Junkyard Finds

[Advancedynamix]

It hurt, it hurt bad. I had to disassemble this LX, and it's in better shape than all 3 of my cars. It was complete, aside from the passenger side corner light, when I found it last week. Seats aren't worth buying and refinishing, but If I could have bought the car I would have fixed them for sure, other than the seats and a broken drivers side mirror (just the mirror itself) this car was flawless. Ugh. I got the practically perfect doors, fenders and I'm going back for the hatch and possible the hood (I have a few straight hoods already). This irritates me that cars like this are being crushed while half of you guys are fixing rusty cars. What a waste.
Here are some pictures.

[GenevaDirt]

Damn...I need to move.

[Advancedynamix]

This is the third LX I have done this to in a year. the last one was red and in nearly as good of shape. the first was dark red (maroon?) and was straight and rust free, but very weathered and worn. This white car probably just sat too long and the carb got gummed up. I couldn't see any problems with it at all, no coolant leaks, typical valve cover seepage, no shoddy repair work, no accidents . Just a straight, well maintained car. I got the grill, cluster, cargo cover, center console bezel (which I owe Max, because he sent me one when I needed it) window poppers, clips, screws, yada yada. Every turn of the wrench tore through my heart like a dagger though. This car didn't belong here. In a month it'll be nothing more than another little cube of scrap steel. Because recycling is friendly for the environment. (insert lots of arena only commentary).

[GenevaDirt]

man....that is to bad....maybe you can buy the shell after you take all the stuff off of it. They wouldn't know the difference.

[Advancedynamix]

I asked. They want 1200 for the car, if the title hasn't already been filed with the government, but you have to pay a 200 dollar fee (non refundable) to have them check to see if it's got a "sale-able" title. If I had the room and hadn't taken anything off it i would have forked out the 2 hundy as a gamble, but I am pushing my limits as it is with cars in the back yard and can't afford to buy this and go to Madness. How much does a guy have to pay a congressman to make a change for the better in this country? Probably a lot more than I can afford.

[GenevaDirt]

lol....I hear ya....funny how they think it is worth more then what they will get for scrap..idiots.

[Advancedynamix]

That's because our tax dollars are supplementing businesses like this with incentive programs. They get money from the government to destroy old cars. Don't you just love paying to have the things you enjoy destroyed without even knowing it? Lots of times they get more money per car than the current scrap rate.

[Bert]

The U-Pull here gets most of their stuff from a government-sponsored car dealer financial incentive called "Retire your ride". Providing the car is intact and runs you get a big credit towards buying a new car and the U-Pull gets it for a nominal fee ($ per ton), pokes a hole in the gas tank and drains all the fluids. They crush it after it's been picked over for about a month. Many of the cars in there these days are only 10 years old and have had no accidents. You can't win anymore; the old wrecking yards that specialized in classics and antiques have been squeezed out by regulations and the big yards that buy insurance wrecks won't let you anywhere near the cars.
There are two words for this: consumerism and economic progress. North America weren't turn if everybody maintained their own cars and drove them for at least 20 years.

[Festiva_Fred]

Damn what a shame to see such a nice one like that white one in a junkyard.. I'd love to have a shell that clean for a builder. Prolly end up fixing the rust spots on my current one though..

[TheresGabe]

It's a GOOD thing that I went today. Both of these cars are scheduled to be crushed before Tuesday! I took the grill off of the '88. The girl working the counter sent an email to get them to not crush the '93 for at least another week, so i can pull the passenger side door off. So mind boggling to see these cars like this. Neither one of them looked worthy of being given up on. CRAZY.



Side note, they had these Corbeaus, pulled out of a Neon. They wanted $250 for them though...

[hasteranger]

yeah anytime most junkyards get aftermarket stuff they want a mint for it. if the manager is there you could make an offer and see what they say.

seems to me a lot of shit ends up in the scrap yard because people are lazy (like son inherits dads's house and scraps out the 3 old cars out back) or (and lets not discredit this) because something sketchy is going on...

but then again you just never know. I saw a suburban here for sale for $1200, it was like a 1998 4wd with alloy wheels and good allterrain tires, around 150k on it, ran well. Transmission was out of it. Listed it again for 1000. then again for $800. The ad said he was gonna scrap it if it didn't sell, and it had been up for maybe 2 months.

Went to the scrap yard (not junk yard, the scrap yard, where they unload with giant claws on an excavator and stack the cars to be crushed) to junk the escort shell I got my BP out of, and saw the suburban there, alloys and all terrains still on it. was shocked... can't imagine he got more than $600. What a waste of a largely good vehicle.

I also have a '78 F150 and love those trucks. Was at another scrap yard and a guy brought in a 70's ford in better shape than my truck with a big sweet utility body on the bag full of tool boxes... they picked it up with the excavator, ripped the body off the back, squashed it, and threw it in the pile of prepared steel, then threw the rest of the truck in with the other cars/trucks. It made me sad.

[DriverOne]

Re: Junkyard Finds

We live in a throw-away society. Classic means nothing to anyone anymore. Nobody is taught to hold on to what they have because at 5-yrs old they get a cell phone and from then on if it breaks it's a "piece of crap" and they just throw it away or get a new one. These same people mock people like us for valuing what we have because it's "old" and we should just get new stuff like they do, with a credit card or from inheritance or tricking someone out of what they've got... *sigh*

[RhodeStiva]

Junkyard Finds

[DriverOne]

Re: Junkyard Finds

Damn... O.o