Crushed stone
A restricted bridge seven-tenths of a mile away, and it does not matter
One crushed-stone registration sits under this place — a portable crusher carrying 3 employees on the MSHA register, 1.22 miles from the centroid. Within ten miles the Wisconsin bridge file records 81 structures, 2 posted for load and 1 coded below legal loads, and that one sits 0.71 miles away. Practically at the gate.
It is town-maintained, and the instinct on reading a restricted crossing that close is that it must be the constraint. It is not. The lowest rating at or above the commercial floor here is 41.0 metric tonnes, and a legal 80,000 lb truck grosses 36.3. A full legal load crosses it whole, so no payload figure is published for this node at all.
Close is not the same as binding
That distinction is the useful one to carry away, because distance and severity are separate measurements and it is easy to read one as the other. A weak bridge twenty miles out can decide what a truck loads. A strong one seven-tenths of a mile away decides nothing except that somebody inspected it.
What is left, then, is the same caveat that follows every clean answer in this state. Item 70 records a structural rating of a bridge and cannot record a class B designation, which takes every statutory limit to 60 per cent and belongs to the local authority. And the circle stops at ten miles: at 64.1 per cent of nodes measured this way a tighter crossing lies somewhere between 10 miles and 20 miles out.
Seasons
The exemption list is every town’s to write, and the statute names nobody
The seasonal half of that local power is broader still, and the statute behind it names nobody. Wis. Stat. § 349.16(1) lets the officer in charge of town, city or village highway maintenance, the county highway commissioner or committee, or the department for state highways impose a special or seasonal weight limitation where a highway would likely be seriously damaged because of weakness of the roadbed due to deterioration or climatic conditions, and § 349.16(2) requires signs giving reasonable notice.
Then § 349.16(3)(a) lets that same authority exempt vehicles carrying certain commodities it specifies, or set different limits for them, where the exemption is reasonable and necessary to promote the public health, safety and welfare. The statute names no commodity at all. Each authority sets its own list, so whether a spring posting lets a loaded truck through is decided locally, and there is no statewide answer to give. Several other states put the equivalent answer in a statute you can read. This one puts it in the records of each town.
Wis. Stat. §§ 349.16(1), (2) and (3)(a). Information, not legal advice.
Wisconsin paperwork
A junk brand from another state is a one-way door
One title rule matters more than any of the weight ones for a truck that has changed hands more than once. The framing first: we need a title, unless the truck is old enough that it never had one. A lost title has a counter replacement, and where none exists there is a bonded route. Neither one stops a sale.
The exception is specific and it is permanent. This state does not issue a title branded junk at all. A salvage vehicle takes a certificate saying so, and once it passes inspection by a certified state salvage title inspector the brand becomes rebuilt salvage and plates may be issued. But a vehicle previously titled in another jurisdiction as junked, or under a substantially similar term used there, may not be titled or registered in this state at all — repaired or not, inspected or not.
Wisconsin DMV, title brands. Information, not legal advice, and only as current as the day it was read.
What we buy here
None of that changes what we are interested in. Dump trucks and aggregate haulers off the crushing work 1.22 miles out, past the crossing 0.71 miles from it. Farm trucks and grain hauls off the ground around it. Flatbeds, road tractors and day cabs on the runs out. Work trucks and pickups off crews. Whatever you drive, the offer does not change. We buy all of them.
This is a small place with a portable operation beside it and no metro close, 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.
We buy complete trucks. If the engine, transmission, doors, rear ends, drive shafts, wheels or anything under the hood have been removed, we can’t buy it. Small things — a missing bumper — are fine.
Straight answers
The questions we get asked in Sobieski
- 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.
- There is a posted bridge right by us.There is, 0.71 miles from a pit 1.22 miles from the middle of the place, and it takes a full legal load whole — 41.0 metric tonnes against the 36.3 a legal truck grosses. Close and binding are different things.
- The truck was titled out of state.Then the brand history is the first thing to check, because a junk brand from another jurisdiction cannot be titled or registered here at all. Send us the title before anything else.
- Do I have to bring it to you?No. We come to you and drive it away, we come to you and tow it, or we buy it remotely and arrange the tow with nobody visiting at all.
- 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.
Why people call
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 tandem dump standing beside a shed 1.22 miles from the middle of the place and 0.71 miles from the one restricted crossing, insured every month and not turning a wheel since the crusher last moved on.
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.
Wisconsin seasonal weight and title rules read from the Wisconsin Statutes in August 2026 — verify with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation before acting on them. Special and seasonal weight limitations at Wis. Stat. § 349.16; title brands, including the bar on a vehicle titled junked elsewhere, from the Wisconsin DMV. Node facts from MSHA’s Mine Data Retrieval System, the FHWA National Bridge Inventory 2025 delimited files (items 21, 41, 64 and 70) and the U.S. Census 2024 Gazetteer. Wisconsin has no state-rules file in this repository and none was written for this batch.