We buy trucks in Canton

The assembly plant here represents a capital investment of $1.94 billion and has the capacity to produce 400,000 vehicles a year. Its coordinate reverse-geocodes to Madison County, and it carries a 200 mi radius in the record on the reasoning that inbound sequenced parts run contract lanes from a wide supplier base.

Those are the figures that agree. Several others do not, and none of the conflicting pairs is adopted here. The plant’s own factsheet gives 4.7 million square feet on 1,038 acres while a second account gives 3.5 million on 1,400 acres. On employment, an account from around 2008 gives approximately 3,700 people building five vehicles, and more recent data gives more than 5,000 directly employed. Both are on the record; neither is stated as the figure.

Two assembly plants operate in this state — this one at 400,000 vehicles and the Toyota plant at Blue Springs at 170,000 — a combined published capacity of 570,000 a year. Nothing follows from that about any individual vehicle, and nothing is claimed to.

Those vehicles leave on rails and then on rubber, and the yard that does it appears in the record twice. Two rows lie 0.53 miles apart under the same carrier, one named for auto loading and the other for auto load — one name is the other with a grammatical ending added, and they are one facility recorded twice.

No duplicate scan built for that research catches the pair. The identical-name scan sees two different strings, the stem scan finds no carrier suffix or facility number, the word-prefix scan fails because one word is not a whole word inside the other, and an edit-distance scan reads the added ending as three separate edits. It was found by inventory rather than by rule, and it is recorded as an open gap.

What happens there is straightforward enough. A finished-vehicle facility loads vehicles off rail cars onto multi-car road trailers, so the road equipment served is car-haul tractor-trailers. The yard attached here lies 2.87 miles from the centroid, outside any incorporated place, and this is the nearest town holding a page.

Those yards are worked by trucks running under a weight schedule with no local wrinkle in it at all, and that is worth saying plainly because it is rare.

Miss. Code § 63-5-33 sets the maximum gross without a special permit at 80,000 lb, and § 63-5-27 sets single axles at 20,000 lb and tandem axles at 34,000 lb. Those are the federal figures exactly. Across the state research on file, Mississippi was the first state in fifteen batches of it whose weight rules produced no distinctive quirk — no calendar tolerance, no axle ladder, no pro-rata permit, no tyre-width limit, no grandfathered figure. The finding is the absence.

There is a single allowance, and it is bound to the commodity rather than general. § 63-5-33 lifts the ceiling for vehicles hauling sand, gravel, woodchips, wood shavings, sawdust, fill dirt, agricultural products, products for recycling and materials for highway construction or repair, and only from the point of loading to the point of unloading for processing. General freight moving to or from a yard is outside it, so for most of the traffic here the plain figures are the figures.

Where the allowance does reach, it stops at three separate doors. Neither the increased weights nor any tolerance is allowed on federal interstate highways, nor on other highways where a tolerance is specifically prohibited by the Transportation Commission, the county board of supervisors or the municipal governing authorities under § 63-5-27. 23 U.S.C. § 127 caps the interstate above it, and whether any particular road carries a prohibition can be decided at county or municipal level.

Miss. Code § 63-5-33 on gross weight and the commodity tolerance, § 63-5-27 on axle weights and local prohibitions, and 23 U.S.C. § 127 on the interstate, as recorded in the node research for this state. Information, not legal advice. Mississippi bridge postings and seasonal restrictions were not determined and none is stated here.

Beyond the weight rules, the paperwork turns on one distinction that is worth knowing before anybody starts work on a truck.

Mississippi treats a vehicle as a total loss when repair costs equal or exceed 75% of actual cash value. But the statute’s own definition is procedural rather than arithmetical: a salvage vehicle is a vehicle upon which a salvage title has been issued, and salvage titles are issued to insurance companies so that they can dispose of vehicles on which they have paid a total loss claim. The brand follows the insurer’s payment. The percentage describes when that payment usually happens; it is not itself the test.

Four states on file brand at 75%, and each measures it against a different base — retail value in one, pre-damage fair retail from a named class of source in another, fair market value in a third, and actual cash value here. Grouping states by the percentage alone would give a wrong answer in all four.

There are carve-outs, and they are worth reading before assuming a brand. A vehicle is not a salvage vehicle here if it is ten years old or older and worth 1,500 dollars or less, or if the damage requires replacement or repair of five or fewer minor component parts. Whether a particular older truck falls under that value figure is a valuation question and is not answered here.

A repaired salvage vehicle has to pass a state inspection at a designated station before a rebuilt title issues, administered by the Department of Public Safety’s Salvage Inspection Division. Mississippi runs that as a dedicated division of its own; most states on file give the job to the state police or to a licensed mechanic.

None of which stops a sale. A lost title has a counter replacement, a rebuilt title is fine by us, and a salvage brand is a fact about the paperwork rather than a bar to buying the truck.

Miss. Code tit. 63 and the Department of Revenue’s salvage vehicle guidance, as recorded in the node research for this state. Information, not legal advice. The storage and mechanic’s lien clock, lien release, plate return, IRP and the emissions element of the rebuilt inspection were not determined and none is stated. Mississippi has not adopted the Advanced Clean Trucks rule, which in any case is a manufacturer sales standard and asks nothing of an owner or an operator.

None of that narrows what we will look at. Car haulers first, because that is what this ground runs, and then day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, dump trucks, tankers, service bodies, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew.

Car haulers are a specific machine and they wear in specific places. Decks, ramps, hydraulics and tie-down gear take the punishment rather than the driveline, and a rig with a tired deck is still a complete truck as far as we are concerned.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them. Most of it turns up along the lanes that feed the plant, out to the 200 mi ring its inbound parts run on, or at the loading yard 2.87 miles from the middle of town in Madison County.

• 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 engine is out of it. Is that different?Yes, and that is the line. A tired engine is fine; an engine that has been pulled out and sold means we can’t buy the truck.
• 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. A rebuilt one is fine, and Mississippi will have put it through a Salvage Inspection Division station before it issued.
• Do you actually come out here?Yes. We come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, we buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you drive it to us — whichever is easiest for you.
• How far out do you come?Anywhere in Mississippi and anywhere in the country. The loading yard is 2.87 miles from the middle of town and the capital 20 miles south, so this is a short run. We drive it away, tow it, buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you drive it in.

Those reasons are the same everywhere and they are mostly personal. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A lane that got re-let to somebody else.

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.

The third one is common around a plant gate. Madison County contract lanes running out to 200 mi get re-let on a schedule that has nothing to do with how good the truck is, and a car-haul rig off a re-let lane is often 2.87 miles from where it started.