Sun valley porsche dismantler how to#

When a customer walks into Pick Your Part after paying a $1 admission fee and signing a liability waiver, he is surrounded by acres of automobiles on pedestals about two feet off the ground. We sell cheap a fender can go for $24 and an engine for $80.” “We’re dealing mostly with 7- or 8-year-old middle-class-type cars,” he said. “We’re an auto dismantler,” said Vice President Chris McElroy, 29, “not a junkyard.” And like Aadlen, the company relies on walk-in business, not computers and hot lines.īut they still prefer the new term. The Anaheim-based firm says it tries to be a good neighbor by keeping its facilities clean, installing painted fences and planting trees. “Come on down and find the junk you want.”Īnother serve-yourself company is Pick Your Part, which has four yards in the Los Angeles area-including one in the Valley-and three in the San Francisco Bay Area. “If you could get 90% off the price of a part, would you get your hands a little dirty? We’re a junkyard,” he said. We let the customer let his fingers do the walking.” Schmidt maintains that letting the customers do their own work provides them significant savings. “Our basic business is not so much parts as it is iron. (Smitty) Schmidt, 40, an Aadlen Brothers salesman. “We have no computers and no hot lines,” said L. Aadlen allows customers to roam its yard and find their own parts. One of these holdouts is the 26-acre Aadlen Brothers Auto Wrecking in Sun Valley. Then there are the traditional junkyards.

Savings range from 50% to 70% over new parts. And the customer never ventures beyond the front counter. The parts are usually cleaned and inventoried.

When the dismantling is done, the engine, transmission, wheels, tires, windows, quarter panels and electronics have been saved, leaving only a denuded shell to be crushed at the site or hauled away to be disposed of by a true junk dealer. The newer type of dismantler buys cars-in some cases only specific models such as Fords or foreign cars or particular models such as Corvettes-and strips them of all parts. Owners say the business has gone in two distinct directions.

Sun valley porsche dismantler how to#

When you look up a part on a ’79 Camaro, it tells you what other years can be interchanged with it.”īut there are differences of opinion on how to make a living from the used, wrecked or retired vehicles. We put requests on the machine, and people answer with price and availability.”Īnd Sam Schmidt of Marv’s Auto Dismantlers in Sun Valley said, “The computer can also generate reports on what items are getting requested as well as doing the accounting procedures. Jay Myers of Ace Auto and Truck in Sun Valley said, “We have telephone hot lines, and we’re computer-integrated with other yards now. “When a dismantler is done stripping a vehicle-some even recycle the antifreeze-they sell the carcass to true junk dealers” who shred or cube it, he said.īut if there has been one item that has been instrumental in bringing the dismantling business into the 20th Century, it is the computer, which 75% of dismantlers now use, they say.Įlite Auto has a totally automated inventory system and computer hookups throughout the West. The majority of cars come from insurance buyouts and auctions, and only a small percentage from individuals.