Lately, I have been trying to work on one of our cars to decide whether to keep it or sell it. To clean it up a little, I decided to head to my local parts yard to get some parts. Along the way, I decided to take some pictures to show what had landed. While I didn’t capture everything that was there including some cool stuff I wish I did (like a Cadillac ELR!), I found more modern cars than I expected. While these have no particular order or reason, I’ll share some of the cars in chronological order.
Pre-2000s Rides
There were a limited number of cars that fell into this category. The majority of them that did were ’90s luxury cars. Good luck finding parts for your Ford Escort. The company that owns the lot, LKQ, does frequently change what’s in the lots, so every time is a new adventure. During my time with my E34 I would visit multiple lots for a weekend. Staying flexible with what you’re looking for helps if you know parts are compatible across models. That’s how I scored my M Parallel rims from an E38.
First up is a 1981 BMW 528i. Still relatively complete and in good condition, I would believe this was a driver just a couple of months ago. It appears the accident up front is likely what took it out of commission despite how small it was. Rust isn’t really a thing in SoCal, so this could be preserved for others looking for these parts.
Next up is a Chevy Lumina. When was the last time you saw one of these? Being a ’91, this is the second year of production. In this lovely burgundy on burgundy, it is clearly a loaded-up car that someone took pride in at some point. It features such optional amenities as the V6 engine and trunk rack. The seat pads leave me to believe the car retired when the owner did. Despite sitting on the lot, nobody had even touched the thing.
Following the GM10, we have an MN12. Both being major expenditures from their respective US brands, neither met the lofty goals set by their creators. This is a face-lift LX model, so nothing special is going on here. I would expect this to have the Essex V6 rather than the Modular V8.
What does have a V8 however is this catfish Camaro. This one is a pre-facelift as evidenced by the recessed eyeliner headlights. It appears pretty well loved, but I would imagine there are plenty of good parts on it.
The final car(s) that fall into this category are these two junkyard jags. They both appear to be of the XJ40 generation, with one being in better condition than the other. I’m not sure if they were turned in by the same individual or if they happened to end up together. I found another a ways off of these two, which makes me think the former.
2000s Era Vehicles
Right at the start of the decade Infiniti graced the public with a facelifted QX4. While not necessarily a fan favorite, these hold a soft spot in my heart as my parents had its sibling, the Nissan Pathfinder.
Similar in class is the Ford Explorer. These were definitely the market leader in the segment despite mishaps like the Firestone tire debacle. Timing chains and fragile transmissions have rendered most of these as lawn ornaments, but they still seem to arrive in constant supply. I guess that’s what happens when you sell hundreds of thousands of them.
Before throwing more SUVs at you, I would like to share some of the cars that I found there. These vary in variety, but show they did have some choice in unique vehicles. It was worth the $5 of entry just to sit in some of them to me.
An original Honda Insight. These things have a cult following for their unique position as a 2-seater hybrid with a manual transmission. They’re supposed to be extremely efficient and a favorite amongst modders. I suppose that’s why when the lukewarm Honda CR-Z came out, it wasn’t met with the same reception.
When talking about cars that failed to live up to their predecessors, I think the RX-8 is a fair example of that. Despite carrying the rotary heart, it simply didn’t have the force behind it that the RX-7 did. Rather poor quality control and lack of maintenance have taken most of these off the road. A future classic in my opinion.
Another car that was treated as disposable was the Chevy Cobalt. This is a 4-door SS, so a spicier car, but nothing rare. What makes this one interesting (and less valuable) is that under the hood it has the naturally aspirated engine. The SS was offered with a supercharged 2.0, a naturally aspirated 2.4, and a turbocharged 2.0 depending on the year and specification.
My final car is one of the last cars of the storied Oldsmobile brand, an Oldsmobile Intrigue. This being a ’99 model was the second year they were available. Built on the W platform, it likely shares some bit of mechanical similarity with the Lumina featured above.
Now we’re back to SUVs. Well, maybe not, I’m not actually sure what to classify this as. It’s a Mercedes R500. 500 being the designation for having the M113 five liter V8 in it! Pretty cool for whatever it is, but not the holy grail R63 AMG either.
During that time, Mercedes was working with Dodge in the DaimlerChrysler group. So while the R series was being developed so was the Jeep Commander. Well known for being the car “unfit for human consumption” in the words of Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne, I thought they were pretty cool. While I didn’t check, there’s a good chance there’s a V8 in there as two were offered (4.7 & 5.7).
Getting Modern 2010+
Now here is the reason why I was stopping in. I saw they had a Nissan Armada. This one was rather thrashed with 200,000+ miles and being a first model year of the facelift (2008). These had a long shelf-life much like the Sequoia, as these were originally introduced in 2004 and ran until 2015 without a full redesign.
Here’s another car that I have a soft spot for, the Ford Flex. I love the design of them and growing up in suburbia, I have been around plenty. My friend’s parents owned them, my neighbors owned them, and my dad personally had 3 of them. They’re decent cars, but ultimately transmissions and internal water pumps will kill them if not serviced. Given the partial engine teardown I would guess the latter killed it.
Funny enough, the car that replaced the Flexes for my Dad was sitting elsewhere on the lot. A Ford Transit Connect. This one appears to be a lower trim level wagon. They offered a variety of options including wheelbase, engine, and seating configurations. Ours was fully loaded with leather, navigation, and heated seats. Most are of the Cargo variety. They’ve recently discontinued these, but for a while they were on sale in the small van category with the likes of the Nissan NV200 and Ram ProMaster City. I’m not sure about those, but the claim was that Ford installed seats in all of these to sell as passenger cars to avoid the chicken tax. They would then remove the seats stateside and sell them as cargo vans.
If you’ve made it all the way to the bottom, give yourself a pat on the back. This is my final share, a Nissan Leaf. As they get older and their anemic batteries ever weaker, the Leaves find themselves wilting away in parts yards. While most electric cars I would reckon are still on the road, these first generation cars are finding their way off. It looks like people have picked at it, but nothing is really gone, only rearranged. I find it interesting how the bubble lights are in two different segments. I always assumed they were a single unit. The odd shape of them is to help push air around the sideview mirrors as in a quiet electric car, they found it made too much wind noise in testing.
“It was worth the $5 of entry just to sit in some of them to me.”
Surprised to read something like this. Is it common practice in your part of the world for scrap yards to charge an entry fee?
Will it be at least offset if you buy a part there?
Yes, it’s common practice in the US for junkyards to charge admission. Usually, you can avoid the fee if you buy something.
What surprises me about this story is that the yard was an LKQ franchise that allowed pull-a-part. In my part of the country, LKQ generally takes only relatively new vehicles (as seen here) which it very quickly renders into separate parts and then crushes the rest. The fact that a lot of these pictured vehicles still had their tires makes me think that the author’s LKQ operates similarly, only they also allow pickers. Neat.
Another interesting thing about this story is the discovery of an EV. I’ve never seen one in junkyard, and I wonder if the battery was removed. The liability of having a live EV battery in a pull-a-part yard is hard to imagine.
Around here it varies, from free (my favorite yards) to $2-3 and then LKQ is $5. Not surprisingly the parts at LKQ are also usually priced far higher than other places. Not that they get “better” or newer cars than the others, they all bid at the same impound auctions and the tow drivers (“we buy any car”, “we’ll scrap your car for free”) choose whichever one pays the most for scrap metal relative to their own driving distance that day. You’ll find cars from the same “collections” at all the yards around here at around the same time, such as the large horde of Fiat/Lancia/Alfa that was disbursed a few years ago from a defunct repair shop. No refund of entry fee with purchase at any though around here.
Hybrids are common in scrapyards now (just like on the roads) and EVs are getting more common, the most common age for cars in the self-pull yards is 10-15 years, i.e. the average vehicle age, and EVs are just starting to hit that. Leafs are the most common (if still relatively rare) and last week I came across this Model S. Scrapyards realize batteries have value and can be recycled, just like regular 12v batteries, and pull them when draining the fluids.
Most “new” cars or specialty cars often get purchased by specialty yards or rebuilders or companies that simply buy them and ship them out of the country to be rebuilt elsewhere. It’s rare that any car in the junkyard cost the junkyard more than a couple to a few hundred dollars, all done by weight with deductions for major missing pieces.
Pick-n-Pull charges $2 to enter out my way. There are six within 50 miles of me.
What is the rule of thumb for a junk yard? How long is the carcass allowed to stay around before it hits the crusher? Do we wait till it’s picked clean, or does the price of recycled steel influence yard time? Also, what about the fluids (oil, transmission, freon, etc). Lots of variables!!
The price of steel affects the number of cars that are brought in by owners or tow yards. Many self-serve yards are really steel recyclers that have some land on which to make extra money by having people buy parts that they need. The cars rotate based on how many new ones come in and are processed on any given day. Here in the Denver area it ranges from between maybe four weeks for the highest turnover section with the least space to sometimes over a year for cars in less populous area still within easy driving distance. 2-3 months seems to be the average around here. Sometimes cars are “reset” for another stint if they are deemed to still be too complete to crush, but that’s highly yard dependent, the really high volume places just give it one go-around and then it’s crushed/shredded.
All fluids are removed from a vehicle and recycled/sold. Well, maybe not all, but an attempt is made to recover most of them, none are left on purpose but there’s still plenty of toxic stuff left in many when placed in the yard. Wear good shoes and use gloves as you would when working on your own car and you’ll be fine without getting covered in filth.
The self-service yards in Vegas have changed dramatically in the past 5 years or so. My theory is that people are keeping cars longer, and bringing them to shops to install used parts, so that anything decent is bought at auctions by full-service junkyards. Self-service yards are only able to afford/justify the purchase of the absolute dregs.
This yard is the Oceanside CA Pick a part yard. Ive been there a few times. I recognized it by the hill behind it.
Yeah, I’ve been there as well. It’s nice in how it’s a fairly relaxed lower volume type of place and out of the way a bit. One of the nicer settings for a junkyard (not a high standard, admittedly…)…
A pick from this particular yard has actually been featured here before:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/junkyard/junkyard-classic-1983-chevrolet-c-10-custom-deluxe-basic-is-as-basic-does/
Back in the 1990’s when I was prowling the yards, it was still pretty common to find ’60’s and occasionally a couple of ’50’s cars in the mix. Now it is usually early 2000’s with some ’90’s cars. The cost of auto repair is now so high that many good running, serviceable, vehicles are totalled by insurance companies. For a ten or fifteen year old car a front end collision that blows both air bags is a killer, likewise, head gaskets and broken timing chains. Bad auto transmissions are a leading cause of cars getting junked. My last rebuild a few years back cost me 3,500.00 for my ’07 Mustang, which was two thirds of it’s value. I’ve also got a Ford Flex with the 3.7 V6, it just hit 69,000 miles and I anticipate selling it before it reaches 90K.
It’s hard to make the commitment to mechanical repairs and necessary maintenance when a random minor collision will total out a car. Unless the owner is an enthusiast willing to repair and go long term with their car, it’s easier for regular folks to just kiss the old thing goodbye.
looks like the LKQ yard in Oceanside, Ca., just North of San Diego .
Because of the massive military presence locally I’ve ad amazingly good luck in finding graymarket European cars there and scored many unobtanium Mercedes bits and bobs .
Lots and lots of old folks cars there too .
Sad you didn’t photograph any trucks, there are usually some older work rigs in there .
THANK YOU for these, maybe ere long you’ll go to the junkyards atop the mesas in National City…..?
-Nate