Sell your semi truck for cash in Manistique

The one industrial point the research holds here is a quarry working dimension limestone at the surface, operator of record Capital Stoneworks, and it reports four employees to the federal mine regulator. That is a very small operation on paper.

Dimension stone is a different thing from crushed stone, because it is a different trade with different trucks. Crushed aggregate moves in high volume by dump truck; dimension stone is cut in blocks and slabs and moves in low volume on flatbeds, with the load secured rather than tipped. A four-person site is consistent with that, though the research did not establish output either way.

It is also a reminder not to over-read a headcount. Across this state the same kind of registration runs from one employee to 264, so a small number can mean a small operation, a seasonal one, or paperwork that has drifted from activity. Schoolcraft County is thinly covered in this record and we would rather say so.

Whatever leaves that ground leaves under a state weight statute whose seasonal half matters more up here than anywhere else in it. Michigan reduces maximum axle and wheel loads through March, April and May, when the freeze-thaw cycle leaves roads at their most vulnerable, and northern routes stay restricted longest of all.

The cut is set by what the road is made of rather than by who owns it: 25 percent on concrete pavements and concrete-based roads, 35 percent on every other road type, with a 35 mph limit on some vehicles while it is in force. No overweight permits are issued at all in the meantime.

The rest of the year the same statute is the most generous in the country, allowing a gross of 164,000 lb on a combination of up to eleven axles. Stone is dense enough to reach the axle limits with the deck well short of full, so the spring reduction bites harder on it than on light freight.

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.

Spring restrictions at MCL 257.722 and the Michigan Department of Transportation’s Spring Weight Restriction Bulletin. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the day it was read.

Those are the trucks we buy, whatever shape they turn up in. Flatbeds off the Capital Stoneworks kind of work, where the load is strapped rather than tipped. Dump trucks off the aggregate and the road jobs. Day cabs and road tractors, box trucks, straight trucks and rollbacks out of the trades, and service bodies, work trucks and pickups off crews across Schoolcraft County.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.

Out here the honest lead is the remote one: we buy the truck remotely and arrange the tow, and nobody visits at all. That is not a fallback in the Upper Peninsula, it is usually the realistic path. We can also come to you and drive it away or tow it, and you are welcome to bring it south if you are going anyway.

• 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.
• It is a flatbed that hauled stone.Then the deck and the tie-down points have had a hard life while the driveline may not have. Tell us which is which — a Capital Stoneworks kind of load is strapped rather than tipped, and that wears a truck differently.
• Will you actually come out here?Usually we do not need to. Most trucks in Schoolcraft County are bought remotely and towed, with nobody visiting at all. Distance has never stopped a sale.
• It has sat outside through a lot of winters.Expected up here, and not a disqualifier. Tell us how long and whether anything has come off it. Cold and salt find brake lines and air systems first.
• 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 is usually why the phone rings. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A season that ended and never started again. A flatbed standing behind a shed somewhere in Schoolcraft County, not far from the Capital Stoneworks ground, that has not moved in two years 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.