Parting out the donor car, never again! Top 50 reasons

[gvincent]

First I want to thank EvilC, Clive for his assistance and advice on parting out cars, He is probably one of the best.

I am about $100 short of making all my money back on the donor car and I have a ton of parts left to sell yet.

I used Clives pricing spread sheet as a base and made my own very extensive list, I followed his advice about posting on forums.

I posted in the classifieds on LS1.com, LS1LT1.com, Fbody.com, and NewEngland-Motorsports.com

Then Craigslist for RI and Boston.

I haven't listed anything on EBay yet!

 

I got a little miffed by a person in my classified thread on LS1.com saying I was getting rich off parting out a car and so I posted a "50 reasons why I will never part out another car again" list.

One of the Moderators loved it and said it was the best top 50 list he had ever seen!

so I thought I would paste it here for chuckles.

The original post is here:

http://www.ls1.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55305&page=3

 

I will never part out another car in my life!!!!

 

It is a LOT of work. besides stripping the car which is obvious and a lot of hard work, cuts, smashed fingers, bruised knuckles, sore back, Lumps on your head, sweaty and dirty long nights and wasted weekends, I needed to:

 

1. Buy an engine hoist

2. Buy another set of jackstands

3. Buy a car tent to cover the car and work on it in the New England weather.

4. Rent a spring removal tool

5. Buy a fuel line removal tool

6. Buy another bottle jack

7. Replace broken tools

8. Buy a couple of worklights and a long long extension cord.

9. Buy lots of packing tape

10. Buy packing material and boxes

11. Drive around time (GAS spent) and scrounge for big cardboard boxes in dumpsters.

12. Spend hours packing this stuff up for shipping

13. Drive Time to the UPS store (GAS spent) to get items weighed and sized for shipping quotes all the time

14. Waste weekends waiting for people to show up that never do! wasting valuable weekend time!

15. Holding items for people who change their minds when you could of sold it to somebody else!

16. Answering emails into the wee hours of the morning.

17. Taking pictures of everything and emailing them.

18. keeping track of listings on 4 forums and updating the lists and checking for questions.

19. Time spent Researching Ebay and junk yards to come up with prices.

20. Time spent in a shop manual on how to take something apart or identify what it is and what it is called.

21. Making trips twice (Time and Gas spent) to the post office for people who don't want to pay ups charges and want shipping quotes.

22. Making trips twice to the Greyhound bus terminal for the extra large items people don't want to spend on UPS charges and want shipping quotes

23. Having PayPal take a precentage of every dollar you make.

24. Waiting for money orders to arrive, checking the mail box daily

25. Emailing deadbeats that said they sent a money order and never did.

Not getting paid for something you shipped.

26. Having the person who did come by and bought some stuff ask for some extra free stuff

27. Having a person come by and break stuff and then not buy it (What was a Mint center console)

28. Waiting for an email response from a person who said they wanted an item and you have another buyer but as a courtesy to the first buyer you give him first dibs, then he doesn't want it and now you lost the other buyer because he found it someplace else.

29. Contributing to making UPS even richer

30. Haggling with a buyer over a $10 part for 1/2 hour

31. Helping a buyer install the rear hatch and spoiler on his car.

32. Hours spent testing out everything to make sure it works before I took it apart.

33.Paying too much for the wreck to begin with.

34. Having this eyesore tent in your front yard for months.

35. Having parts laying around everywhere.

36. Having to find places to store and put all these parts.

37. getting calls from the west coast at 1:00AM

38. Having to bottle up and dispose all oil, antifreeze etc, drive to recycle place (Gas and Time)

39. Having to buy additional gas cans to store the old gas from the gas tank which was a little over a 1/4 tank, (Used in lwan mower only)

40. Paying for extra trash removal.

41. Having a buyer say it was the wrong color when you sent him pictures.

42. Having to figure out what I am going to do with the shell once it is completely stripped.

43. Calling scrap metal places to see who will take what

44. Buying a bunch of blades for the sawzall to get ready to cut it up

45. Gas and time to make several trips to the metal scrapper.

46. Not having time to spend with my family

47. Trying to keep up with my normal job and not being too tired.

48. Having a pissed off wife for not spending time

49. Having a pissed off wife for having all this junk around and looking like a white trash junk yard in a nice neighborhood.

50. and most importnat not having the time to work on my own project car which is what I bought the wrecked car for in the first place for, I should of just bought the engine and transmission from the junk yard in the firts place.

Now the scary part, what do I do with all the stuff that doesn't sell?

EBAY??? Oh no here we go again! but now I also make eBay richer!!

 

So if you think it is profitable go ahead and do it. There is a reason why there are junk yards and why they wanted the same amount of money for the engine and transmission for what I paid for the entire wreck.

I wold of loved for somebody to make an offer on the whole rolling chassis. too late for that now!

When it comes to cars, "the parts are worth more than the whole" they say, that is why most cars that are stolen are chopped up for their parts.

 

IT has taken up all my spare time for the past month though and I have had absolutely zero time on my Z, my schedule is out the window now and I am giving myself until the end of August to be completely rid of the donor car.

 

Hey VinhZXT what would you charge to come up to southern MA and do an LT1 wiring job on a 76 280Z?

Thanks all,

Greg

[280Zone]

Try it with a 36 year old Z car giving you a very small market. I am down to a few more boxes and 5 major shell pieces.

 

One bright side, I now own a plasma cutter!

[Z-Noob]

Did you end up basically getting the drivetrain for free? If so, I think its probably worth it.

[GeeZ]

I purchased a '78 with the purpose of using the parts I needed for my other '78 and parting/selling the rest. Thanks for the insight.

[gvincent]

Since I just sold a few more parts, yes the motor, trans, ECU, wiring harness, driveshaft and a few other parts I'm keeping are now free.

I also gave my son who has and now drives the first donor car (See my Gallery), I bought a 95 Formula, with very little damage, the complete front bumper assembly, both front fenders, the windshield, wiper motor, the tires, drivers door switches, fog lamps, and a bunch of other parts as well.

 

It is much harder to sell the Z car stuff for some reason, I still have the 4 speed tranny, ECU and complete EFI wire harness to get rid of.

Have to go pack some parts before I go to work now.

If anybody needs help or wants to use my parts list and pricing as a base for making their owm let me know, I will gladly help out as other here on HybridZ have helpd me.

Thanks,

Greg

[deja]

ROTFLMAO, I feel your pain. I saw your ad on fbody.com. I did the same thing and still have a ton of stuff left. Biggest problem is some stuff is just too big or heavy to ship. But I actually enjoyed stripping the Z28 and cutting the totaled body into manageable junks with a saws-all was a blast. Plus I've gotten my drive train for free. But I do have a hood, hatch and complete front end for A 94 Z28 which nobody seems to want!

[jknc90]

If any of you neighbors have z28's, sneak by at night and bang up their hood, hatch and front end. Then offer to sell him yours with the "I feel sorry for my neighbor discount" haha jk...dont do that

[EvilC]

Glad to hear you are at the top of the hill and got all of your donor parts for the swap for free!!! Yes, it is a lot of work but worth it in the end when the parts pay for themselves and give you a little extra on the side. I still have z28 parts left over that I am holding for a rainy day to sell...or if someone would just buy it. lol!!

 

As for boxes.... you can get free ones shipped to you from the post office. Best part about it, the boxes come in a box! Supermarkets, parts stores and body shops are the three main places to get big boxes from and they are always happy to give them away. Glad I could be of help.

 

Clive

[qwik240z]

I have been parting out Datsun 510s for about 15 years. I made a deal with my wife that I would not use any of "Our Money" for my car projects. I need to fund my car habit buy buying and selling other cars and parts.

 

Greg, While alot of what you say is true, you need to decide what your "Free Time" is worth. If you spent 100 hours of your time parting out that car and you got the drivetrain you needed for free then how much did your drivetrain actually cost you?

 

Figure out how much your free time is worth to you. I figure mine like this:

 

Hypothetically, If I get paid $25 an hour at work then my free time has to be worth at least twice that amount.

 

So at $50 an hour for 100 hours that comes out to $5000 for your drive train. Could you have bought it for less? If so, maybe it was not worth it. Could you have saved up the $5000 to buy it? If so, how long would it have taken you to save up $5000 to buy it? What would you have had to sacrifice to use that $5000 for the purchase? Would you have had to work extra hours to save the money? Or maybe taken on a part time job?

 

To some people, it will not be worth it to part out a car for "Free Parts". To others, it is a good way to bring in cash that you otherwise wouldn't have.

 

If you do decide to part out cars to make some cash for your projects, do it on your own terms. Don't sit around on the weekend waiting for somone to not show up. Don't haggle over a $10 part. Actually, don't sell $10 parts. They are not worth you time. You will lose more then $10 by selling a $10 part. Better to throw it away. Even giving it away will cost you more time and/or money.

 

There are ways to save time and money if you work smart. UPS, Fed-ex and USPS have shipping calculators on their websites so you don't have to run out to get an estimate. A cheap bathroom scale works fine for estimating shipping weights. Always add the cost of your time and packaging materials to the shipping. If it will take you an hour to build a crate to ship a hood, charge the buyer for it. A JY charges more if they pull a part vs. you coming and pulling the part.

 

If the buyer is not willing to pay for the service, don't sell it to them. It is your valuable time. Don't give it away.

 

If anyone needs any 510 parts, let me know.

[deja]

If any of you neighbors have z28's, sneak by at night and bang up their hood, hatch and front end. Then offer to sell him yours with the "I feel sorry for my neighbor discount" haha jk...dont do that

 

LOL, don't think I haven't thought about that!!!!!

[jknc90]

LOL, don't think I haven't thought about that!!!!!

 

just trying to help out a fellow hybridz-er

[gvincent]

Hey, Quik240Z excellent words of wisdom. Yeah, I may be ahead of the game monetarily and have a free drivetrain but not when you add my time. But again I don't have the funds and it took me 3 years to scrape together the extra cash to get me as far as I am today on this project. In Sept. it will have been a year since I bought the 2nd Z for my HybridZ dream car. Now I can continue the project as I have some funds to spend and more parts to sell.

Clive thanks again for more good info.

I figure I am now 4 months behind my original schedule, and if I don't finish until November at least it will be ready for me in the spring next year.

Thanks,

Greg

[qwik240z]

Hey, Quik240Z excellent words of wisdom. Yeah, I may be ahead of the game monetarily and have a free drivetrain but not when you add my time. But again I don't have the funds and it took me 3 years to scrape together the extra cash to get me as far as I am today on this project. In Sept. it will have been a year since I bought the 2nd Z for my HybridZ dream car. Now I can continue the project as I have some funds to spend and more parts to sell.

Clive thanks again for more good info.

I figure I am now 4 months behind my original schedule, and if I don't finish until November at least it will be ready for me in the spring next year.

Thanks,

Greg

 

And you can have it ready in time for the 2008 Z car convention in Ohio.

[gvincent]

Now there is a thought! I could make that!

I'm going to spend this weekend prepping and painting the engine bay and swap the oilpan and oil pump on the LT1 and maybe next weekend drop it in.

Thanks all,

Greg

[grumpyvette]

"I got a little miffed by a person in my classified thread on LS1.com saying I was getting rich off parting out a car "

 

your list is only too true! but youll eventually learn to ignore AS$%$%^^&s who say things like that who are clueless about what it takes to build a car on a very limited budget... Id have said, OK, you pick it up, give me what I paid and YOU get rich selling the parts, I don,t think I can pack any more army foot lockers with cash as it is.... I spent close to $10,000 once on building a bunch of custom engine parts, but after all the R&D, machine costs, dealing with jerk suppliers,morron machinists ETC. and hassle of marketing them at a reasonable price, to help other guys in the hobby, it quickly became a LOOSING DEAL,and it was basically wasted time.

theres always guys who sit back and say, (I could build that cheaper, or better) but damn few will ever lift a finger to try, running off at the mouth is easy, pissing on others efforts is a sure sign of limited intelligence , BUT DOING SOMETHING CORRECTLY takes EFFORT and SKILL

[specialk]

While alot of what you say is true, you need to decide what your "Free Time" is worth. If you spent 100 hours of your time parting out that car and you got the drivetrain you needed for free then how much did your drivetrain actually cost you?

 

Figure out how much your free time is worth to you. I figure mine like this:

 

Hypothetically, If I get paid $25 an hour at work then my free time has to be worth at least twice that amount.

 

So at $50 an hour for 100 hours that comes out to $5000 for your drive train. Could you have bought it for less? If so, maybe it was not worth it. Could you have saved up the $5000 to buy it? If so, how long would it have taken you to save up $5000 to buy it? What would you have had to sacrifice to use that $5000 for the purchase? Would you have had to work extra hours to save the money? Or maybe taken on a part time job?

 

As a counterpoint to the 'how much is my time worth' I would contend that my free time is worth $0/hr. Why? Because this is a hobby where I'm not supposed to make money. If I wasn't doing this, I'd be doing something else that cost money. I could fish, hunt, m'cycle, golf, etc., etc., all of which cost money every time I do them (some of them more than others).

 

To carry that a step farther, let's say I got a part time job to pay for the drivetrain. Let's say I get paid $10/hr. First off, I wouldn't have as much free time (which, as you will recall, is worth $50/hr). So, by working, I'm losing $40/hr. Yes, I'm being facetious, but it was fun.

 

Anyway, I've thought about the PT job to pay for toys/hobbies and always decided that I'd rather wait, dicker, barter, etc. But, to each his/her own.

[dead2me]

I agree.. I will never buy another one to pull the drivetrain out of... F that... too much time, too much wasted energy on ass-gaskets who don't show, want to haggle on already low prices.. yadda yadda.. .my time is worth more than that, and I ended up giving away a rolling shell with a bunch of parts stuffed in it just to get the tank out of here...

 

never again.. not worth it, no way, no how....

[EvilC]

Well it comes down to how much is your time worth, do you have the energy and space to part everything out. Not everyone is good at sales and that may be one reason why some say they will never do it again. As for me I bought my 2002 Z28 with 31k for $6200. 6 months later the car was paid for and with some parts left over. Honestly this was the ONLY way I would have been able to even start a LS1 swap. It was worth every moment because of how close my car is today to being "done". I did not have the $4500 at the time to dish out for a drivetrain. I will say I still cont to buy parts car for a source of cash flow because I do enjoy doing it. Honestly in doing so, I have got to know more members here on a personal level and has been to give help and recieve it at the same time. Sorry Greg didn't mean to high jack the thread.

[gvincent]

Hey Clive, EvilC, no problem I learned alot from you and appreciated your help and guidance on parting out my donor car, I am ahead of the game and have a free drive train to boot right now. I still have a bunch of parts and am still selling parts but at a slower pace. I personally am too old to do this again and this is probably the last car I will build unless the right 1967 427 Stingray coupe comes along at a sweet deal, then all bets are off!

Yes, the "young uns" out there can teach an old dog a trick or two sometimes and I for one am extremely happy that they can.

Now if I can learn a few tricks about wiring this LT1 up to the 280Z and get the ECU programmed I will be much happier.

Thanks everyone!

Greg