and its coordinate does not land in the Florida Keys. It lands in San Juan Municipio, Puerto Rico — 1,031.29 miles away.

Ardent Mills does operate in Puerto Rico, and the coordinate is consistent with a San Juan facility. What is not consistent is the state, the city and the distance. So the coordinate is wrong for this page, and saying so is better than writing around it.

It is the ninth flour-mill row of 156 whose coordinate falls outside the state it is filed in — 5.8% — and the only one of those nine that carries a city page at all. The other eight are in Canada and cannot produce a page by accident.

So set the row aside and take the geography, which is not in dispute. Monroe County has one highway spine through the Florida Keys and everything runs on it.

That is why one gap in the record matters more here than it would anywhere else. Florida’s posted-bridge list was not located, and the Keys are named as the place that absence bites, for exactly this reason: one road, and no published list of what is rated on it.

For a seller the practical question is therefore not which route. It is whether the truck moves at all and, if it does not, where it is standing — whether that is nearer Key Largo or further out.

Which is where most calls from down here start, and the answer is not the one people expect. We buy trucks remotely and arrange the tow, and that route needs no visit at all.

The others are still open: we come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, or you bring it to us — and a tow off the island is the same job here as it is at Key Largo. But on a Monroe County truck, at the far end of the Florida Keys, the remote route is usually the realistic one, and it is a route rather than a fallback.

What makes it work is photographs. Every side, the whole interior including the odometer, the engine from both sides, and thirty to sixty seconds of video if it runs. None of that changes the offer — it changes who does the driving.

So the paperwork travels even when nobody does. We need a title unless the truck is old enough that it never had one; a lost title has a counter replacement, and where none exists there is a bonded route.

The plate stays in the owner’s name rather than going with the truck, so it comes off and either moves to a replacement vehicle of the same class or goes back to the county tax collector.

And Florida brands salvage where repair costs reach 80% of the cost to replace the vehicle with one of like kind and quality. The percentage is not the point — the base is. Replacement cost is a different number from the retail or market-value bases used in other states, so a figure carried in from elsewhere does not transfer.

Fla. Stat. § 319.30(3)(a) and § 320.0609(1)(a). Information, not legal advice.

Those are the seller’s side. The load rule is the driver’s, and it is short.

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 off the interstate system only and does not reach those single-unit vehicles.

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

All of it is iron we buy across Monroe County. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers held to 70,000 lb where a combination gets 80,000 lb, box trucks and delivery bodies off the resort and marine trades, flatbeds, day cabs, tankers, rollbacks, service bodies and the pickups that go with a crew — the same down through Key Largo and Tavernier.

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.
• Do you actually come this far down?We do, and we also buy remotely and arrange the tow, which is the route most people down here take. On a Monroe County truck anywhere in the Florida Keys that route needs no visit at all — photographs and a short video do the work, the same as they would at Key Largo or up at the mainland end.
• 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 contract that ended and left one box truck standing in a Monroe County yard somewhere below Key Largo, with nothing booked for it and a long way to anywhere.

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.