We buy trucks in Selma

The operation here is the Madden Materials Knowlton Plant, three people on the federal mine roll, its coordinate 1.58 miles out in Comal County. The nearest active state registration sits 0.94 miles from it, under the same plant name, and at that distance the register records it as the nearest rather than as this site’s own.

What that registration covers is the interesting part. One site, three materials: limestone, sand and soil, running to an expiry in July 2027.

That combination is unusual enough to matter. A truck working there carried a bridging material and two flowing ones — stone that locks together, and sand and soil that do not — and neither the crushed-stone side of the trade nor the sand side describes that truck on its own.

That mix is the whole story for a seller here, because three materials do three different things to a dump body. Limestone is abrasive and hard on the floor and the tailgate. Sand is abrasive too but flows, so it finds every gap in a seal. Soil is heavy, sticky and hard on a hoist.

A truck that carried all three off the same Comal County site has therefore aged in three ways at once, and none of them shows on the odometer. On a body off the Knowlton Plant the liner, the tailgate seal and the hoist pivot are where to look, and they are what we ask about.

It also means the usual shorthand does not work here. Calling it a stone truck or a sand truck would each be half right, and the honest description is the one the registration gives: it hauled whatever came off that site.

Those loads meet a weight rule that is short to state and easy to get backwards.

The ceiling is the plain federal one: 80,000 lb gross, 20,000 lb on a single axle, 34,000 lb on a tandem. Texas grants no commodity variance of the kind Georgia and Kentucky write for named cargo.

The general permit adds ten per cent on the axle and five per cent on gross, with registration to 80,000 lb and a fifteen-thousand-dollar bond. What comes with it is liability: the permit holder answers for actual damage to load-restricted roads and bridges. Pennsylvania allocates road cost the same way, through a bond per linear mile and an excess-maintenance agreement; Ohio instead puts a signposting duty on the mine operator. Texas and Pennsylvania both put the road on the carrier.

And the two percentages run against each other. On a load-zoned road the permitted weight drops ten per cent below the maximum, so the permit’s five per cent on gross and the zone’s ten per cent reduction are not to be added.

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

Beyond what a truck weighs, what it is called on paper is the other thing worth settling early.

We need a title unless the truck never had one. Lost titles have a counter replacement and there is a bonded route where no title exists, so this is a step rather than an obstacle.

The salvage test is a comparison: repair cost, including parts and labour, against the vehicle’s actual cash value immediately before the damage. What Texas leaves out of that repair cost is unusual. Repainting comes out, and so does sales tax on the total. Missouri excludes airbags, tires, sound systems and hail damage; Kentucky excludes airbag reinstallation; Texas is the only state on file to exclude paintwork.

For a truck whose damage is mostly cosmetic, taking the paint out of the numerator moves the answer a long way from the brand.

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

All of that equipment is equipment we buy. Dump trucks, end dumps and aggregate haulers off the Madden Materials work. Flatbeds, day cabs and road tractors, mixers, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew.

Comal County sits on the corridor between two big cities, so a seller here is inside one of the deepest used-truck markets in the state.

Whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change. We buy all of them.

• 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.
• It hauled more than one material.That is exactly what the Knowlton Plant registration records — limestone, sand and soil on one site — and it is not a problem. Tell us the mix.
• The bed is worn but the engine is fine.Common on a three-material truck and not a disqualifier. Around the Madden Materials ground it is the normal shape.
• 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.
• Do you have to come out to look at it?Not necessarily. We can come to you and drive it away, come and tow it, buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or you can drive it to us.

Beyond an aggregate contract ending, the reasons are personal ones. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A truck bought for one job that outlived the job.

Yards around the Knowlton Plant and out across Comal County usually have one waiting.

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.