Sell your semi truck for cash in Ypsilanti

One rail-yard row is attached here, called Willow Run, 3.32 miles from the middle of town, with a coordinate that falls outside any incorporated boundary — so this was simply the nearest place holding a page.

It is operated by a passenger railroad rather than a freight carrier, one of 54 such rows in this dataset and the fourth in this state. Freight reasoning does not transfer to any of them, so no freight claim is made about it here.

The name carries a heavy industrial history that most people in Washtenaw County could tell you about, and nothing on this page is inferred from it. What that ground does today was not established by the research, and a page that borrowed the reputation of what it used to do would be telling you about truck traffic it has no evidence for. So it does not.

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.

Those are the trucks we buy, whatever shape they are in. Day cabs and road tractors off the general freight. Dump trucks off the road work and the demolition. Flatbeds, box trucks, straight trucks and rollbacks out of the trades. Service bodies, work trucks and pickups off crews across Washtenaw 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. Belleville, the ground out past Willow Run and the townships between are all routine.

• 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 out towards Willow Run, not in town.So is the rail row on this page — 3.32 miles out and outside every incorporated boundary. Washtenaw County either way, and it has never decided anything for 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, because short heavy runs 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 Washtenaw County lot out towards Willow Run, 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.