We buy trucks in Heidelberg

Two researched rows are attached here and the first one comes with a correction attached, which is worth reading because it changes what the row is.

An earlier pass recorded the Hunt Refining row here as a terminal rather than a refinery, reasoning that the company’s refinery is in another state. A later pass found that reasoning wrong: the federal refinery control number register carries an active registration, Hunt Southland Refining at Sandersville, addressed on Haney Road in this town. So there is an active refinery registration at that address and the row is plausibly the refinery itself. The corrected reading is the one used here, and the earlier one is named rather than quietly dropped.

Either way the freight consequence is the same shape. The row carries a 75 mi radius on the reasoning that a liquid-bulk transfer point serves a tank-truck delivery ring, which is a wider draw than anything else nearby.

Beside it the second row is a much smaller thing. That one is the Vossburg pit worked by APAC, 4.85 miles from the centroid, a surface operation working construction sand and gravel under MSHA ID 2200493, reporting 3 employees on a 35 mi radius.

Those two are on their own out here. The nearest researched node of any other kind is 34.0 miles away, then a bulk terminal at 34.9, an Arcosa plant at 35.6 and two rail yards at 37.4 and 38.7. Nothing researched at all sits inside thirty-three miles.

So this is a tank-truck ring and a small pit in a quiet stretch of country. The two rows also fall in two different counties in the record, which is ordinary for a town near a line and is not treated here as an error.

Those operations run under a weight rule that is unusual in one respect only: it is bound to the load and to the journey rather than to the truck.

Miss. Code § 63-5-33 gives two tiers. With a harvest permit, a tolerance of up to 10% above the authorised gross, tandem or axle weight, to a ceiling of 88,000 lb. Without one, up to 5%, to a ceiling of 80,000 lb plus not more than 2%. It reaches only vehicles hauling sand, gravel, woodchips, wood shavings, sawdust, fill dirt, agricultural products, products for recycling and materials for highway construction or repair. Sand and gravel are named first.

The trip-purpose limb is the part that catches people out. The tolerance runs from the point of loading to the point of unloading for processing, which describes a pit-to-plant movement and nothing else. The same truck, the same load, a different errand, and it is outside the allowance.

Then there is where it does not apply at all. 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. That is four layers: 23 U.S.C. § 127 caps the interstate, then state, county and municipal. Whether a given road carries a prohibition can be settled at three separate levels of government, and none of those registers was found centrally published.

One figure is deliberately not applied here. What a harvest permit costs, who may hold one and whether a sand hauler qualifies for one were not determined by the research on file — and the whole distance between 88,000 lb and 80,000 lb turns on that question. So no permit weight is attached to any operation named on this page.

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. Tankers first, because a 75 mi delivery ring is the trade here, then dump trucks and aggregate haulers, day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew.

Tank work and pit work wear differently and we buy both. A tanker earns its miles on the highway; an end dump on a 35 mi ring earns them on a pit road, and the liner goes long before the driveline does.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them. Most of it turns up between the terminal and the pit 4.85 miles from the middle of town.

• 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 pit is 4.85 miles from the middle of town but the nearest researched node beyond these two is 34.0 miles off, so we often buy remotely and arrange the tow. We also drive it away, tow it, 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 haul that moved 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.

On a Jasper County pit reporting 3 employees, with the nearest other researched node 34.0 miles away, a truck that stops earning has nowhere close to go.