We buy trucks in Toyah

The operation attached here is the Cherry Creek pit, seven people on the federal mine roll, its coordinate 14.77 miles out in Reeves County — one of the longest attachments in this lane.

What it works is caliche, and caliche is the material this whole basin is built on. Trade reporting describes it as an immature limestone lying under a thin veneer of soil, the friable layer running three to six feet deep and locally as much as 40 feet, and records that the vast majority of landowners out here have a caliche pit of their own.

That is why the roads exist. Unpaved lease roads are typically built with eight to ten inches of pit run laid on a bladed right-of-way, and well pads are compacted as thick as 3 feet. Those figures are attributed to trade reporting rather than measured here, and they are stated that way.

That closes a loop worth understanding before selling a truck out here. The caliche coming off a Reeves County pit becomes the surface of the lease roads, and the trucks hauling it spend their lives on exactly that surface.

Caliche roads are hard on equipment in a specific way. They are abrasive, they generate a great deal of dust, and they flex under load, so filters, seals, bushings and suspension take the punishment rather than the engine. A truck out here can have a sound driveline and a very tired undercarriage, and that combination is normal rather than alarming.

The graded material is a separate trade. The state highway department rates two top-classification sources in this same district — Heritage Materials at a sand and gravel operation, and a construction company’s pit with an abrasion figure of 19 on the Los Angeles test — so premium aggregate and lease-road caliche come off the same county in different trucks.

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. End dumps and dump trucks off the caliche work. Belly dumps, flatbeds, day cabs and road tractors, rollbacks, box trucks, straight trucks, service bodies, and the work trucks and pickups that go with a crew.

Reeves County is a long way from a city, so buying remotely and arranging the tow is the normal path here rather than the fallback. The 14.77 miles out to the Cherry Creek ground is the least of it.

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.
• The undercarriage is rough but the engine is strong.That is exactly what caliche roads do, and around the Cherry Creek ground it is the normal shape. It is not a disqualifier.
• It only ever ran lease roads.Then the miles are low and the wear is high, which we expect in Reeves County. Tell us the hours if you have them.
• 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, and out here that is usually the answer. We buy it remotely and arrange the tow, or come to you and drive it away, or come and tow it, or you drive it to us.

Beyond a drilling programme going quiet, the reasons are personal ones. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A truck bought for one job that outlived the job.

Yards along the 14.77 miles of Reeves County road out to the Cherry Creek pit usually have one parked up.

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.