We buy trucks in Decatur

The node attached to Decatur is Pleasant Mills Quarry, worked by US Aggregates for crushed limestone, and the federal mine regulator records five employees at it. Its coordinate lies 7.81 miles from the Decatur centroid, well out towards the state line.

Far enough out, in fact, that the ten-mile circle round it leaves Indiana. It holds 190 structures, 115 of them from the Indiana bridge file and 75 from Ohio’s, so the honest computation reads every state file with structures inside the radius rather than Indiana’s alone.

That is not a technicality for anyone hauling out of this gate. Half the routes available run east, and east is a different state with its own inventory and its own postings.

Those two ways of drawing the circle give two different numbers, and both are correct. Counting Indiana alone, exactly one of the 115 structures is restricted — 0.9% — with a cap of 26.6 metric tonnes admitting about 15.6 tonnes of stone over an empty tandem’s tare.

Count Ohio in and the circle holds six restricted structures out of 190, all six county-maintained, with the nearest 3.32 miles away. The binding cap drops to 25.9 tonnes, about 28.5 US tons, set by an Ohio structure at that same 3.32 miles — which still admits roughly 14.9 tonnes of stone.

So the answer to whether a load runs whole depends on which side of the line the route uses, and neither figure is severe. Adams County maintains 163 bridges and posts one of them, 0.6%, and its two quarries meet seven restricted structures between them in 255. This is about as open as a working network gets.

FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025, Indiana and Ohio files, items 41, 64 and 70.

Those open roads still put the truck under one statute, and Indiana keys its 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 Adams 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. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers, farm trucks and grain hauls, day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, 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 an Adams 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 Pleasant Mills Quarry gate 7.81 miles out, the farm roads between it and the town, and the routes running east 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.
• It has spent as much time in Ohio as here.That is normal 7.81 miles from a state line and it makes no difference to us. We buy across the country and the title work follows the truck, not the plate on it.
• Will you come out to the state line?Often we don’t need to — plenty of these we buy remotely and arrange the tow, so nobody has to be standing at the Pleasant Mills Quarry gate. All of Adams 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 out here because the reasons are ordinary and the nearest buyer is a long way off. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A farm changing hands. A truck standing beside a barn since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it does not turn a wheel.

Around Adams County, and along the 7.81 miles between the town and Pleasant Mills Quarry, 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.