Sell your semi truck for cash in Holland

The research holds one industrial point here: a CSX Transportation yard 2.27 miles from the middle of town. Its coordinate does not land inside any city boundary — Holland is simply the nearest place with a page — and what moves through it could not be established from anything we read.

The interesting part is the name. Two rows called Waverly are operated by CSX Transportation in this part of the state, 21.71 miles apart, one in Ottawa County and one in Kent County, and the far one belongs to Grand Rapids rather than here. Same name, same carrier, two genuinely separate facilities most of a county apart.

That pair was the closest call in a scan of nineteen same-name, same-carrier splits across this dataset, and it came down on the side of being two places. Which is a roundabout way of saying that around here the county line and the name on the sign are both unreliable, and neither is something we ask a seller about.

Both of those yards sit under the same state weight statute, and it is not the one the rest of the country runs on. Michigan permits a maximum gross of 164,000 lb on a combination of up to eleven axles — the highest regularly usable truck weight in North America, and eleven has been the ceiling since 1967.

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. So a Michigan-legal heavy combination is a physically different vehicle rather than a heavier one, and that follows the truck when it is sold.

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 — and because the whole regime is built on the axle, that is a straight cut in the load. No overweight permits are issued while it is in force.

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.

Those rules cover trucks we are glad to buy. Day cabs and road tractors off the CSX Transportation interchange and the lakeshore freight. Flatbeds and dump trucks off the construction. Box trucks, straight trucks and rollbacks out of the trades, and service bodies, work trucks and pickups off crews.

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 — and you are welcome to bring it to us. Ottawa County, Allegan County and up towards Grand Rapids are all ordinary for us.

• 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.
• Which county am I actually in?It has never mattered to us. The yard on this page is not inside any city boundary at all, and its twin is 21.71 miles away in Kent County. Ottawa County, Allegan County, the townships — all ordinary.
• It has sat outside through the winters.Expected here, and not a disqualifier. Tell us how long it has stood and whether anything has come off it. Salt and cold find brake lines and air systems first.
• It has only ever run local.Then the odometer understates the work. Short heavy runs put their wear into brakes and drivelines rather than into miles, and we would rather hear the pattern from you.
• 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.

None of those questions is usually the reason for the call. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A contract that ended and never got replaced. A tractor standing on a yard out in Ottawa County towards the Waverly rails, 2.27 miles from town, that has not moved since the work stopped — and every month it stands is another month of insurance on something that isn’t turning a wheel.

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.