This is someting which I have often wondered. I know they end up in a scrap yard and bits taken off them. I then know they are crushed for the metal but what is the metal typicaly used for? I assume the scrapyard them selves turn the shell back into raw steel and sell it on? Or does the crushed car get sold on?
What is the metal then used for? Coca cola cans? Steel frames for buildings? Even new cars?
|
|
interesting question rattle, it made me think ..i recently found out that all the scrapyards are no more in my home town ( havnt been for a while ...since my fiesta got nicked) so i suppose its ebay or bust now if i want a dodgy mk3 alternator ( or better fit a mk 4 ) cheers
|
Discovery Channel have a programme which features big machines. One of them is a scrap metal mincer based in Newport South Wales. Crush car flat, put in one end a few seconds later it is chopped into pieces about the size of half a brick. This waste is then sold.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4020881.stm
Immingham Docks has piles of the stuff which gets shipped to metal plants all over the World - predominantly China. UK steel also contains large amounts of recycled material.
Edited by daveyjp on 27/05/2009 at 21:58
|
bet that place is upset
i weighed two cars in today that were depoluted and crushed ready for the train and boat journey to china or india and i only got 70 quid a tonne so that place wont be paying its way at this moment in time
|
|
|
|
Just finshed watching a "How do they do it?" programme on Discovery, about just that! Most of them go to a giant crushed come mincing machine in Newport which can deal with 480 cars an hour! All fluids and nasties are drained out and then it smashed to bits and metals and plastics are separated and sorted. Steel shreds go to China etc to be made into new sheet steel
|
|
Didn't realise the prgramme was actually on now! I saw it a few months ago.
|
A year ago, light iron was £275 a tonne, it then plumetted to £10 a tonne by Christmas 2008. It is now £45 a tonne.
The cars are usually crushed and sent to a metal dealer who shreds them, and separates the shredded materials, using magnets, compressed air etc.. this process is called Dense Media Separation. These shreddings are then sent to customers such as Corus usually by rail or ship.
|
What about them old 8 track players. I still want one.
MD
|
|
A garage I know that ends up scrapping cars first gets some money from getting the fire brigade to use them to practice taking the roof off ;-) Then they scrap them. Well I assume they get something.
|
|
|
What about them old 8 track players. I still want one.
Go to an Autojumble, MD, plenty around!
|
Go to an Autojumble MD plenty around!
AND a Mk. 1 Granada or Consul as I remember some were still called?
MD
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
What is the metal then used for? Coca cola cans?
Certainly not Coke cans, they're aluminium.
'Newer' cars are meant to be made of completely recyclable materials, including all the plastic parts, which are each identified to indicate what they are made of. But goodness knows how a crushed bodyshell is separated out - other than magnetic bits from non-magnetic.
Edited by Webmaster on 28/05/2009 at 01:51
|
Last scrap yard I took scrap to took hold of cars, bashed them about and scrunched them up - a crane with a grab on it picked the car up and dropped it again until it was in a manageable bundle. Oil, antifreeze, brake fluid, bits of glass flying everywhere.
I have never been so afraid for my life; unloaded the van throwing the stuff out the back, didn't bother to claim for the Aluminium separately and shot back to the weighbridge.
Terrifying. Extraordinary too. Only 18 months ago.
|
I remember those "old school" scrapyards. Piles of cars and partially stripped engines littered all over the place, that peculiar mud which oozed oil as you walked on it, the smell of engine fluids and damp in the air. Oh, and usually an oily Alsatian eyeing you up warily as you went about teasing whatever bit you needed, off of what was usually the most akwardly located car in the most precarious pile in the whole place.
The new "dismantling centres" are a completely different world. The cars are put into a workshop, drained of all fluids which go off to be recycled or processed appropriately. Useful parts are removed, cleaned up, catalogued and tagged, and the bare metal leftovers are then crushed "clean". I saw some of this going on at a big one in Bucks, and was very impressed.
|
|
I thought 'elf and safety killed of those old school scrapies a long time ago. It is amazing just 18 months ago they are still operating. I went to one of these new bread of scrap yards which specialised in Fords. I spent £40 on a reverse switch (which didn't work) and a door lock machanism so they are a lot more expenmsive than the old school ones.
|
sq
Could you not take it back, and get your money back, if it was bought "over the counter"?
Edited by Pugugly on 28/05/2009 at 17:42
|
It had all ready been fitted to be fair the door lock thing was a good price as they were about £80 new (it was the inside hande which has the cable attached) but my switch was a very rare kind (Fiestas used two different kinds) and it was low down making it a failly tricky job without a jack. My mechanic fitted it so it was a lot of hassle to ask him to remove it so I could take it back. The scrap yard was also a good 7-8 miles cross city away so when factoring in my time it was not worth it for a tenner.
|
>>It cost me £40 and didn't work.
>>it was not worth taking it back for a tenner.
Hmmm.
The scrapyard to which I refer was not a car recycling centre, but a proper "scrap yard". In inner London, it was full of "builders" delivering surplus scrap metal. There was a fire burning in one corner, where timber and plastic were "incinerated", the smoke and smell was amazing (it shows up on Google Earth!). The risk of having a ton of bent metal dropped on ones head was high.
|
|
|
|
The one I use would have exchanged the switch without quibbling. I've had everything from complete driveshafts (with joints, boots and in a sealed polybag with 30 day guarantee) a gearbox, tailgate struts, bits of trim, electric window motors and all sorts. I had one duff instrument panel which was exchanged in minutes without any argument, otherwise every part has outlasted my ownership of the car. Prices usually 20-50% of new cost.
|
The switch was £11 inc the VAT, the rest was for the lock.
That eposide was one of the first times I waas thinking about getting rid of it as the car was nothing but trouble. Every week a new fault appeared with the damn thing.
|
|
Rattle - as you live in Manchester - if you need used parts, you should go to Car Transplants on the Chester side of Nantwich. Prices obviously depend on supply and demand, but I have bought a couple of wiper motors, about £20 compared with well over £100 new.
|
Pimhole Fold in Bury used to be full of scrapyards, are they still going? How much was a new brakelight switch, VAG switches are areound £9.............
I live 10 mins for C T and its often cheaper to buy new than from them, they even sell pre used engine coolant......................................................
|
what?
pre owned antifreeze>?
does anybody actually buy it?
|
They operate on the BOGOF principle, return with the bottle for a free top up..............
|
After a service, I used to give my drained engine oil to my dad who'd stick it in the starship mileage Transit he owned, which used to burn the stuff as fast as he'd put it in.
|
|
|
|
