We buy trucks in West Harrison

The node attached to West Harrison is Siemer Milling Company, a grain mill in Dearborn County, at the eastern edge of the state. The county comes from the row’s own coordinate rather than from a name field, so it is exactly as good as that coordinate and no better — which is worth saying rather than presenting it as independently confirmed.

A mill of this kind pulls its raw material in by road from the country around it, on a working draw put at 150 miles. On a site this close to the line, a good part of that circle is in another state, and the trucks feeding it are farm trucks and grain hauls rather than line-haul equipment.

Because that is the traffic, the rule worth putting on this page is the one Indiana wrote for grain rather than a general freight rule.

A farm commodity moving from the place of production to the first point of delivery where it is weighed may run up to 10 per cent over the gross weight limit. The allowance also covers logs, wood chips, bark and sawdust, and from 2025 aggregate.

Three limits sit on it. It is void on any weight limit imposed for a bridge or for a section of highway. It is void on any part of an interstate highway. And it is Indiana’s rule: it is written in the Indiana Code and it governs Indiana roads, so a load crossing the line is under whatever the neighbouring state provides, which may not be the same thing. On a mill this close to the border that is a practical point rather than a technicality.

Ind. Code § 9-20-4-2. Information, not legal advice.

That allowance is a percentage of a ceiling, so the ceiling matters, and Indiana keys it 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. A truck on an undesignated county road therefore starts 6,720 lb below the federal gross.

Which Dearborn County roads carry the heavy-duty designation was not established, and no consolidated list of local designations was found. 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 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. Farm trucks and grain hauls, day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds and dump trucks, aggregate haulers, 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 Dearborn 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 roads into the Siemer Milling gates and the ground the 150-mile draw reaches across, on both sides of the line, 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 only ever ran at harvest.Ordinary on a truck hauling into Siemer Milling, and standing is its own kind of wear rather than a mark against it. A machine that works hard for a few weeks and then sits is a different proposition from one that runs all year. We read the truck rather than the hours.
• The truck is over the line, not in Indiana.Not a problem. All of Dearborn County and the ground the mill draws from either side of 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 because the reason for the call is usually not the truck. Retiring off the farm. A medical that went the wrong way. Ground sold or rented out. A truck standing beside a bin since somebody stopped driving it, costing insurance every month it does not turn a wheel.

Across the Dearborn County ground that trucks into Siemer Milling, and out through the 150 miles the mill draws from, 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.