The hammer falls, the invoice lands, and the clock you did not know you were on starts running. Most buyers spend the next three days on the machine — financing, insurance, where it goes to work. The trailer gets a thought on removal week. That is where the expensive surprises live: a lot that will not fit the trailer that showed up, a permit that takes four business days in a state you did not plan for, a gate that closed at 4 PM with your driver outside it.
Here is the order we wish every buyer followed. Three moves, one per day.
Find your two dates: payment due and removal day.
Open the invoice before you open anything else. You are looking for payment due and removal day. At Ritchie Bros. regional sales, for example, items cannot be collected until paid in full, must be out by the removal day, start accruing storage if left 30 days past the event, and are treated as abandoned after 45. Other houses run similar clocks with different numbers — the invoice is the only version that counts.
Then send the haul side three things: the lot number, the yard it sits in (regional sales spread lots across several yards — Perris is not Dunnigan), and the removal day. We plan the pickup backwards from that date, not forwards from today.
Measure the loaded dimensions for the oversize permit.
Spec sheets describe a machine on the showroom floor. Permits are issued for a machine on a trailer. The number that matters is loaded height: machine height plus deck height, with the boom where it will actually sit. Add the width over the tracks or tires, the length including attachments, and the operating weight with fuel and counterweight.
Why it matters: in most states, anything over 8′6″ wide, 13′6″ tall or 80,000 lb gross needs a permit, and wider or taller loads add pilot cars and travel-time limits. Height and width set the permit; weight sets the trailer and axle count. Get one number wrong and the trailer that arrives is the wrong trailer.
Typical legal limits — over any one, most states require a permit.
If you cannot measure it yourself, ask the yard for the lot photos and the listed serial — and send us two photos of your own from the inspection day: one from the side, one from the front. Two photos replace a round of questions.
Book the heavy-haul pickup before removal day.
With dates and dimensions in hand, the rate can be confirmed in writing and a driver assigned. Three things to lock with the yard before the truck rolls:
- ✓Paid invoice and pickup instructions. Yards release a lot only once it is paid in full.
- ✓Who loads. Many yards load with their own equipment during yard hours; some do not.
- ✓Gate hours. Trucks usually need to be inside the yard well before closing.
Then leave a buffer.
A Friday removal day with a Thursday pickup is a plan; a Friday removal day with a Friday pickup is a hope.
Permits in some states take several business days, and oversize loads cannot move at night, on weekends or on holidays in many of them.
- 01Quoting off the spec sheet. Loaded height is what the permit office reads.
- 02Forgetting the attachments. A bucket, blade or ripper rides too — sometimes on a second trailer.
- 03Calling on removal week. Permits and pilot cars are booked days ahead, not hours.
- 04Assuming the yard loads. Confirm it. If not, a crane or ramp has to be on the order.
- 05Mexico as an afterthought. If the lot is headed south, the border hand-off to your customs broker is planned on day one, not at the border.
What moves a heavy equipment transport rate
No mystery lines. Heavy-haul pricing comes down to four things — and you can lower each one.
Set the permit class, the trailer and the axle count.
Lower it: measure the loaded height.Every state and province permits separately.
Lower it: be flexible on the pickup day.Width and height trigger pilot cars; holidays close routes.
Lower it: avoid holiday weeks.Loading and unloading at each end of the move.
Lower it: tell us up front who loads and who unloads.Whatever the number is, you will have it in writing before pickup, with permits, escorts and detention itemized. No rate is final until a coordinator confirms it.
Heavy equipment auctions coming up
Two Ritchie Bros. regional sales with serious iron and removal days already on the calendar. If you are bidding at either, send us the lot number and we pre-plan the pickup before the hammer falls — no commitment until you win.
Cat D9R dozer · Cat 623K scraper · Link-Belt 75-ton truck crane · Cat 740B haul trucks
Grove TMS700E 60-ton crane · Komatsu D71PXi & Cat D6 dozers · Tesab tracked crusher
Auction equipment transport — quick answers
How long do I have to remove equipment after an auction?
Do I need a permit to transport an excavator or dozer bought at auction?
What trailer moves heavy equipment from an auction yard?
Who loads the machine at the auction yard?
How much does it cost to ship heavy equipment from an auction?
Can auction equipment be delivered to Mexico?
Tell us what you won.
Three fields to start, no account. One coordinator owns the pickup from quote to delivery — and signs every message.
