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Why are "healthy looking" cars in the junk yard?


TheNeedForZ

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Just curious, most cars in the junk yard are not wrecked cars. Usually they have all the parts intact unless they have been stripped by parts scroungers like you and me. Wonder why those cars ended up there?

 

I just returned from a junk yard with some good find. They have a 280ZX, I got 15/16 brake MC and a D6K9 distributor with E12-80 module. All for 60$CDN

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Guest JAMIE T

Transmission failure is a leading cause for "Good" cars in the junk yard. My little brother works at a local "pick and pull" and gives me the heads-up when anything of interest shows up. The other day he called me about a 240SX(I'm looking for one) with a slipping automatic trans that a guy was dropping off becuase it wasn't worth it to him to have trans rebuilt in the 16 year old car. I didn't buy it, but it is cool having the heads-up on stuff like that.

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What I've found in the junkyards I go to is that the junkers usually have ONE major thing wrong with them. They rarely have bad engines AND transmissions. If you can find the obvious reason they're in there - such as having bent wheels, or major body damage, you stand a better chance that the engine and transmission are serviceable.

 

My theory is that cars go to the junkyard when one major component breaks that the owner can't afford to fix, so the car gets abandoned. I bought a BMW engine once, and the only thing wrong with it was a shattered distributor rotor. The owner probably dumped an otherwise fine car when it stopped running, and never thought to (or couldn't afford to) diagnose the problem.

 

I love to go through the cars in the yard and see what I find. Lots of school photos and pieces from little girl's necklaces under the back seat. Pay stubs for minimum-wage jobs and welfare check receipts in the gloveboxes. It makes me sad to see how folks that don't have money have to trash a car because they can't afford to get it fixed anymore, then they have to buy another junker and drive it until it dies, and so on. What a burden it must be to not be able to pay to have your car fixed, and be unable to do the job yourself. It seems like you're always at someone else's mercy.

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Wow I bet that sucks. At least the skater unknown has lowered his IQ by 15.

 

It sucked really bad, just three months after that the clearcoat came off on three parts of the car all at once (hood trunk and near the dent), then the car really looked like crap, then it started rusting at the sunroof under the rubber stripping. Then the engine started burning 1qt per tank, and it barely passed smog befrore that it would probably never pass after that, then the battery cable connection to the battery failed and I couldn't tighten it anymore so I had to jump it to start it half the time, then "the club" broke and it got stolen 1 week later, to my dissapointment 1 month later just before the insurance comapny sent the check it was found within 1/4 mile in an area I drive past every day. Then the A/C switch failed, and the clock was so dim you couln't read it, and the gas gage stopped working it just read empty all the time.

 

At that point I was pretty disgusted with it, and it had 225k miles, and needed new tires and wouldn't start with the key,a nd the battery was nearly dead because the connection was shotty at best. But when you got it running, it ran like a champ.

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