[davew833]

Most of the junkyards I've done business with are backward and illogical, IMHO. (There are a few good ones!) Even the "you-pull" yards, which promise killer deals if you do the work, regularly baffle me with their policies. I tried to buy a complete car out of one place a few years ago and the price seemed pretty good ($500- not an SVX) until they wanted to charge me $100 PER CAR to move 3 or 4 other cars on the row to get to it. I can understand how they make more money from parts than from selling complete cars, but this place completely turns over their inventory probably every 2-3 months, sending many nearly-complete cars to the crusher. I don't get that... Same place is notorious for charging separately for various components of one assembly, like if you want a radiator fan, you're going to get charged separately for the fan, the motor, AND the housing. The fact that most of the employees/cashiers speak english only as their second language doesn't help either. And I don't know how many good engines I've seen completely trashed at the "you pull" places just to retrieve some small internal part. What's up with that?

Then there was the time I tried to buy an alloy wheel on half-price day only to be told that everything was half price EXCEPT wheels, which weren't really "for sale"- you could buy the tire for half price with the wheel and pay a core charge for the wheel which would be refunded if you returned the wheel, OR you could keep the wheel and forfeit the core charge, which was NOT half-price. I argued with the manager for a while over that.

One day in a "full service" yard, I watched a guy spear a rare car through the windshield with a forklift and roll it over on its back, completely ruining most of the sheetmetal, just to pull a $10 power steering line from off the bottom(!)