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The Key Differences Between a Salvage Yard and a Scrap Yard

· automotive

Nowadays, many people don’t know what to do with the junk car that is lurking in their garage. They think that a vehicle only has value till the time it is running on the roads. While old and worn-out vehicles depreciate with time, they still hold great value due to the sheer amount of metal on their body and other car parts that can be recycled for reuse. If you are in a similar situation where you are unsure about how to get rid of an unwanted car, then you must consider taking your vehicle to the car wreckers as most of these agencies are willing to offer top cash for cars and that too, for junk or totaled cars.

For Australians, getting top cash for car removals in Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, etc., is easier and more accessible than it was ever before. If you have a vehicle whose poor condition is making the process of resale difficult then the place to dispose of your car is a scrapyard. If you do a little research into the car wrecking industry, you will notice that the terms salvage yards and scrap yards are used interchangeably. Well, the two do share similarities but to avoid confusion, it is important to know their key differences and which one is a more ideal fit for your vehicle so that you don’t suffer a loss by selling your car for less than it’s worth.

The Key Differences Between Salvage Yards and Scrap Yards

Here are some of the indicators based on which you can distinguish salvage yards from scrap yards:

· Auto Scrap Yards

First of all, in scrap yards, junk vehicles that are of little value are collected and processed so they can be shredded and recycled. Most parts (about 90%) of the car are recycled such as the tires, steering wheels, transmission, batteries, etc. The little remnants of this process that cannot be recycled are taken to landfills etc. This prevents the landfills from getting overfilled to a huge extent.

Furthermore, the dangerous fluids (coolant, engine oil, and brake fluids, for example) are also carefully extracted from the vehicle so that they can be recycled in an eco-friendly way. When scrap metals such as copper, aluminium, and zinc are recycled, it reduces the load on mining activities, thereby helping immensely in the conservation of the exhaustible and scarce resource. In scrap yards, the metallic content is weighed in pounds and tonnes so even if you have a car that cannot be driven at all, you can still get its estimated value based solely on the weight of its metallic content.

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· Salvage Yards

Salvage yards, on the other hand, are much different. If your vehicle is just old and could be resold with some repair work, then a salvage yard is the right place for it. Additionally, for cars that have been damaged in accidents and the cost of whose repairs far exceed the original cost of procurement (totaled vehicles), salvage yards are right place. Since all auto parts are dismantled and resold here, salvage yards usually make more profit than the regular scrap yards.

To be precise, in a salvage yard, cars are dismantled, and their valuable parts like engines and transmissions are modified and resold to other buyers. Many buyers opt for used auto parts instead of purchasing brand new ones as this saves them a lot of money. In salvage yards, used parts that are fairly new can also be found as the parts of newly-bought cars that end up in road accidents are also sold here. Many automobile insurance companies sell their totaled cars to these salvage agencies where they are then sold at a lower price to customers who can either get the car repaired or earn some cash from individually selling the auto parts.

The Bottom Line

All in all, if you have a car fairly functional that can improve with modifications then you should take it to a salvage yard for sale since it still has the potential to be resold in the market. However, if your car is so worn out that even after repairs, nobody would want to buy it, then you must call a car removal agency in Perth so that you can get it towed away to a scrap yard for free and also get cash in return!