Sell your semi truck for cash in Homer the easy and convenient way

The Homer Quarry reports 9 employees to the federal mine regulator, operator of record Martin Marietta Materials, and Georgia DOT carries it on Qualified Products List QPL-2 as source 059C.

That entry is the useful one, because QPL-2 records what the rock actually is. It gives the character as Biotite Gneiss, with a Los Angeles abrasion loss of 55, absorption 0.71%, bulk specific gravity 2.616, magnesium sulphate soundness 3.1, and class B.

Biotite is mica — a platy mineral with perfect cleavage in one direction — so a rock rich in it parts along those planes and breaks down readily under impact. The abrasion figure of 55 is the register predicting exactly that. Across the Georgia sources matched in this research the loss runs from 17 to 55, a threefold spread inside one rock family, and this one sits at the top of it.

That figure has a consequence a driver would recognise before a geologist would. The Los Angeles abrasion test tumbles graded aggregate with steel spheres and reports the percentage that breaks down, so what it measures is how readily Biotite Gneiss degrades under impact and attrition rather than how hard it is on a truck.

The two ends of the range give a body opposite problems. A low-loss rock is tough, arrives as it left, and acts by scouring — wear on floor, sides and tailgate. A high-loss rock degrades into fines under handling, which is gentler on steel but packs and sticks: carry-back, a floor that will not empty clean, a tailgate seal that fills. At 55 this is that second case in its strongest form, and platy mica fines are additionally slippery when wet, so a load that has stood in rain comes out of the body differently from a granular one.

The direction of that reasoning is sound and its magnitude is not established — the test measures the aggregate’s own degradation and not steel wear. So the inspection points are floor corners, tailgate seal and corrosion under material that packed and sat, rather than a number anyone can put on it.

Those loads then have to cross something. Within ten miles of this quarry, straight-line, the federal bridge inventory for Georgia records 131 structures, of which 23 are coded posted for load and 21 of those are county-maintained. The nearest is 2.3 miles away.

All 23 clear the 11.0-tonne floor an empty tandem dump needs, but only just: the lowest operating rating among them is 11.7 metric tonnes, about 12.9 US tons, and that is the binding cap. On the inventory’s gross-weight scale a cap of 11.7 admits about 0.7 tonnes of stone over the 11.0-tonne tare of an empty truck, against the roughly twenty-five tonnes a legal 80,000 lb vehicle carries. That is not a part-loaded crossing so much as an empty one with a shovelful on it.

Banks County posts 19 of its 40 county-maintained bridges, 47.5%, which is the highest rate in either Georgia batch this research has read. Against a statewide county rate of 20.2% and a state-maintained rate of 4.6%, the local road network here is the constraint rather than the statute.

Those loads run under a ceiling the rock does not qualify to lift.

O.C.G.A. § 32-6-26 puts the general gross weight limit at 80,000 lb on state and US highways. The ten per cent variance to 88,000 lb, under HB 189 (2023) as amended by HB 164 (2025), is a forest-products and agricultural provision. Crushed stone is not inside it, and it is void on the interstate system in any case — so the interstate is the lower limit rather than the higher one, which is the inversion this research first recorded in Georgia.

Banks County is not among the thirteen non-attainment counties, so the allowance is available here for timber and for agriculture. Crushed stone is neither, so what leaves the Homer Quarry runs at the ordinary limit — and on these county roads the posted structures bind long before the statute does.

County roads carry 56,000 lb, except where the truck is making a pickup or delivery on that road, which covers the first leg out of a quarry gate. Georgia’s base limit is not stated as including enforcement tolerances the way Alabama’s is, and what Georgia’s tolerance is was not established for this file, so none is stated here.

O.C.G.A. § 32-6-26; HB 189 (2023) as amended by HB 164 (2025). Information, not legal advice.

Those rules decide the load. This one decides the sale, and it is a single sentence.

Everything after that is a fix rather than a taxonomy. A lost title is a counter transaction at a tag office — a driver’s licence, the year, make and model, the vehicle identity number, a fee of $18, printed on the spot in about forty-five minutes depending on the line. Where no title exists, the bonded route runs through a surety company, an application with a sales document, a police inspection form confirming the vehicle is not stolen, then the tag office.

Georgia brands salvage by a total-loss formula rather than a fixed percentage, weighing repair cost against actual cash value with salvage value factored in. Under O.C.G.A. § 40-3-37 the commissioner inspects a salvaged or rebuilt vehicle before any title issues, and the rebuild has to have been done in Georgia.

Where there is a lien on it, the release is the slow part. Georgia files liens electronically and a lienholder on that programme cannot issue a paper release; only lienholders holding liens on fewer than five Georgia-titled vehicles may use the paper certificate.

Emissions is not a step. Banks County is not among the thirteen, and diesel and anything above 8,500 lb rated gross are outside the programme regardless.

O.C.G.A. § 40-3-37; Georgia Department of Revenue title, lien and emissions guidance. Information, not legal advice.

None of that changes what we buy. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the Homer Quarry and the Martin Marietta Materials work around it — including the ones whose floors have carried Biotite Gneiss fines for a decade. Log trucks and farm trucks on the forest-products and agricultural work the Banks County variance covers. Mixers, day cabs, flatbeds, lowboys, box trucks, straight trucks, rollbacks, service bodies, and the work trucks and pickups that go out with a 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 and sold means we can’t buy the truck.
• 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 is a bonded route. Neither stops a sale.
• The floor is pitted and the tailgate seal is packed. Does that hurt?No. That is what a class B rock at an abrasion loss of 55 does to a body over years, and it is normal wear rather than damage. It does not change whether we buy it.
• Is Banks County in the emissions programme?No. Georgia’s programme covers thirteen metro Atlanta counties and Banks is not one of them. It would not reach a diesel truck in any case, and nothing rated above 8,500 lb is inside it at all.
• Is anybody driving out to Homer for one truck?Often nobody has to. We buy it remotely and arrange the tow, which is usually the least trouble — and on a county network posting 47.5% of its bridges it is frequently the simplest. We also come to you and drive it away, or come to you and tow it, and you can bring it to us.

That last one is the question under most of the calls out of Banks County, and what sits behind it has nothing to do with Martin Marietta Materials or with a bridge rated 11.7 metric tonnes.

Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A hauling contract that ended and left one machine too many in the yard. Sometimes it is only that the truck has been parked since the last load went out, and every month it sits is another month of insurance on something that isn’t turning a wheel.

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.