Ports work at Marquette, Alpena, Manistique and Marine City, petroleum terminals at Cheboygan, Escanaba, Ferrysburg and Gladstone, and metal mines at Palmer, Republic and Big Bay. Flour mills run at Chelsea, Frankenmuth and Lowell, and rail yards are spread from Bay City to Auburn Hills.
A Volvo day cab out of Detroit, a Peterbilt sleeper off a Flat Rock run, a Mack dump truck near Alpena or a Chevrolet dually out of Grand Rapids go through the same steps: send us photos and details, we send an offer, and if it works we can come to you, buy it remotely, or you can drive it in.
Michigan’s trucking industry is the heart of American auto manufacturing with enormous demand for heavy commercial vehicles supporting supply chains across the state.
The statute that lets a truck grow another axle
All of that loads under a state rulebook that is not the one the rest of the country runs on. Michigan permits a maximum gross weight of 164,000 lb on a combination of up to eleven axles, which is the highest regularly usable truck weight in North America. Eleven has been the ceiling since 1967. How it gets there is the part to understand. Michigan’s axle limits are lower than the federal ones — 18,000 lb on a single axle against a federal 20,000, and 32,000 lb on a tandem against 34,000. The state reaches a very high gross by allowing more axles each carrying less, not by allowing heavier axles, on the logic that pavement damage climbs with axle load rather than with gross weight. Tell us the axle count and we will know what we are looking at. The same statute takes the advantage back every spring. Maximum axle and wheel loads are reduced through March, April and May — by 25 percent on concrete pavements and concrete-based roads, and by 35 percent on every other road type. Because the whole regime is built on the axle, that is a straight cut in what the truck can legally carry, and the eleven-axle advantage does not survive the thaw. In the 2026 cycle it began in February, changed again on 30 March and came off through late April.
Gross and axle limits at MCL 257.722, read from the Michigan Vehicle Code and the Michigan Department of Transportation’s Maximum Legal Truck Loadings and Dimensions.
In Michigan the distressed vehicle threshold is 75% or more of the actual cash value of the vehicle in its predamaged condition, in estimated cost of repair including parts and labor (MCL 257.12a). In Michigan the salvage title threshold is 75% or more but less than 91% of the predamaged actual cash value, in estimated cost of repair including parts and labor (MCL 257.217c(2)(a)(ii)). In Michigan the scrap title threshold is 91% or more of the predamaged actual cash value, in estimated cost of repair including parts and labor (MCL 257.217c(2)(a)(ii)).