Sell your semi truck for cash in Sterling Heights

Two rail-yard rows sit almost on top of each other here, both operated by Conrail, 0.59 and 0.79 miles from the middle of town and 0.22 miles from each other. They are not a duplicate. One of them is called Sterling Autoload, and the extra word names a job rather than repeating a name, so these are two facilities sharing one site.

That job is the interesting half. A finished-vehicle facility takes cars and trucks off railcars and puts them onto multi-car road trailers, so the road equipment working out of Sterling Autoload is car-haul tractor-trailers rather than general freight. What moves through the other yard could not be determined from anything we read, and we are not going to fill that in.

It is a useful distinction for anybody selling. A car-haul rig and a dry-freight day cab can run out of the same gate and have led completely different lives.

Those ramps sit beside a vehicle assembly plant that builds full-size pickups and truck-based vehicles. Statewide, ten of Michigan’s sixteen automotive rows are genuine assembly plants and the other six make components; this is one of the ten. Its employment and its output were not established, so neither is claimed.

What matters to a seller is what happens to some of them next. A proportion leave the plant and go straight to an upfitter, who finishes them into service bodies, utility bodies and flat-decks. That is a two-stage vehicle — built by one company, completed by another, titled once at the end.

So if yours has a body somebody else fitted, tell us who did it and what they put on. The body is part of what we are buying, not clutter to strip off first, and in Macomb County — within sight of Sterling Autoload, 0.59 miles from the middle of town — it is an entirely ordinary thing to be selling.

Both of those trades run under a state weight statute that is not the one the rest of the country uses. 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 gets there by going the other way on the axle: 18,000 lb on a single axle against a federal 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. A Michigan-legal heavy combination is therefore 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 — so the advantage does not survive the thaw, and no overweight permits are issued while the restrictions are 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. Car haulers and the tractors that pull them, off Sterling Autoload. Service bodies, utility trucks and flat-decks off the upfitters. Day cabs and road tractors off the general freight, dump trucks off the road work, and box trucks, straight trucks, rollbacks, work trucks and pickups out of the trades.

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. Macomb County is easy country for all of that.

• 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 car hauler with the decks on it.Leave them on. A multi-car trailer is an ordinary thing for us to buy here — Sterling Autoload is a finished-vehicle ramp and the rigs that empty it are exactly this. The decks are part of the sale.
• Somebody else fitted the body.Then it is a two-stage truck, which is completely normal in Macomb County. Tell us who finished it and what they put on.
• 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.
• 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 the reason for the call. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A contract that ended and never got replaced. A car-haul rig standing on a lot near Sterling Autoload, 0.59 miles from the middle of town, that has not moved since the work stopped, with insurance going out every month 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.