We buy trucks in Bovina

One extraction operation attaches to Bovina, and the federal file on it disagrees with the ground it sits on. The Bovina operation is carried by the operator TP Caliche Inc, with two people on MSHA’s books.

The commodity string on that row reads crushed, broken limestone. The research behind this page says that is not what comes out here: the High Plains counties in this group carry no outcropping hard rock, and what is worked is caliche, river gravel and sand. Where the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality register reaches these rows it records caliche, or gravel and sand, rather than limestone.

Four operator names in the same group say the material outright — TP Caliche, DC Caliche, Bedrock Caliche and Caliche Now. When a company names itself after the rock, that is usually the better source than the code on the form.

Beyond the commodity string, the row carries two more soft edges, and neither is a reason to doubt it.

It attaches to Bovina because the Mine Data Retrieval System names the town in its own record, not because a coordinate was checked against the place. That is a weaker match than a measured distance and it is worth saying so rather than dressing it up.

And no active aggregate production registration lies within a mile of the node on the Aggregate Production Site Map, the state register kept by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality; the nearest is 13.0 miles away. That can mean a lapsed registration, a registration recorded at a different point, an inaccurate coordinate, or an operation outside the registration definition. The research did not distinguish between them, so neither do we.

Neither edge changes what a truck did for a living in Parmer County. They change how confidently anyone can say the operation sits at that exact point, which is a different question and a smaller one.

Those soft edges do not soften the load limit, which is the same across Parmer County as everywhere else in the state.

Texas sets gross weight at 80,000 lb, a single axle at 20,000 lb and a tandem at 34,000 lb — the plain federal figures, with no commodity variance of the kind Georgia and Kentucky grant.

What Texas grants instead is permits, and each one is written for a named industry: ready-mixed concrete, fluid milk, timber, and super heavy single-trip. There is no permit named for aggregate, stone, sand or quarry products. So a caliche hauler gets the general permit and nothing else, while a ready-mix truck sits on the list.

The general permit adds ten per cent on the axle and five per cent on gross, and it comes with a bond and liability for actual damage to load-restricted roads. On a load-zoned road the permitted weight is ten per cent less than the maximum, so those two percentages run in opposite directions and must never be added together.

Tex. Transp. Code § 621.101; Chapter 623 permits. Information, not legal advice.

Beyond the weight rules, the paperwork is a single sentence.

Everything after that sentence is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement. Where none exists there is a bonded route. Both are ordinary and neither stops a sale.

One Texas rule runs further than any other state on file. Texas brands a truck salvage only where the cost of repairs exceeds the actual cash value before the damage — effectively one hundred per cent, against eighty in Florida and sixty in Oklahoma. And it is a two-part test, not pure arithmetic: there must also be damage to, or a missing, major component part.

The calculation leaves out repainting and sales tax, which no other state on file excludes. On a farm truck carrying a decade of High Plains sun that is not a small exclusion.

Tex. Transp. Code § 501.091. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.

Those rules apply the same way to every body style, and so does the offer. Whatever you drive, it does not change what we do next.

Belly dumps and end dumps off the pit work. Water trucks, which a caliche operation runs as a matter of course. Day cabs and road tractors, dump trucks, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a farming county.

We buy all of them. Bovina sits far enough out that buying it remotely and arranging the tow is often the straightforward answer, and it is a real option rather than a fallback — there is no visit you have to sit through. We will also come to you and drive it away, or come to you and tow it, and you are welcome to drive it to us if you are heading that way.

The one extraction operation on file in Parmer County is the Bovina operation under TP Caliche Inc, and the material behind it is the caliche and river gravel of the High Plains rather than quarried rock.

• 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.
• Do you actually come out to Parmer County?Yes. We come to you and drive it away, or we come to you and tow it. We can also buy it remotely and arrange the tow, with no visit at all, which out here is often the simplest route. Driving it to us stays open if you prefer.
• My dump ran caliche for years.Then we would like to hear about the body and the hoist, because that is where a pit truck shows its history. It does not change whether we buy it.
• What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. Lost titles have a counter replacement; where none exists there’s a bonded route.
• How far out do you come?All of Parmer County and the ones around it. Distance has never stopped a sale.
• Is there a quarry here I should know about?One operation is on file, the Bovina operation under TP Caliche Inc, and the nearest active state aggregate registration to it is 13.0 miles away. Across the High Plains the material is caliche and river gravel, not quarried stone.

Those are the mechanics. The reasons are more personal than that.

Retiring off a farm. A medical that went the wrong way. A truck that stopped earning when a contract ended and has been parked at the side of a yard since, going nowhere in the High Plains weather.

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, across Parmer County and the caliche country around Bovina.