We buy trucks in New Haven

The node attached to New Haven is Woodburn II, worked by Heidelberg Materials, with twelve employees on the federal mine register. It is not in the town: its coordinate lies 8.88 miles from the centre of New Haven, out towards the state line in eastern Allen County.

Ten miles from that gate the bridge inventory returns 256 structures, and 45 of them are Ohio’s rather than Indiana’s. The circle crosses the state line, so it has to be read from both files — 211 Indiana structures and 45 Ohio ones, counted together because a loaded truck does not stop at the line either.

Inside that circle, 28 structures are coded below legal loads, and every one of the 28 is county-maintained. The nearest is 0.71 miles from the gate.

Then the arithmetic gets unusually blunt. The lowest operating rating that will take a commercial vehicle at all is 11.0 metric tonnes, set by a structure 6.57 miles out on the Indiana side. An empty tandem dump weighs about 11.0 tonnes. Subtract one from the other and what is left over for the stone is 0.0.

That is not a figure of speech and it is not rounded for effect: the rating is the gross weight of the vehicle, so the crossing admits the truck and precisely none of its load. Below it, a further structure rated 10.2 tonnes will not take the empty truck either.

The practical shape of that is a working truck which is either routed the long way round or run part loaded as a matter of course, and both of those show up in the machine rather than in the mileage.

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

Those ratings land on a truck that the statute has already lightened, because 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. On an undesignated county road that is 6,720 lb of gross gone before any bridge is reached.

Near a state line the point sharpens: the designation is Indiana’s to make, by the state or by a local authority, and it stops at the border along with the rest of the state’s road law. Which Allen County roads carry it was not established, and no consolidated local list was found.

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 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 Allen County speciality — they are everywhere. They are on the list because we buy them here too.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. The Woodburn II gate 8.88 miles out, the county roads between it and the town, and the routes over into Ohio 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 never once run at legal weight.On a circle whose lowest crossing takes the empty truck and 0.0 tonnes of anything else, that is the job rather than a confession. More trips for the same tonnage puts hours and brake cycles ahead of the miles, and we read the truck rather than the dash.
• Do you actually come out past Woodburn?Often we don’t need to — plenty of these we buy remotely and arrange the tow, so nobody has to be standing at a gate 8.88 miles from town. All of Allen County either way, and over the Ohio line with 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 answers matter here because a network like this is hard on an operator as well as on a truck. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A hauling contract ending. A truck standing beside a shed since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it does not turn a wheel.

Across the 8.88 miles between the town and the Woodburn II gate, and out on the Allen County roads towards the line, 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. That’s what we’re here for.