We buy trucks in Westlake

Palm Beach Aggregates carries 46 people on the mine safety register, which makes it the largest of the three crushed-stone rows our file holds in this county — Star Quarries at South Bay has 32 and Five Stones at Canal Point eleven. The node sits 4.97 miles from the centre of Westlake.

Within ten miles of it the National Bridge Inventory records 43 structures. One is posted for load and one is coded below legal loads; that one is county-maintained, which is the tier a seller can actually ring, and it is 2.37 miles away.

So the restriction needs reading before it worries anybody. The lowest rating at or above the commercial floor on that crossing, as the National Bridge Inventory records it, is 50.6 metric tonnes. A legal 80,000 lb combination grosses 36.3 tonnes, and the single-unit cap this trade runs under is lower still at 31.75.

So a legal load crosses it whole, and we publish no payload figure for it. Working the arithmetic out would produce a tonnage above anything a legal truck can carry, and a number like that is worse than no number — it looks like a permission. The honest statement is the short one: nothing within ten miles of this quarry caps a lawful load.

Which is a different road environment from the one out at the lake edge, where the nearest restricted crossing binds at 42.1 tonnes. Two quarries in one county, two different answers, and it is worth checking which one your route actually crosses.

Both of those tonnages come off the same schedule, and it is short enough to state exactly.

Florida allows 80,000 lb gross including all enforcement tolerances and 20,000 lb on a single axle. A single-unit vehicle used as a dump truck, a concrete mixer, a waste collection vehicle or a fuel tanker is held to 70,000 lb instead. FDOT may permit ten per cent over legal gross weight off the interstate highway system only, and that permit does not reach the single-unit class at all.

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

Those stop mattering the day the truck changes hands, and the paperwork is what decides how fast that goes.

We need a title unless the truck is old enough that it never had one; a lost one has a counter replacement; where neither exists there is a bonded route. The plate 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.

The one with a clock on it is storage. A towing and storage operator holding a vehicle has a lien for recovery, towing and storage, must give notice by certified mail to the registered owner, the insurer and any lienholder within five business days, and on a vehicle over three years old can reach a public sale in 35 days. If a truck is sitting at a yard, that is the one to move on first.

Fla. Stat. § 713.78, with § 320.0609(1)(a). Information, not legal advice.

All of it is iron we buy across Palm Beach County. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the limerock, held to 70,000 lb where a combination gets 80,000 lb. Farm trucks off the cane ground. Day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, box trucks, tankers, mixers, rollbacks, service bodies and the pickups that go with a small 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.
• Will a loaded truck get out of here?Yes. The nearest crossing coded below legal loads is 2.37 miles off and rates at 50.6 metric tonnes, which is above what a legal combination grosses. Nothing within ten miles of the quarry caps a lawful load.
• How far do you come out?Across Palm Beach County and past it. Where the drive makes no sense we buy the truck where it stands and arrange the tow instead — the quarry end of the county is a normal run for us either way.
• 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. Work off the Palm Beach Aggregates end that finished and left one dump truck standing on a yard 4.97 miles from the middle of town, with nothing booked for it and the next job somewhere out past West Palm Beach.

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.