Flea markets carry things that you may need in your home, neat little items that you can’t find anywhere else. Well, there is a flea market for the auto world as well and it is auto wreckers and scrap dealers. An auto wrecker or scrap dealer is someone who deals with dismantling wrecked and decommissioned vehicles. The parts they get from those decommissioned vehicles are then sold to be used in other operational vehicles. Parts that cannot be used are sold to metal-recycling companies.
Typically, an auto wrecker or scrap dealer will deal only on the local level. So, the scrap dealer that you visit in Los Angeles gets all their parts from vehicles in Los Angeles and sells all their parts in Los Angeles. This is a great way to support your local economy as scrap dealers and auto wreckers actually do a lot of business in their local areas.
If you have a car that is severely damaged or non-functioning, then you can actually pay the auto wrecking company to come out and take the vehicle away. They will tow it to its location in the yard and will deduct the cost from what they were going to pay you for the vehicle. Within the scrap yard, all the vehicles will be assorted into rows, stacked on top of each other. It may seem like it is disorganized but all good auto wreckers and scrap dealers have a system in place and they can tell you exactly where the part is that you need. Most of the inventory systems are actually set up on computers.
Typically the parts that are taken out of automobiles are small and can be removed easily. These include things like headlights, blinkers, taillights, exhaust systems and mirrors. Some parts of the engine and transmission can be removed, as well as alternators, starters and oil pans. Windshields, if they are not broken or cracked badly, will often be saved. This is good news for people who fix up antique cars because they can find the parts they need from vehicles that are in the scrap yard.
In the scrap yard, especially with newer cards and not antique ones, the bodies of the cars are crushed on-site and then sold to a metal-recycler so they can be used in something else. In many ways, scrap yards are environmentally-friendly because they promote recycling. Instead of buying new parts that have to be made from more resources, parts can be taken out of vehicles that have been used already. This is recycling at its best and many local communities see scrap yards as a great way to promote environmentally friendly practices such as recycling. Read the rest of this entry »