Scrap car prices

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bigjim

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May 17, 2010
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182
Roughly, does anyone know or would anyone like to hazard a guess, how much money do the scrappies make out of an old car?

Just curious. :D

I have just scrapped my W124 1990 300TD which was collected and scrapped. I got £150. :cool:

Cheers

Jim
 
id say it varies car to car.

Turnover could be anywhere between £5,000 - £9,000, less costs and labour, id say they make a couple of grand per car...

based ofcourse on a car with bits that can be salvaged and sold on.. ;)
 
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and as the injuns are quite bullet proof there is low demand for them.
 
they wouldnt have got a lot more than that... maybe £200 max.
 
Hi

from that car the max if your lucky you will make around £1000 if your lucky!

Acid
 
It varies greatly , depending on the car and demand for parts .

We scrapped a Polo the other week , the car had already been stripped of its engine and other parts , but we had shoved in some spare doors and other panels , just to get rid of them . The metal merchant gave us £67 when we weighed it in .

Bigger cars obviously will be worth more , just because they are heavier .

Breaking a car is a different proposition . I don't usually break cars to sell parts , rather just to get parts I need for my other cars . However , when my 300TE-24 was written off , the insurers were not willing to negotiate salvage with me and I wasn't about to let them have the car with the many new parts I had fitted , nor the recently replaced engine which I knew the previous owner had paid over £6K for at the dealership - not for the paltry £700 or so they were offering for what they saw as a 17 year old W124 .

Anyway , I told them to forget about the claim and that I would be keeping the car .

I had thought of fitting the engine to my Fintail , but the news that I was going to be a dad again kind of changed priorities and plans !

In the end I sold the engine for £500 ; the leather interior for £250 ; the alloy wheels for £150 ; towbar for £50 and lots of other parts for smaller amounts , besides having a fair amount left over which I just kept . I could have weighed the shell in , but in the end I donated it to one of the local fire stations for practice cutting up - one of the guys collected it from my house on a trailer and that was me clear of it .

I reckon , in the end , I more or less doubled what the insurance were offering for it .

Obviously a more basic car without all the desirable goodies would not have the same potential .
 
I broke an MR2 last year and sold some parts , i have so far made over 1500 euro and i still have a lot of major parts including the doors gear box and leather interior , the engine was not sold , the big ends where banging
 
Wow - that's quite a range of estimates. Thanks anyway.

I was guessing thousands, and the fact he owned an E55 and his Wife drove a Cayman suggested business was doing alright :thumb:
 
Wow - that's quite a range of estimates. Thanks anyway.

I was guessing thousands, and the fact he owned an E55 and his Wife drove a Cayman suggested business was doing alright :thumb:


you will never find a poor scrap dealer, if you weigh a car to crush it its about £100 per tonne but it goes up and down each week, copper and lead are the good ones so if your car is made of either of these you are on to a winner:rolleyes:
 
I scrapped a Saab 9-5 Griffin saloon with a failed gearbox just before Christmas , I was paid £205 by the scrappage company.

The chap that tool it away told me that they would strip and sell the interior (heated and ventilated leather memory seats), doors, boot and bonnet, bumpers, lights and engine (V6 petrol turbo) as there was a ready market for Saab spares. I was offered £400 for the interior by someone on a Saab forum but had a severe lack of time and motivation to remove it :)
 
bigjim said:
Wow - that's quite a range of estimates. Thanks anyway.

I was guessing thousands, and the fact he owned an E55 and his Wife drove a Cayman suggested business was doing alright :thumb:

They'll both be cat D's no doubt , scrap dealers love nothing more than running around in rebuilt write offs !
 
I think some members need to learn the difference between scrap metal merchants and car breakers/dismantlers.

To do either, legally and on a decent scale...There isn't that much profit in it.

Profit for breakers has been severely erroded recently by every joe bloggs selling his old car in pieces through ebay.
 
I think some members need to learn the difference between scrap metal merchants and car breakers/dismantlers.

To do either, legally and on a decent scale...There isn't that much profit in it.

Profit for breakers has been severely erroded recently by every joe bloggs selling his old car in pieces through ebay.

I received a certificate of destruction for my car but the people who removed it also have a business selling parts from cars they break.
 
you will never find a poor scrap dealer, if you weigh a car to crush it its about £100 per tonne but it goes up and down each week, copper and lead are the good ones so if your car is made of either of these you are on to a winner:rolleyes:

Old merc with rust repaired with lead filler will be worth thousands then :D
 
As has been said already, the profit margin will depend very much on the car and its condition.

A Saab / Mercedes / BMW etc. with a nice leather interior, good engine or decent alloys and tyres will have lots of parts that can be sold. A Micra / Punto / Mondeo etc. with a grotty cloth interior, knackered engine and bald tyres on steel wheels will have far fewer parts to sell and as they are plentiful in scrapyards supply far outstrips demand.

I think most scrappies will weigh in the shell for more-or-less what they paid for the car and anything that they can sell beforehand is profit. I've often seen cars arrive in the scrapyard with brand new tyres in their spare wheel well whilst certain parts such as catalytic convertors, batteries (lead) and alloy wheels (even wrecked ones) will always be separated out for recycling and offer a decent return.
 
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Just as a guide, I drove an N regd Saab 900 (GM not classic) to the scrappy last month. Got £130. Low spec model, cloth interior, crap alloys etc. Breaker said because of that it would go straight to be squashed rather than stripped for spares.
 

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