Sell your semi truck for cash in Plymouth

Two rail-yard rows are attached to this town, 1.19 and 1.37 miles from the middle of it, under the same carrier. One is called East and the other North, which is to say neither of them is called anything at all.

That creates a problem the file is honest about. The two share a carrier and a city but no name stem whatsoever, so nothing in this research pairs them — and they are recorded as two separate facilities on that basis rather than on any positive evidence that they are. It is an absence of a match, not a finding of a difference, and the record says so rather than rounding it up.

Neither coordinate lands inside an incorporated boundary either; this was simply the nearest place holding a page. What either handles could not be determined from any source we read.

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. One built for these weights may not be configured for anywhere else. Tell us the axle count early and we will know what we are looking at.

Then the same statute takes it back every spring, reducing axle and wheel loads through March, April and May by 25 percent on concrete pavements and concrete-based roads and by 35 percent on every other road type. No overweight permits are issued while the restrictions are in force, so the headroom the state is known for switches off for a quarter of the year.

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 are the trucks we buy, whatever shape they are in. Day cabs and local tractors of the kind that serve the yards 1.19 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. None of those is a local speciality — they are everywhere — and that is rather the point.

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. Canton, Northville, Livonia and the rest of western Wayne County 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.
• The truck is not inside the city limits.Neither are the two rail yards on this page — both coordinates fall outside any incorporated boundary, 1.19 and 1.37 miles out, and this was just the nearest place with a page. It makes no difference to us.
• 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. Short heavy runs across Wayne County put their wear into brakes and drivelines rather than into miles. Tell us the pattern.
• 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 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 a Wayne County yard out past the rails 1.37 miles from the middle of 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.