buying a day cab for local work: intrastate or interstate, a USDOT number, and the annual inspection before you bid
Started by first_daycab_carlos · Sep 11, 2025 · in Buying and auctions · 6 posts
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first_daycab_carlosOP
Yard DogModesto, CA6 posts · joined Sep 2025
runs nothing yet · driving a company 2018 T680, Modesto CA
#1
nine years driving for a produce outfit here in Modesto, bulk tomatoes into the cannery in the summer and almonds out of the hullers in the fall, all of it inside the valley. never once left California in a work truck. my boss is 68 and selling the yard next year, and two of the growers i haul for have already said they would put me on if i had my own truck.
so i have been reading this whole board for a month and watching the day cab lots on the m&a auction at night. i have the money for one truck and nothing left over for a mistake, so i would rather ask dumb questions here first than pay for the answers later.
three things i cannot get a straight answer on.
one. if i never cross a state line, am i interstate or intrastate, and does that change what numbers i need on the door. everybody at the truck stop says something different and two of them say nobody checks.
two. if the truck i win on m&a is sitting in Texas or Georgia, is there anything that stops me from registering it in California. a guy at my gym says his cousin bought a cheap truck out of Arizona and could not plate it here and had to sell it again.
three. the annual inspection. the listings show a sticker on the door post in the photos. does that sticker mean the truck passed something, and who is allowed to sign one. i do not want to buy a truck and then find out it needs 4,000 in brakes to pass anything.
i am not in a hurry. almond hauling is done in november and nothing moves much until spring, so i have the winter to get this right.
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mod_terry_k
ModeratorCasper, WY112 posts · joined Aug 2025
runs a 2018 T880 and a 2015 Granite · gravel and oilfield, Casper WY
#2
i ran safety for a 40 truck outfit for nine years so i can take your third question and part of the first. your California questions need a California answer and i am not going to pretend to give you one.
the annual, federally, is a periodic inspection every twelve months. it covers brakes, steering, lighting, tires, wheels, the frame, the suspension, the coupling, the exhaust and the fuel system. a qualified inspector signs it, which in plain language is a mechanic at a truck shop who meets the qualification rules, and plenty of them do nothing else all day in september. the inspection report is the record. the decal on the door post is a convenience that fleets use so a roadside officer can see it from outside the truck.
so the sticker in a listing photo tells you that somebody signed something on a date. it tells you nothing about the truck today, and on a repo that sat in a yard for eight months it tells you less than nothing, because brake adjustment and tire tread do not wait for anybody. treat the annual as a cost you are going to pay after delivery, not something that came with the truck.
the one place the sticker does matter is the date. if it is a month old you know a shop had the truck up in the air recently and you can ask for that report. if it is fourteen months old, which happens on repos all the time, you are going to a shop in week one.
on interstate versus intrastate, the short version anywhere in the country is that the question is about the freight, not about you. it is also not a question you want answered by a man at a fuel desk.
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savannah_port_drayage
RegionalSavannah, GA31 posts · joined Aug 2025
runs 2021 Pete 579 and 2020 Cascadia 116 · port drayage, Garden City GA
#3
terry is right about the sticker. mine was fourteen months old and i paid 180 for a fresh one in week one, and i had that money sitting in the plan before i ever bid.
what i would add is the list of photos to ask for before you put a number in. the dash with the key on so you see the odometer and the hours. the door sticker with the VIN and the weight ratings. the emissions label on the valve cover, which is the one that is going to matter to you in California more than anywhere else. all eight tires with a tread depth gauge in the groove, not just a photo of a tire. the fifth wheel, the frame rails behind the cab, and the inside of the aftertreatment canister if they will get at it.
they let you ask. it took them two days and two emails to get me the ones i wanted, which was slower than i liked but they came. if you ask for them and they do not show up, that is your answer and it only cost you an email.
one more thing on your budget. put the annual, a set of batteries and a pair of drive tires in your number before you bid, not after. every repo i have looked at since has needed at least two of those three, and if the truck does not need them you just bought yourself a cushion.
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first_daycab_carlosOP
Yard DogModesto, CA6 posts · joined Sep 2025
runs nothing yet · driving a company 2018 T680, Modesto CA
#4
took a day off and did the phone calls instead of asking strangers at the Petro. writing down what i was told in case somebody in California reads this next year.
the permit. California wants a motor carrier permit out of the DMV before they will plate a commercial truck to me as a carrier, and that permit comes with the CA number that goes on the door. CHP handles the carrier side of it and the enforcement. the DMV office in Modesto pointed me at the forms and the fee schedule on their own site and told me not to pay anybody to fill them out for me.
the USDOT number. this is the one everybody at work had wrong. California requires intrastate carriers to have a USDOT number too, so hauling almonds thirty miles does not get me out of it. applying is free. it is the same system interstate people use and you check the intrastate box.
emissions, which is the big one and the reason my gym friend's cousin got stuck. the engine has to be 2010 model year or newer to work in California at all, so i am not even looking at anything older than a 2013. on top of that there is the clean truck check program, which means i register the truck with the air board and get it tested on a schedule, and if that is not done the DMV will not renew the registration. i was told plainly that they can hold the registration over it. so the cheap out of state truck is only cheap if its engine is legal here.
and the 90 day inspections. because i will have one truck and a yard at my house, i still have to keep my own inspection records every 90 days and have them when somebody asks. that is a clipboard and a folder, not a cost, but it is a thing i did not know about on monday.
none of that changed my mind, it just changed my list. what it means for the m&a listing side is that the first thing i look at now is the engine year and the emissions label photo, and if a truck is a 2009 i close the tab no matter how pretty it is.
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intermodal_since_04
RegionalMemphis, TN58 posts · joined Aug 2025
runs 3 day cabs · intermodal out of Memphis since 2004
#5
that is a better set of notes than most people have after a year. two things from somebody who started with one truck in 2004.
first, buy the truck your state will let you plate, and do that math before you look at the price. i have watched three men buy a bargain out of the wrong state and sell it six weeks later for less than they paid, and every one of them told me the price was too good to walk away from. the price was fine. the truck was illegal where they lived.
second, get your insurance quote before you fall in love with a truck. a brand new carrier with one truck and one driver pays the worst rate he will ever pay, and the second year is a different number entirely. i have seen a man's whole plan die on the insurance quote, and the truck had nothing to do with it. year, make, model and the VIN off a listing is all an agent needs to give you a real number.
almond season you say. so your trucks run hard for ten weeks and then sit. that is a different buying decision than mine. you want the simplest truck you can find, because a truck that sits is a truck that gets batteries, DEF and tires at the worst time. ask me how i know.
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first_daycab_carlosOP
Yard DogModesto, CA6 posts · joined Sep 2025
runs nothing yet · driving a company 2018 T680, Modesto CA
#6
five weeks later, still no truck, but everything that goes on paper is done and i am glad i did it in that order.
permit filed and in hand, CA number issued, USDOT number done the same afternoon for nothing, and an account set up with the air board so a truck can be tested the week i get it. insurance came back at 11,400 for the first year on a 2015 to 2020 day cab running inside 150 miles, which is more than i wanted and about what memphis told me to expect.
i did bid once. a 2019 Cascadia day cab, DD13, 410,000 miles, and i put in 36,000 because that was the most i could pay and still have brake money. did not win and never found out what did. i was annoyed for a day and then i was fine with it, because 36 was my number and the number does not care how badly i want a truck.
what i am waiting for now, so anybody in the same spot has a list: a 2014 or newer engine, an annual inspection report with a date on it and not just a sticker, the emissions label photo, hours as well as miles if the dash will show it, and the eight tires with a gauge in them. there is a fresh batch of m&a lots every couple of weeks, so another truck is always on its way, which is the part i needed somebody to tell me back in august: the m&a auction.
thanks to the three of you. i will start a thread when there is a truck in my driveway and not before.
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