We buy trucks in Huntington

The yard here is half a mile from the middle of town and everything else is strung west from it along the river. The Ceredo yard and terminal are about 6.8 and 6.9 miles out, the Ceredo Dock about 7.1 miles with 68 people, the Kenova belt and yard about 7.6 and 7.9, a transfer yard about 8.2, and the river petroleum port about 8.5 miles west. Six rail facilities and a port inside nine miles, all in one direction.

Then the state changes. A Marathon terminal is about 10 miles west and the Catlettsburg refinery about 10.3 miles south-west, both in Boyd County, Kentucky, with two coal terminals at about 10.4 miles and a third operation at 11.1. The Ashland yard is about 12.5 miles west, also Kentucky. Docks Creek and a Quality Magnetite plant sit about 9.6 and 10 miles south-west with 14 and 33 people, back on this side.

That geography means a truck based here works two states as a matter of routine. The Catlettsburg refinery and the Kentucky coal terminals are about 10 miles south-west in Boyd County — as far out as the Docks Creek operation on this side at 9.6 miles and the Quality Magnetite plant at 10 — so where the truck stands and where its title was issued are frequently different answers.

It also means we do not need to guess. Tell us both, and we will work the paperwork from the facts rather than from the address on the registration.

Which matters, because this state writes its weight law in two separate sections and the obvious summary of it is wrong. W. Va. Code § 17C-17-9 covers the national system of interstate and defense highways — a bridge-formula table under the federal cap. W. Va. Code § 17C-17-9a covers any highway OTHER than that system, and it is not a formula at all: it is a configuration table, and every entry carries a ten per cent tolerance.

Under § 17C-17-9a(b) a single unit truck with one steering axle and two axles in tandem is allowed 60,000 lb — 66,000 lb with the tolerance. With three axles in a tridem it is 70,000 lb, or 77,000 lb with the tolerance. So the road that looks like the lesser one carries the more generous rule, and a truck configured for it is configured for the state network rather than for the interstate.

W. Va. Code §§ 17C-17-9 and 17C-17-9a. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the date the rule file was last verified.

The title rules here run the opposite way to several other states on file, and it is worth being clear about because the difference is expensive. The salvage threshold is 75% of value, and the section carries NO exemption by age, by weight or by vehicle class. South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming each put a commercial truck outside their salvage scheme entirely once it is over a weight or past a model-year window. This one does not.

Two practical points follow. Your class-eight truck is inside the definition on the same terms as a car, whether it is sitting by the Ceredo Dock 7 miles west or over at the Ashland yard. And when it sells, the registration expires and the plates stay with you: the original owner keeps the plates, immediately notifies the commissioner on the form provided, and hands over the certificate of registration.

West Virginia salvage threshold; W. Va. Code § 17A-10-10 on transfer and plates. Information, not legal advice.

The river and the refinery run different iron, and whatever you drive, the offer doesn’t change — we buy all of them. Day cabs and road tractors on the yard and terminal work west. Coal haulers and dump trucks off the Ceredo Dock and the Docks Creek operation. Tankers on the refinery runs across the water, flatbeds, box trucks, service bodies and the pickups that follow the rest of it around.

Most of it works inside about 12 miles — six rail facilities and the port west, and the Kentucky terminals south-west in Boyd County.

• Does it have to run?No. It does have to be complete, though — if the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. A missing bumper is fine. A missing driveline is not.
• The truck is over in Kentucky. Still yours?Yes, and here it is the ordinary case — the Catlettsburg refinery is about 10 miles south-west in Boyd County, the same distance out as the Docks Creek operation on this side. Tell us where the truck actually stands and where the title was issued.
• What if I can’t find the title?We need a title — unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. If it’s lost, there’s a counter replacement. If there was never one to lose, there’s a bonded route. Neither stops a sale.
• There’s still money owed on it. Now what?That’s a payoff and a lien release, and it’s the slow part rather than the hard part. Tell us up front and we’ll work it into the paperwork.
• How do you pay?Cash or electronic payment, whichever you would rather have.
• Somebody said my class-eight is too heavy to be branded here. True?No. This state’s salvage threshold carries no exemption by age, weight or vehicle class, so a heavy truck sits inside it on the same terms as a car. Two states west of here it is the other way round, which is exactly why nobody should carry an answer across a line.

Beyond the trucks themselves, the reasons repeat. A DOT physical didn’t go the way it used to. A hauling contract that filled the week for nine years went to somebody else. The truck is just sitting behind a yard, and every month it sits is another month of insurance on something that isn’t turning a wheel.

The lots west toward the Ceredo Dock 7 miles out, and around the Quality Magnetite plant 10 miles south-west in Wayne County, hold a fair number of trucks in exactly that position.

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.