We buy trucks in Kokomo

Two crushed-stone operations are attached to Kokomo, one 2.25 miles from the middle of town and one 2.42, each reporting 6 employees to the federal mine regulator. Small crews, close in, working local stone.

They are separate workings rather than one row written twice — different names, and their road figures differ by a structure or two, which is what two genuinely different circles look like.

The interesting thing about this pair is not their size. It is that the restrictions around them are unusually honest.

That is a specific claim and it comes out of one number. At this pair the raw minimum operating rating on the network equals the commercial floor, both at 22.5 metric tonnes. Every one of the thirteen restricted structures within ten miles is therefore at or above the 11.0-tonne mark below which no commercial vehicle crosses at all — not one of them is a farm crossing outside this trade.

That is unusual in this state. Three rounds of measurement have produced raw minima between 2.7 and 8.8 tonnes at most Indiana sites, where applying the commercial floor discards half the restrictions or more as irrelevant to a truck. Here it discards none.

The rest follows sensibly. Thirteen restrictions out of 180 and 182 structures, twelve of the thirteen county-maintained, Howard County posting 13 of the 137 bridges it maintains, and the nearest restriction 0.45 miles from one pit and 0.63 from the other. The cap admits about 11.5 tonnes of stone, close to half a legal load.

So: a moderate count, every crossing in it genuine, and a load that survives them better than at most places in this lane.

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

Those crossings sit under a statute that has already decided something before a truck reaches one, because 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 highway agency designates. Off that network gross falls to 73,280 lb and tandems fall from 34,000 to 16,000, less than half. Which roads are designated was not established here, so a truck loading at either gate may be 6,720 lb below the federal gross with nothing at the roadside saying so.

Local authorities may impose lesser limits again on their own roads and bridges, and seasonal restrictions are administered county by county rather than as one state season.

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

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 that one sentence.

Everything after it is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither 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 used and the source of those parts — a paperwork audit rather than a condition inspection, which a rebuild done without receipts cannot pass.

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, day cabs and road tractors, 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 Howard 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. We buy all of them. The two pit gates 0.45 miles and 0.63 miles from their nearest restriction, and the county roads between them, 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 met posted bridges most days.Round Howard County the posted ones are all real ones for a truck — no farm crossings padding the count. It means the brakes and the loading cycles did the work, so we ask about hours before mileage.
• Do you cover the rest of Howard County?Yes, all of it and the towns around it. 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 questions come up because the reasons for selling are mostly personal. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A quarry or plant contract that ended. A truck standing behind a shed since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it does not turn a wheel.

Around Howard County, and on the roads between the two pits 0.45 miles from the nearest posting, 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.