Foreign demand puts premium on old auto parts

By AMANDA SMITH-TEUTSCH / Tribune Chronicle
The last stop before the crusher for the family sedan is often the salvage yard.

There, budget-conscious repairmen can pick up used parts for half, or less, of what they’d cost new. A radiator, for example, for a 1994 Oldsmobile Cutlass, can cost close to $300 at a chain auto supply store. At Trumbull County salvage yards, however, that radiator costs between $40 and $90. The same goes for transmissions — which cost about a third of the retail price at the yard.

But with overseas demand driving up the price of scrap metal, more and more cars are bypassing the salvage yard and going directly to the crusher.

“It used to be when scrap was $100, $130 it didn’t matter if it was a car you’d scrap,” said Bruce Saddle of 422 Auto Wreckers. “You could buy a car for $100, get one, maybe three parts out of it and still make money out of the car,” he said. “We have seen a decline of people bringing their cars in.”

Now, people going to the auto crushers are getting $300 for their old junkers, said French LeFebvre of Burghill Auto Salvage. When buying cars off the street, they are paid for by the ton, he said.

“Most of these cars today are half plastic, and it’s hard to get a ton out of them,” LeFebvre said. “A lot of people are just taking them straight to scrap.”

Just about everything on a car can be recycled at a salvage yard: hoods, radiators, wheels, transmissions, doors. Engines get a little tricky, however.

“By the time a car comes to us, the engines are pretty much shot,” LeFebvre said. “The engines and transmissions are the heart and soul of a car.” They do come through, but engines in good working order, especially for older cars, can be few and far between, he said.

Jim Parke, of Brookfield Auto Parts, said his business buys cars from salvage pools, not off the street. These are cars collected from all across the country. Many are wrecks. He said he’s seen an increase of cars at the pools being sold exclusively for scrap.

“The price of scrap is going up and down,” he said. “It’s all based on supply and demand — how much scrap China wants to buy at the time.”

Competition from overseas also is affecting the salvage pool auctions, Saddle said. Sometimes he won’t go to the auctions in person, instead opting to bid over the computer.

“What we’re seeing is some of the nicest cars, ones we’d really like to buy, are going overseas,” he said. The online auctions show who places the winning bids, and often on the newer, expensive cars winning bids are being placed from the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia, where there’s a growing demand for American car parts, he said.

ateutsch@tribune-chronicle.com