We buy trucks in Dayton

Dayton carries one node: a Norfolk Southern rail row filed under the name of a vehicle assembler, whose recorded coordinate lies 1.95 miles from the Dayton centroid. It is attached here by nearest-place fallback, and the coordinate itself falls inside Lafayette, which holds a page of its own.

Both of those are true at once and the page keeps both. Dayton is the town the row is filed against; Lafayette is the ground the trackwork stands on.

At under two miles, on the near edge of a county seat, the distinction matters less than what the facility does.

That kind of facility has one job on the road side. A finished-vehicle facility loads vehicles off rail cars onto multi-car road trailers, so the equipment served at that Norfolk Southern row 1.95 miles out is car-haul tractor-trailers rather than dumps or tankers.

Car haulers are specialist trucks and their owners are usually specialists too — owner-operators and small fleets rather than a big yard. When one of those leaves the business, the trailer and the tractor come up together, and both are things we buy.

A hauler off that run is worth saying something else about: the trailer takes the beating and the tractor often does not. Decks, ramps and hydraulics wear where a flat deck would not, and none of that is a reason we would pass on it.

Even a light, bulky load runs under the same statute, and Indiana keys its weight allowance to the road rather than to the cargo.

Gross weight is 80,000 lb, single axles 20,000 and tandems 34,000 on the heavy-duty network the state designates. Off that network the gross falls to 73,280 lb, single axles to 18,000, and a tandem assembly is capped at 16,000 lb for each of its axles — 32,000 for the pair.

So a loaded truck on a Tippecanoe County road gives up 6,720 lb of gross before it meets a posting at all, and which roads carry the designation was not established here. Local authorities may set lesser limits again, and seasonal restrictions are administered county by county rather than as one state season.

One more limit follows the load rather than the road: 800 lb per inch of tire width, loaded or empty, which a dense load reaches on a short deck length rather than spread down a trailer.

Ind. Code § 9-20-4-1; local limits under § 9-20-1-4 and § 9-20-7-2. Information, not legal advice.

Beyond the weight rules, the paperwork is one sentence: we need a title unless the truck is old enough that it never had one.

Everything after that sentence is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither one stops a sale.

Indiana brands a vehicle salvage where repair to a roadworthy state would cost more than 70 per cent of its fair market value immediately before the damage, and the statute names semitrailers explicitly, so a trailer can carry a brand independently of the tractor. Rebuilding requires a state police officer to verify ownership of the major component parts and the source of those parts — a paperwork audit rather than a condition inspection, and a rebuild done without receipts cannot pass it.

Ind. Code § 9-22-3-3 and § 9-22-3. Information, not legal advice.

None of that narrows what we will look at. Car haulers and the tractors that pull them, day cabs and road tractors, dump trucks and aggregate haulers, flatbeds, farm trucks and grain hauls, rollbacks, tankers, service bodies, box trucks and straight trucks, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew.

Box trucks and straight trucks are not a Tippecanoe County thing in particular — they are everywhere. They are on the list because we buy them here too.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. The ramp 1.95 miles out, the yards along the road into Lafayette and the farm ground the other way are where most of it turns up.

• 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.
• What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. Lost titles have a counter replacement; where none exists there’s a bonded route.
• I have the tractor and the car trailer. Do you want both?Yes, and it is easier if they come together. Hydraulics that no longer lift and decks that have been welded are ordinary wear on that equipment, not a reason to walk away.
• Will you come out to a town this size?Often we don’t need to — plenty of these we buy remotely and arrange the tow, so nobody has to be standing at a ramp 1.95 miles out. All of Tippecanoe County either way. We come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, we buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you drive it to us.

Those answers matter here because the reasons are ordinary. A contract off the ramp ending. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A truck standing beside a shed since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it does not turn a wheel.

Around Tippecanoe County, and on the road between Dayton and the ramp 1.95 miles off, there is usually one waiting.

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.