We buy trucks in Pembine

One crushed-stone registration sits under this place: the Kremlin Plant, carrying 118 employees on the MSHA register and 3.21 miles from the centroid. That is one of the largest operations in this lane, in one of its smallest places.

Its ten-mile circle crosses a state line. The bridge files record 31 structures inside it — 29 from Wisconsin and 2 from Michigan — so the count is computed from every state file with structures inside the radius rather than from Wisconsin alone. Not one of the 31 is coded posted for load or below legal loads.

That is a genuinely clear road picture and it should be read for what it is. Thirty-one structures is a sparse network, which is what you would expect this far north, and a sparse network with nothing posted in it means the constraint on a loaded truck out of the Kremlin Plant is not a bridge.

What it does not mean is that the routes are open in every direction. The circle stops at ten miles, and at 64.1 per cent of the nodes measured this way a tighter crossing lies somewhere between 10 miles and 20 miles out. And the Michigan side is only partly read here, so the figure is bounded rather than complete. Where a bridge is not the constraint, the constraint is usually the class B designation, which no bridge file records at all.

Which is the one to set out properly. Wis. Stat. § 348.16 provides that on a class B highway no person may operate a vehicle imposing weight exceeding 60 percent of the weights authorised in s. 348.15 (3), and § 349.15(2) puts the designation with the county highway committee for the county trunk system and with the local authorities for the roads they maintain.

Run the arithmetic and it is not a small adjustment: 11,000 lb on one wheel becomes 6,600, a 20,000 lb axle becomes 12,000, and a 34,000 lb tandem becomes 20,400. Item 70 of the national bridge file records a structural rating of a bridge. A class B designation is a legal limit on the road itself, so the file cannot hold it, and a clean bridge count says less than it appears to. No statewide register of class B roads was found and we are not going to assert how many there are.

Wis. Stat. §§ 348.15(3), 348.16 and 349.15(2). Information, not legal advice.

None of that reaches the paperwork, which is the short part. That is the rule, and everything after it is a fix rather than a category. A lost title has a counter replacement. Where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither one stops a sale.

The salvage definition here is narrower than most people assume. Wis. Stat. § 340.01(55g) reaches a vehicle less than 7 years old damaged so that the estimated or actual cost of repairing it, whichever is greater, exceeds 70 percent of its fair market value, and it excludes a hail-damaged vehicle unless it is repaired with a replacement part. Most of what we buy is well past seven years old, and for those trucks the definition does not reach them at all, whatever a repair would have cost.

Wis. Stat. § 340.01(55g). Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the day it was read.

None of that changes what we are interested in. Log trucks and timber rigs off the forest work up here. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the Kremlin Plant 3.21 miles out. Flatbeds, road tractors and day cabs on the runs south. Work trucks and pickups off crews. Whatever you drive, the offer does not change. We buy all of them.

This is a small place hard against the state line with nothing large for a long way, so start from the option that needs nobody to drive out: we buy it remotely and arrange the tow. We also come to you and drive it away, or come to you and tow it, and bringing it to us is an option if you are heading that way anyway.

• 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.
• How am I paid?Cash or electronic payment. That is the whole list.
• Is there a bridge that will stop the tow?Not inside 10 miles of the Kremlin Plant — 31 structures and not one of them posted or coded below legal loads. Further out it is less certain, and routing is our problem rather than yours.
• My truck is fifteen years old and was in a wreck once.Then the salvage definition in this state never reached it, because that rule stops at seven years. What matters is what the title says today.
• Will anyone drive out this far?Often, yes. But nobody has to. We buy remotely and arrange the tow, and from 3.21 miles out in country like this that is frequently quicker.
• What about the title?We need one unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. A lost title has a counter replacement; where none exists there is a bonded route.

None of those is really the reason for the call. Retiring. A medical that went the wrong way. A contract that ended and never got replaced. A log truck standing beside a shed 3.21 miles from the middle of the place, within sight of the Kremlin Plant, insured every month and not turning a wheel since the last cut.

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.