Eaton County
One yard, three quarters of a mile out, and nothing crossed about it
The research holds a single rail-yard row here, 0.76 miles from the middle of town, and its coordinate lands inside the city it is filed under. That is a plainer record than most places in this state manage.
The distance is computed from the points along a stretch of track rather than surveyed at a gate, which is how every rail-yard row in this dataset is derived, so 0.76 miles locates the middle of some rails rather than a door somebody drives through.
What moves through it could not be determined from anything we read, so no claim is made about that. One yard, correctly filed, in a town on the western edge of the Lansing area, is the whole of the local record in this corner of Eaton County.
Michigan weight law
A statute that counts axles, not trucks
So the rule to know here is a state one, and it is the rule that makes Michigan trucks different from everybody else’s. The statute permits a maximum gross of 164,000 lb on a combination of up to eleven axles, and eleven has been the ceiling since 1967 — the highest regularly usable truck weight in North America.
It reaches that the opposite way round from how people assume. Michigan’s axle limits are lower than the federal ones: 18,000 lb on a single axle against 20,000, and 32,000 lb on a tandem against 34,000. More axles, each carrying less, because pavement damage climbs with axle load rather than with gross weight.
Which matters when a truck changes hands, because an eleven-axle Michigan combination is a physically different vehicle rather than a heavier one. Then the same statute reduces axle and wheel loads through March, April and May — 25 percent on concrete pavements and concrete-based roads, 35 percent on everything else — so the advantage does not survive the thaw.
On paper the rule is one sentence. We need a title — unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. Everything after that is a fix rather than a category: a lost title has a counter replacement, and where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither one stops a sale.
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. Information, not legal advice.
What we buy here
Those are the trucks we buy, whatever shape they are in. Day cabs and local tractors of the kind that serve a yard 0.76 miles out. Dump trucks off the road work and the gravel. Flatbeds, box trucks, straight trucks and rollbacks out of the trades. Service bodies, work trucks and pickups off crews across Eaton County.
Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.
We can come to you and drive it away, come to you and tow it, or buy it remotely and arrange the tow with nobody visiting at all. You are welcome to bring it to us too. Lansing is down the road and the townships between are all ordinary for us.
We buy complete trucks. If the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Small things — a missing bumper — are fine.
Straight answers
The questions we get asked in Grand Ledge
- 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.
- How far out do you come?All of Eaton County and well past it — Lansing straddles the line just east of here, and we go out through the townships either side. Often we do not need to come at all.
- It has been parked since the spring restrictions.That happens here more than people outside Michigan expect, and it is not a disqualifier. Tell us how long it has stood and whether anything has come off it.
- It only ever ran local.Then the odometer understates the work. Runs in and out of a yard 0.76 miles from the middle of town put their wear into brakes and drivelines rather than into miles.
- How am I paid?Cash or electronic payment. That is the whole list.
- What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route.
Why people call
None of that is usually why the phone rings. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A contract that ended and never got replaced. A tractor standing on an Eaton County yard within sight of the rails 0.76 miles from town, that has not moved since the work stopped and is still costing insurance every month.
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.
Michigan weight rules read from MCL 257.722 and Michigan Department of Transportation publications in August 2026 — verify with the Michigan Department of Transportation and the Michigan Secretary of State before acting on them. Node facts from the city-pages node list, county attribution from its own county field.