We buy trucks in Sullivan City

The pit here is the La Havana Pit, and the state highway department rates it at the top classification for bituminous work — Terra Firma Materials, producer code 2110807, Surface Aggregate Classification A, with an abrasion figure of 19 on the Los Angeles test and a magnesium sulfate soundness figure of 17.

That grade is worth understanding. It is the top rating the catalogue gives, and in this state no limestone source holds it at all — only the valley gravels along the Rio Grande, the igneous sources further north and the far western rock. This pit is one of the named few.

Against that, the operation itself carries three people on the federal mine roll, and the nearest active state aggregate registration is 8.1 miles away rather than on the site. So the highest-graded material in the region comes off a very small operation whose location two registers place eight miles apart.

That combination is the useful thing for a seller to know, because it describes who owns the trucks. A three-person operation working top-rated gravel in Hidalgo County is not running a fleet; it is running a few machines hard, and they belong to the people driving them.

Top-grade aggregate goes into surface courses, which means the work is scheduled against paving contracts and comes in bursts. Bursts are hard on equipment in the way that does not show — loading shock, soft pit floors, and long parked stretches between jobs that age seals, batteries and brakes more than running would.

It also means a sale here is a direct conversation, and the 8.1 miles of disagreement between the two registers makes no difference to any of it.

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 Terra Firma Materials work. Flatbeds, day cabs and road tractors, mixers, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies, and the pickups that go with a crew.

Hidalgo County sits on a busy corridor rather than at the end of one, so a truck off the Havana Pit ground has a real market within reach.

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 gravel, not stone.Around the Havana Pit that is the whole trade, and the gravel here grades higher than any limestone in the state. It does not change whether we buy the truck.
• 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. Hidalgo County roads make none of that difficult.

Beyond a paving 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 Havana Pit and out across Hidalgo 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.