We buy trucks in Nashua

The border is the fact that shapes everything here. Working out from the one rail yard, about 2.4 miles from the middle of town, the nearest operation is the Hudson plant about 2.6 miles north-east with 14 people — and then the list crosses into Massachusetts almost immediately. Newport Aggregates is about 7.8 miles south with 8, the LeMasurier Granite Quarry about 7.9 miles south with 4, Granite State Concrete about 9.7 miles south with 4, the Lowell yard about 10.7 miles south-east, and Century Aggregates about 11.3 miles south with 4.

The home-side operations are further out than several of those. Continental Paving is about 5.1 miles north with 4 people, Brook Hollow about 8.4 miles north-east with 8, Litchfield Sand & Gravel about 8.8 miles north with 10, the Kitledge Quarry about 11.6 miles west with 5, and a Granite State Concrete pit and mill about 13.6 miles north-west with 5.

That mix means the truck in your yard may well have spent most of its week under another state’s rules. An Ardent Mills plant at Ayer is about 13.9 miles south, and a Read Custom Soils pit about 14.3 miles south with one person on it — both over the border, both an easy morning’s work from here.

It also means the paperwork question is more often "which state" than "which form". Tell us where the truck actually stands and where the title was issued, and we will start from those two facts rather than from the address on the registration.

Which matters here more than most places, because this state runs the tightest salvage age window in the research: FOUR calendar years after the model year. Missouri and Nebraska run six, Arkansas seven. A truck past four years is outside the percentage test entirely — and that is as true of one parked at the Kitledge Quarry 12 miles west as of one sitting over the border by the Lowell yard.

But outside it does not mean out of reach, and this is the part worth understanding. The total-loss definition has two alternative limbs. One is the percentage — repair cost at 75 per cent or more of fair market value before the damage, and that limb is the one carrying the age window. The other is a judgement: a vehicle determined to be physically or economically impractical to repair in connection with an insurance claim settlement, with no age condition on it at all. So an older truck is still reachable through the second limb even though the first no longer applies to it. The rebuilt inspection afterwards verifies the vehicle identification number and that the damage listed on the insurance adjuster report has actually been repaired.

New Hampshire total-loss and salvage-inspection provisions at RSA 261:22. Information, not legal advice.

Those two limbs sit over road rules that are shorter to state, and one of them is worth getting the right way round before a heavy load is routed. RSA 266:18, II(h) sets the ordinary ceiling at 80,000 lb for a truck-tractor and semi-trailer combination. RSA 266:18, III then allows up to 99,000 lb on interstate routes 89, 93 and 95, for vehicles certified under RSA 266:18-d that have paid the required fee, and for as long as the exemptions in 23 U.S.C. § 127 permit it. The interstate carries the higher figure, which is the opposite of the arrangement a driver moving between states will be used to.

Underneath it the per-axle limits are keyed to the truck’s own gross weight rather than to the road: over 73,280 lb the limit is 20,000 lb per axle where the axles are more than eight feet apart, and 17,000 lb where they are not. Axle spacing does as much work as axle count.

New Hampshire gross-weight and axle provisions at RSA 266:18, I, II(h) and III. Information, not legal advice.

Both sides of that line run different iron, and whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change — we buy all of them. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the Hudson plant and Litchfield Sand & Gravel. Day cabs and road tractors on the runs south past Lowell. Box trucks and straight trucks on the mill work at Ayer, flatbeds, service bodies and the pickups that follow the rest of it around.

Most of it works inside about 14 miles — the Hudson plant at 2.6, the Kitledge Quarry at 11.6, and a good deal of it over the border.

• Does it have to run?No. It does have to be complete, though — if the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. A missing bumper is fine. A missing driveline is not.
• The truck is parked in Massachusetts. Still yours?Yes, and here it is the ordinary case rather than the odd one — several of the nearest operations are on that side, starting about 8 miles south. Tell us where it actually stands and where the title was issued.
• What if I can’t find the title?We need a title — unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. If it’s lost, there’s a counter replacement. If there was never one to lose, there’s a bonded route. Neither stops a sale.
• There’s still money owed on it. Now what?That’s a payoff and a lien release, and it’s the slow part rather than the hard part. Tell us up front and we’ll work it into the paperwork.
• How do you pay?Cash or electronic payment, whichever you would rather have.
• My truck is fifteen years old. Can it be branded salvage here?Not under the percentage limb — that one only reaches four calendar years after the model year, the tightest window in our research. It can still be reached through the other limb, which turns on whether repair is impractical rather than on age. Tell us what the title says and we will read it with you.

Beyond the trucks themselves, the reasons repeat. A DOT physical didn’t go the way it used to. A paving contract that filled the season for nine years went to somebody else. The truck is just sitting behind a shop, and every month it sits is another month of insurance on something that isn’t turning a wheel.

The lots around the Hudson plant 2.6 miles north-east, and down toward the Lowell yard about 11 miles south-east over the border, hold a fair number of trucks in exactly that position.

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.