Sell your semi truck for cash in Houston the easy and convenient way

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics places the Texas Blending & Warehousing liquid bulk terminal about 3 miles from Houston. Tank work comes with inspection records, and we will want to see them. Keep yours with the truck and send them along with the photos.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration lists three pits and plants within about 17 miles of Houston: Vibrantz Minerals and the Houston Sales Yard, both about 12 miles out, and Swilley Pit & Plant at about 17. That is work for dump trucks, end dumps, mixers and water trucks.

The USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture counts 1,531 farm operations in Harris County, with cattle the leading commodity. Cattle haulers, grain haulers and flatbeds for hay all work that side of the county. We will ask how the truck was kept between busy stretches. Tell us when it was last serviced and what it did in the quiet months.

Service bodies, lowboys, dump trucks and mixers come out of that trade, along with the pickups that go with a crew.

Box trucks and day cabs work out of those. If the truck is still on a lease, tell us who holds it at the start, so the title side is settled before pickup.

• The truck is parked at Cedar Port in Baytown. Do I have to bring it into Houston?The Bureau of Transportation Statistics lists Cedar Port on Cedar Bayou about 28 miles from Houston, and we come to the truck there. Tell us whose lot it is on, so the collection is arranged with them.

The North American Rail Network maintained by the Federal Railroad Administration and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics lists rail yards across Harris County under three carriers. The Port Terminal Railroad Association holds American, Basin, Booth and Chevron Phillips Pasadena, and Union Pacific holds Congress, Dallerup, East Belt, Englewood and Eureka.

That is not a coincidence of naming. The ship channel area supports the second-largest petrochemical complex in the world, and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway adds seventy-seven billion dollars of economic activity in Texas a year. The yards exist because the plants do.

The mineral side is here too, and it is more specialised than it looks. The Houston Plant carries thirty-five employees and works barite. Vibrantz Minerals runs ten and MSHA lists it under iron ore, though what it actually makes is iron-oxide pigment. Texas Architectural Aggregate reports thirty-six.

Those plants and yards are close together, which sounds like an easy day and is not. Freight planners record a twenty-mile move on the port-to-plant corridors stretching to two hours in a weekday peak.

Two hours for twenty miles is an idling engine, a working transmission and a driver’s day gone. It puts hours on a truck at a rate the odometer will never show, and it is the single most misleading thing about a Houston truck’s mileage.

We would rather hear the hours than the miles.

Tankers off the petrochemical work, both pneumatic and liquid. Day cabs and road tractors off the container ramps. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off Texas Architectural Aggregate and the sales yards.

Most of it works out of the yards along the channel, around Englewood and East Belt.

Texas Architectural Aggregate and the Chevron Phillips end of the channel are where most of it turns up.

Of those companies, 17,081 are one-truck owner-operators, again by FMCSA’s count. For a one-truck business the truck is the business, so selling it is a bigger decision than a fleet replacing one unit. Get the title in hand and the service records together first; those two things settle more questions than anything else.

Decide what matters to you before you start, where the truck is picked up, how you are paid and when the title changes hands.

FMCSA also lists 4,985 private fleets in Houston, businesses that run trucks to move their own goods rather than for hire. We buy fleets as well as single trucks, so you can ask us for one offer that covers the whole group.

Pull together the service history, the inspection reports and any repair invoices.

We will ask detailed questions. Answer them in writing up front: mileage, what the truck hauled, and anything that has been replaced.

Marathon Petroleum states that its Galveston Bay refinery complex at Texas City can process 631,000 barrels of crude a day. If your truck has worked plant or refinery sites along the bay, keep whatever site paperwork you have with it: inspection reports, safety checks, records of where it went. They show us the truck’s history in a way photos cannot. If you have none, that is not a barrier; tell us what the truck did and we will ask about the rest.

Enkon Energy, citing trade sources, puts about 68 percent of Texas’s underground cavern storage capacity at Mont Belvieu, east of the city. If your truck has served the storage and processing sites out there, say so when you contact us. Telling us at the start means the questions you get are about your truck, not about where it has been.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics lists the port at Texas City, about 38 miles from Houston, as a principal port. Send photos of the frame, the fifth wheel and the tires along with the cab, so what we see matches what you describe.

Port Freeport reports that it and its port community handled 39.3 million tons of cargo. Further down the coast, that is a separate set of yards and docks from the ones around the ship channel. If your truck has worked out of Freeport, you do not need to bring it into the city to sell it; we come to where the truck is. Tell us the address and whether the truck can be reached easily, and we will plan the pickup around it.

On FMCSA’s carrier census, Houston carriers hold 5.2 power units apiece. The median across 1,087 Texas places on that census is 2.4, and across 19,943 places nationally it is 2.6, which puts Houston higher than 89 percent of the Texas list. If you manage one of those multi-truck operations and the plan is to trim it, you can sell us the whole group, a slice of it, or one unit pulled out of the middle. Put the trucks on a single list with year, make, model, VIN, mileage and condition for each, add photos of every truck, and we work from that list.

FMCSA’s census puts 1.7 drivers on the books for every power unit registered here. The median is 1.0 across Texas places and 1.0 across the country, and Houston comes out higher than 97 percent of the 1,087 Texas places compared.

Measured against the people who live here, Houston has 12.2 carriers for every 1,000 residents on FMCSA’s census, set against a median of 17.4 across Texas places and 20.3 across the country. The largest single carrier's share of registered power units comes out higher than only 7 percent of the 1,087 Texas places compared, with the Texas median at 18.8 percent and the national one at 20. Wherever your company sits on those figures, the first step with us is identical: photos, mileage and service history for the truck you want to sell.

Private fleets make up only 17.5 percent of the companies on Houston's FMCSA register, against a median of 36.4 percent across Texas places and 56.8 percent nationally; on that share Houston is higher than just 13.7 percent of the 652 Texas places with the figure. For the companies here that do keep trucks to move their own goods, shrinking to fewer units is a sale we handle: one truck, several, or everything in the yard, with the pickup fitted around the days the trucks are still working.

Owner-operators account for 60.1 percent of Houston's carriers on FMCSA’s census. The median is 56.5 percent across Texas places on that census and 51.3 percent across the country, and Houston is higher than 68.6 percent of the 652 Texas places where the share can be worked out. If you are one of them and ready to retire, keep the truck earning until the last load you want to haul. We can set the collection for the week after it, so the truck never has to sit idle waiting on us.

A few miles out, the share climbs. South Houston, 13 miles away, has 105 owner-operators among its 154 carriers on FMCSA's census, 68.2 percent; Galena Park, 10 miles away, has 52 among 79, or 65.8 percent. Both sit above Houston's own 60.1. A one-truck owner in either place has no reason to bring the tractor across town to sell it. Give us the street address in South Houston or Galena Park, and that is where the pickup happens.

Other neighbours look nothing like that. Bellaire, 7 miles away, lists 42 carriers on FMCSA's census with only 11 owner-operators, 26.2 percent, and 6.7 power units per carrier against Houston's 5.2. Aldine, 9 miles out, sits close to the city on both: 305 carriers, 57.4 percent owner-operators and 4.5 units per carrier. At the small end, Jacinto City has 7 carriers holding 8 power units between them. A Bellaire company letting two units go and a Jacinto City owner with a single tractor send us the same things: the VIN, the mileage, photos and whatever service records exist.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics lists Texas Blending & Warehousing, a liquid bulk terminal 3 miles from Houston, and Cedar Port at Cedar Bayou, a petroleum port handling liquid 28 miles out. Down the bay, Marathon's Galveston Bay refinery is reported as the second-largest refinery in the United States by capacity on the Energy Information Administration's figures. Day cabs and sleepers that pull tank trailers between sites like these belong on the list of what we purchase. Tell us which terminals the tractor served and list anything replaced on it, so the history arrives alongside the photos.

For containers, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics lists the Englewood intermodal ramp on Wallisville Road, 4 miles from Houston. The North American Rail Network maintained by the Federal Railroad Administration and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics adds Lockwood Intermodal, a Union Pacific yard 4.04 miles from the city centre, and Kendleton Intermodal, a CPKC yard out at Kendleton. If yours is a day cab or sleeper that has pulled containers off those ramps, give us the VIN and the odometer reading first; every other question we have follows from those two.

East of the city, Enkon Energy cites trade sources placing about 422 million barrels of nameplate cavern storage at Mont Belvieu, in the Barbers Hill salt dome. Energy Transfer states that its fractionation capacity there passed 1 million barrels a day once Frac VIII entered service in the third quarter of 2023. If you hauled out there and have since moved away, the truck does not have to follow you. Leave it where it is parked near Mont Belvieu, give us the location and a contact who can open the gate, and handle the sale from wherever you live now.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration lists the Houston Sales Yard, 12 miles from Houston, handling crushed and broken stone with 4 employees on record, and Swilley Pit & Plant, 17 miles east-north-east, producing sand. The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns counts 6,284 construction establishments for the Houston area. Dump trucks, end dumps, mixers, water trucks, service bodies and lowboys off that kind of work are all trucks we take. If the one you want to sell still has a lender on the title, a lien does not rule out a sale to us: send the lien details, and the loan is either cleared before closing or paid straight to the lender out of our payment at closing.

Further out, MSHA carries ACE Portable Plant as a facility working industrial sand under ACE Industrial Sands LLC, with 3 employees reported, and lists the Conroe Dryer Plant, 26 miles from Houston, on industrial sand as well. MSHA's records also place a group of four sand operations in Liberty and Montgomery counties, north-east of the city. Point the camera at the problem as well as at the cab, and tell us when the truck last worked.

Two plants near the city carry long MSHA records. The Houston Plant, operated by Cimbar Resources under John H Waters, has been MSHA-active since 1 November 2012. Vibrantz Minerals has been active on MSHA's books since 10 July 1991. If a truck has served a plant like either of these for years, send every service record you still have, in date order from the first year onward. A long, unbroken file answers questions before we have to ask them.

Houston Public Media reported that on 15 May 2024 a barge carrying vacuum gas oil struck the Pelican Island Causeway, partially collapsing a span and cutting the only road onto Pelican Island. A truck parked behind a single road in is not out of our reach. When you contact us, describe the access as it is at that moment: the gate, the road in, and any weight or height limit on the way, and we plan the pickup to fit.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics' rail-yard map also places yards well outside the city: Union Pacific at Angleton, Spring and La Porte, BNSF at Sealy, and two Union Pacific yards at Baytown, Coady and ExxonMobil Baytown. If you have moved on from a job near one of them and the truck stayed behind, you do not need to go back for it. Sell it to us from where you are now; the pickup happens in Sealy, Angleton or Baytown, not at your new address.

Cattle top the commodity list in the National Agricultural Statistics Service figures for the Houston area, which count 1,531 farm operations. Cattle haulers and flatbeds for hay are part of what we purchase alongside the industrial fleet. If you are scaling back the herd and no longer need the hauler, photograph it in the pasture or barn where it sits and send those pictures with the mileage.

The same Census Bureau figures count 178 warehousing establishments for the Houston area, against 6,284 in construction: about 35 construction establishments for every warehousing one on that count. Box trucks and day cabs that shuttle loads in and out of those warehouses are on our list as well. Whether you have one box truck or a row of day cabs, a list with VINs and mileage and a set of photos is enough to start.

Harris County has 27 places on FMCSA's carrier census, and between them they list 35,511 carriers, 173,793 power units and 277,049 drivers. On that census, Houston accounts for 80 percent of those carriers, 84.6 percent of the power units and 89.4 percent of the drivers. The other 26 places, Atascocita, Channelview, Crosby, Humble, Katy, Spring and Tomball among them, share the remaining 7,102 carriers. An estate that includes a truck in any of them is a sale we handle the way we handle every other: the executor, or the attorney acting for the estate, tells us what is there, we look at the truck, and we make an offer.

Two of the rail yards the Bureau of Transportation Statistics lists for Houston sit outside the city itself. The Port Terminal Railroad Association's Pasadena yard, 12.24 miles from the middle of Houston, lies inside the city of Pasadena, one of those other Harris County places, and the same railroad's Penn City yard, 13.68 miles out, lies in no incorporated town at all. A tractor parked near either one can end up listed under the wrong town. When you tell us where the truck is, give the street address or the nearest cross streets, not the yard's name or the town on the sign, so the pickup is planned for the right gate.

The Census Bureau's Gazetteer gives Houston 640.6 square miles of land. Spread FMCSA's carrier census over it and the city carries 229.6 power units and 44.3 carriers to the square mile. The median across 1,081 Texas places on FMCSA's census is 38.9 power units and 14.7 carriers, the national medians are 50.8 and 17.5, and Houston is higher than 95.7 percent of those Texas places on power units and 92 percent on carriers. On ground shared at that density, an old truck and its replacement parked side by side take room you may not have. If you are trading up, give us the date the new truck is due, and we set the pickup of the old one around the work it still has to do.

Counted per resident, the picture shifts. FMCSA's census gives Houston carriers 63.2 power units and 106.3 drivers for every 1,000 residents, against medians of 46.7 and 46.2 across 1,087 Texas places on that census and 59.5 and 59.4 nationally; on drivers per resident the city is higher than 78.4 percent of those Texas places, yet on carriers per resident it is higher than only 34.7 percent. Fewer companies for the population, then, and more seats behind the wheel in each. If you are closing your own one-truck business to take one of those seats, sell us the tractor on its own. Cancelling the insurance and handing back the plates stay with you; ask us for a bill of sale and it is the record for both.

Jersey Village, 14 miles from Houston, lists just 15 carriers on FMCSA's census but 340 power units, and one carrier holds 93.8 percent of them. Houston's largest carrier holds 6.8 percent of the city's power units on the same count. When nearly all of a town's registered trucks sit under one company, a shutdown there is a whole-fleet sale. We buy fleets out of bankruptcy and work with the trustee, receiver or attorney in charge: send the unit list with photos of each truck, we set up an inspection at the yard if we need a closer look, and we make an offer.

Stafford, 15 miles away in Fort Bend County, comes nearest of the ten closest places to Houston's own spread: its largest carrier holds 8 percent of 700 power units on FMCSA's census, against Houston's 6.8. Its 274 carriers include 148 owner-operators and 79 private fleets, 54.0 and 28.8 percent, with 2.6 power units apiece. A Stafford private fleet that has pulled a truck off the road after a failed inspection does not have to fix it before selling it to us.

Three of the nearest places register only a handful of trucks on FMCSA's census. West University Place, 5 miles out, lists 29 carriers with 57 power units; Meadows Place, 15 miles away in Fort Bend County, 15 carriers with 14; Brookside Village, 14 miles away in Brazoria County, 3 carriers with 5. The census gives no owner-operator count for any of the three, and we do not guess at one. A single truck from a place this size is a sale we take on like any fleet. If its title has gone missing, the state DMV issues a duplicate, and that has to be done before the truck changes hands; tell us at the start and we work to that timetable.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration lists the Houston Plant, which Cimbar Resources operates, under the same controller as five more barite plants: New Iberia in Louisiana, Marietta and Wellsville in Ohio, Dyersburg in Tennessee, and Corpus Christi here in Texas. A truck that came to Houston with that work from another state may still carry that state's title. That does not stop a sale to us. Send a photo of the title along with the truck pictures, and if the paper itself is lost, the duplicate comes from the DMV of the state that issued it, before the truck changes hands.

MSHA lists Halliburton with barite plants in Louisiana, Texas and Nevada, and Schlumberger's M-I SWACO with plants in Louisiana and Nevada. A contractor hauling for operators spread across states like that can find, when it decides to cut back, that its trucks are parked in three of them. We buy in all 50 states, so units sitting in Nevada or Louisiana can go in the same sale as the ones in Houston. Put the state beside each VIN on the list, and each truck is collected where it stands.

Yards around Galena Park and out toward Pasadena usually have one waiting.

Out through Galena Park the same tractors come up for sale for the same reasons. Galena Park and the Port Terminal Railroad Association yards usually have one waiting.