Why junkyard owners are crushing cars..............

and why car restoration buffs are in trouble.

My uncle and cousin have owned a Chrysler dealership since the mid forties. They also ran a towing service and had a bunch of wrecked/junked cars from over the years. Most were just unclaimed and cost them nothing.

Yesterday, I went with my cousin to look over the few remaining old cars he still has. He told me he just finished crushing all the rest. He said he figured he had enough to keep the crusher busy for a week..........it took 3 weeks. In the end, he said he crushed over $300k worth of cars and scrap metal!!! He said everyone he knew in SC was doing the same because the money was so damned good.

The cars I looked at yesterday were mostly wrecks but there were engines, transmissions, rear axles, lots of trim pieces, wheels, etc. that will all get crushed in the next couple months.

IMO, the hobby is going to be in serious trouble and the price of collector cars can only go up. If you want a car to restore, you should try your best to buy a complete one. If you can't find one, you'd better start collecting parts now before they are all crushed up.

 

Scrap is up, and too many assholes want something for nothing and run you down for daring to expect to make a profit at it. That's why. It's a lot easier to crush it all, get a big check, and not have to deal with another asshole complaining because one piece of trim is missing off a car, or because you won't sell him that one piece of trim for $20 that would cost $500 to replace on eBay and make the car itself 100 times harder to sell without it.

They were whining on the Slick '60s (Ford pickups) board because one of them took an old bus to scrap and just missed out on a '65 Ford pickup - when he got to it the loader operator had ripped the roof right off it - that looked like a buildable truck. Where were they when it was for sale? The same guys told me the '66 crew-cab I saved wasn't even worth what it will bring over the scales. I guess I get the last laugh there, I paid by the pound last summer and could double my money right now just crushing it.

 

crush em there are more cars out there then rodders. We can't just let them sit expecting them to sell to someone, someday. It sucks. but It is what it is.

 

Where were they? At home, reading the local Craigslist or pennysaver or newspaper ads. But junkyards don't let people know what they have by advertising the good ones. They let them sit, expecting them to sell. Then they complain that they have to crush them.

"Let them sit, expecting them to sell" ....? Hell, if you have something to sell advertise it !

But most yard owners are too lazy to put the word out. So they crush them, when they might have got double by advertising.

 

AMEN rusty ny no one wants to pay these owners for their parts but when they buy em right they expect the profit on them.......... pay fair sell fair, I watched a newby go to my fav place grab a core support ask the owner of the yard how much he said 30 bucks the young un told him to stick it in his ass and walked out when I go to see owner of this place I dont even ask for prices he,s always fair I guess it just expereance.... oh well when their gone there gone....

 

I was reading some interviews in Old Cars Weekly with yard owners. They always had a lot of lookers but no takers. These guys are not running museums but a business. When you have four to five hundred carcasses laying in a field, you don't put a weekly advert out there with a list that includes something like "Dodge Dart,wrapped around telephone pole;ashtrays still intact...". It is up to you to go and find and purchase.

 

But I don't understand when a yard is going to crush out , advertise they are and are still asking way too much for the cars , they don't sell and then they crush it and get a couple of hundred bucks instead. I'm more than willing to pay more than scrap value fo
r cars.

 

So you think that just because something is advertised it will sell? How many adds do you place yearly? Just advertising it doesn't make the sale. I know for damn sure if I had tons of cars that they wouldn't all be advertised individually.

I see no point in keeping a car around that has been sitting in a junkyard for 20 years that hasn't had a part sold off of it in ten.

We are hot rodders and old car lovers. Yes, we all would love to keep every pile of junk from getting crushed.

But we can't. this is the real world, and if we want to keep doing what we are doing, we are going to have to crush some. That way the tree huggers can see we are "cleaning up our mess"...

 

hitting the junk yards is half the fun. Finding that ONE that no one has seen and getting it is a rust. They dont need to advertise- more guys need to be hitting them up.

Hell I can make big bucks by pulling all the plastic off and selling that myself. They gwet all the metal, I get all the plastic and I sell it- then i can buy more of their good metal!

 

You wanna pay me scrap for this one.....just needs minor repair.

 

Well, in this case someone who tried to sell it, brought it to the one guy who would buy it when it didn't sell via the paper/craigslist/eBay whatever. 61-66 Ford trucks are for the most part worth more shredded than whole, though. I kinda knew that before I even got this crew-cab in. I figured I'd give it a chance, anyhow, it's kind of a neat piece.

And it's just as possible that who had it didn't even try to sell it after looking at what kind of money those trucks sell for, I know I looked at trying to flip one for a guy a couple years ago and concluded he was better off holding onto it if he liked it.

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$30 for a core support sounds cheap, but if it's too much you offer less, you don't tell someone to stick it. What, it should be a dollar or something? Those are the kind of people that create the problem. Most of the old guys who have yards have dealt with this shit for 30, 40, 50 years and it makes it that much harder for me to convince a guy I'm a legit buyer after 10,000 tire kickers have come through, used hours of his time, left hoods, doors, trunks open, and not even bought a hubcap or something.

I'm not against giving someone a break, either, but anything I sell I have to treat as a business transaction. If there's no profit or there's no advantage to it, then I don't do it.

I'm figuring on scrapping a '58 Imperial here as soon as my friend gets his yard truck fixed. It really has no parts of any value on it, and I have a pile of scraps - late model doors, bits and pieces of metal swept up from other repair work, etc. - to fill it with. It could be built as a demo car, but no one seems too interested. Couldn't even sell the toilet seat deck lid off it, but I am saving it. I need to go up and see what else I can get rid of, too.


If that's a GTO in that picture above, with a little effort you could probably sell it - unless the tags are gone.

 

not again.........This is thread # 45678987654 on this topic.

 

I'm not really sure what it was...I don't think it a gto. perhaps a firebird.

 

Rather see it made into a rat than scrap.Save it anyway you can!!!

 

This topic gets discussed often but still bothers me anyway. I live in North Dakota and you would be blown away by how much old tin is still out there. What I have never really understood was you can offer a farmer $500 for a field car and he would rather take it to the salvage yard for $300 in scrap? This happens all the time! 2 years ago when scrap was at record highs I seen cars get crushed that would make you cry. I drive by a local salvage yard probably 4 times a day and I see what gets hauled in. They used to let you in and take parts off or buy the whole car before it would get crushed, now you cant even go in the yard unless your dropping off scrap. Some of the cars I've seen crushed:

1941 Mercury convertible
(6-8) 1949-1951 Mercuries 2 & 4 doors including a convertible
1934 ford 2 door sedan complete barn car
many, many shoebox Fords 1949-53
1936 Ford coupe
1970 Nova SS
1930's dodge pickups (several)
1955-57 Chevy (several)
1936 Packard
the list goes on and on! I even knew the guy that ran the yard and I offered him twice as much as he would get from current scrap price and still would not sell anything to me! Most of the cars around here that are getting crushed get hauled in from farms. Back when scrap was low the farmers didnt care you could make them a fair offer and they would absolutely not sell! Price hits $300 a ton and now their seeing $$ signs. We have been fortunate in the last couple years to bring in some decent cars cheap. We ran into one farmer who didnt have the time to haul in some cars he wanted off his land to clean it up so we bought several decent cars for $50 each and he even load them with his tractor. 1939 Ford 2 door sedan deluxe, 1958 Olds J2 still had the tripower on it! 1956 Olds, 1956 buick, couple 1949-52 F1 fORD PU's. He didnt care about what he got for them he just wanted them gone. Now with scrap going up were going to see more of the good stuff getting crushed again

 

How many weeks of operation and how many manhours labor do you think it would take to sell 300K worth of parts? I am an antique dealer/collector and hate to see things ruined but it is a business.

 

This is a dead horse. It's all theirs to crush if they want. If they wanted to sell it they very well could have advertised in a few key places. All these folks are after is the quick dollar and that's what they'll get. When the money runs out they'll just say, "Uh wisht I'd had another hunnerd acres uh scrap! Der hyuck." It doesn't take a genius to make money, but one would help if you want it to keep coming in!

 

I was QUOTED ... $12.50 a hundred this past Friday. The average old car weighs over 3,000 pounds.

That is $375.00 a car ...@ 3,000 lbs

That is why ... they are mashing them up.
My friend has over 400 ... waiting to go in here



That adds up to be ...

150 thousand dollars

 

That would buy ya a nice house with a 2 car garage and a fireplace.

 

scrap yards are our friends guys....don't dis them...get out and find what you can.....I made a deal with a yard just before they crushed.....went in with a hammer and chisel (made out of an old spring leaf sharpened on one edge; because they wouldn't let us use a torch) and cut front roof sections off 50s and 40s cars (for chops) took fenders,doors,decklids, hoods....had NO use for them at the time but didn't want them GONE....put the stuff in a pile and paid so much a # ....forget how much it was but thinking it was like $150....this was 15 years ago...owner of the yard was happy to see some of the old stuff saved

 

you got to do it yourself, save what you can! it will all be gone at some point.

 

...owner of junkyard thinks... Crushers arrived, now let's get down to business. Suddenly guys appear out of nowhere,...sell me this, sell me that, please,please,please! Junkyard owner thinks...fuc you arseholes, you've been giving me shit and grief for years, junkyard owner says stand back and watch this crusher do its work. Junkyard owner thinks... take that arsehole. Junkyard owner says...that's enough to bring tears to your eyes and a smile to mine, now fuc off.

 

I haven't strolled through a junkyard in awhile. I'm more amazed at what I find at abandon car auctions.

 

Scrap is UP, that is good for me! I've got a pickup load of odds & ends, nothing "collectable" but getting paid for it sure beats paying to get rid of it.

 

I hauled scrap on thursday and got almost 200.00 for 3000lbs.

 

Old cars are not going to be around forever, thats just how it is, there were only 30 years worth of cars sold in one country. now there isnt a country where someone doesnt want a classic.

 

That just seems like stupidity on the part of the Scrap Yard....I mean come on, It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that some of that stuff is far more valueable sold as a car than scrap, especially the converts and the 34/36 Fords. Scary thing is though, I have family members(by marriage) that would probably haul those same cars to scrap without thinking twice.....

 

I have arrangements with several yards and private owners that allows me last picking rights on cars going to be crushed.In other cases I'm buying complete cars to haul home and part out then haul in for crush.One yard operator and I have a agreement that for every pound I take I replace it with a pound of iron.A banjo steering wheel,radio and trim costs me maybe 2 small lawnmower engines.How do I do it? I dont sit and read all the on-line sites or sit at home waiting to find stuff ,I get out and talk to people.It's called hustle and knowing how to read people.I drive 40 miles and spend half a day on Saturdays at a scrap metal yard where farmers bring in stuff just so I can maybe buy stuff off the incoming cars and trucks before the go into meet the crusher.All it takes is a bit of commitment and my truck box can get filled pretty easy.I am in the process of buying 42 cars in a grove and I am getting them because I was the first guy who didnt want them for free or $50 a piece.All the success stories about barn finds and unearthed treasures came from those who will get off their asses and work to get something and willing to pay up for it.Do I always win? Nope.Missed a few deals that would have been nice but thats how it goes.

 

i had 84 cars hauled away 3 weeks ago and all i had to do was take inventory.most were incomplete and i think they scored 2 radiators and 2 cats in the bunch. their crew and equipment and when it was done handed me a check for $12,600. this is a cleanup on 2.68 acres and they are hauling tires (just hauled 350) and 6 dump truck loads of dumped garbage. they have even smashed and hauled no less than a dozen campers and travel trailers. sure i could have gotten a bit more i i would have hauled it myself but the fucking cleanup was worth taking a little less. sure glad about those old buddies from high school that can step up and make everyone some dough. oh by the way i don't do this for a living this is just my hobby that got a little out of control!

 

"YEP" DA PARTSDAWG IS RIGHT IF "YA"
AIN'T GOT HUSSLE ,YOU GONA GET WHATS LEFT !!! NUFF SAID !!!