Scrap yards are a major part of the circle of automobile life. While most vehicles go there when they die, some people decide to take it upon themselves to dispose of their vehicles by parting out all the major mechanical components and selling the recyclable parts, like the body, to companies that deal in those specific materials.
But most people don’t have the time or knowledge to go about this, so they choose the easy option of selling it to a “Cash for Cars Company”, like Auto Wreckers Wellington, who will usually own a scrapyard where they will do all the dismantling and selling off of materials. It’s an incredibly convenient and hassle free choice, but one with much less remuneration value, because if the CFCC’s want to make any money (which they very much do), they will need to pay you much less money than they will eventually make from the recycling process.
If you were to want all that money for yourself, you will have to know what you are doing before you decide to dive in and risk making a giant mess in your garage, otherwise you could end up damaging perfectly good resalable parts in the process.
Get a professional to make a good investigation of the vehicle. If they can pinpoint the cause of its demise, this knowledge will affect how you might go about dismantling the parts, and which parts will be in good enough condition to rescue.
The battery is the low hanging fruit of sellable auto parts. They are no trouble to find on the car, removing them is a piece of cake, and selling them takes hardly any effort. This is true regardless of how much juice is left in it. If it’s all out, a car dealer will love to take it off your hands so they can have it recycled. If it’s still full of life, a trading site like Trademe.com, or similar that sell car parts online in NZ, will make finding someone who needs to replace their own dead battery as easy as baking a pie.
Getting the car filled at the petrol station right before it unexpectedly kicks the bucket is an upsetting experience, not only because you loved the car dearly, but because of the waste of money on petrol you won’t even be able to use now.
All is not lost, however. If you drain the tank, you can attempt to sell the petrol, or you can save it to fuel the next automobile you purchase.
The parts are the most valuable resource to be mined from your junk vehicle. You can start with the tyres, which shouldn’t be hard to find buyers for, provided they are road worthy. Which we’re assuming they are, as they’re not the reason your car has died because you could just replace them. Jump online, make an ad on best tyre website, or any site that sell car tyres online, and they’ll fly out the door. If they are actually quite unsafe for the road, take them to a tyre dealership. They may take them so they can recycle them and make a little cash.
The radio should be easy enough to sell, as will be the steering wheel, windshield wipers and gearstick. To find out how much to give for the asking price, do some research on similar used parts and how much they’re selling for.
After you’ve finished with all the above steps, the last part is to sell all the remaining material. Copper wiring in all the wires, the doors and body are all made of metal, can all go to scrap metal yards.
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