Want to be your own boss?
A metal scrap yard near me started to buy junk cars for a decent price, advertising they will be paying over $500 for old junkers. Great I said, since we usually sell our junked vehicles to American Iron & Metal or AIM. So we decided to give them a try and see if its true or not they will pay over $500 for a junk car. We called the scrap yard ( we didn’t mention we were a tow company that does this for a living and know market prices) so we told them we had a OLD CHEVY VAN G20 SIGHTING and they said yes, bring it over.
When you are selling a vehicle to a scrap yard, call ahead, tell them the make and model of your vehicle, the condition its on and if it’s complete ( meaning it has the engine, transmission, tires ETC) ask them how much is scrap metal per pound for that day, is always good to know how much cash for scrap metal they will pay. not that you are going to sell scrap metal but that will tell you how much they will be willing to pay for your car, truck or van.
Knowing how much does scrap metal sell for and knowing how many pounds your vehicle weights will tell you how much you should get. If you are selling copper, ask them what is the copper price per pound, same for nickel, steel or anything else you want to sell to them before you go there.
Start with the nearest scrap yard to you, and sometimes look at a junkyard map to see where they all are, the more there are, the more competition there is and maybe a better prices for your junk car. Visiting or calling multiple scrap metal places near me gave me an understanding on average prices for commodity metals for that day and also learned how much salvage yard / junkyard/ wrecking yard and scrap yard will pay for a wrecked car.
Scrap metal prices change almost daily, you will need to check a scrap yard prices almost daily for an up to date price, always ask them if they have a price list of a website with a current price list. Local scrap yards tent to compete with one another and if you tell them you have tons of pounds of scrap metals they may give you a higher price that if you only had a few pounds, the more material the better they pay.
A scrap metal yard will try to match other buyer prices if their boss permits it, always ask “whats the best price you can give me?” and tell them you could get a better price somewhere else if you found better prices somewhere else.
Knowing that the main factor on car buyer prices is the value of scrap metals you should know that prices will very all the time.
EVERY DAYScrap metal prices can change daily, on some cases even a few times during the same day, just like other commodity metals like gold and silver prices can change multiple times a day. Sometimes you will be paid a bit more or less than the original quoted price.
EVERY WEEKMore commonly you will see scrap metal prices change weekly than daily, Prices very a few cents per pound, but when you are selling thousands of pounds you will notice the price variation. It is good to keep an eye on scrap metal prices to know how much money you will be getting.
EVERY MONTHThis is the most commun change to scrap metal prices, by the increase or decrease of prices you should know when is the best time to sell your junk car to a scrap yard for cash.
You need to keep track of current scrap metal prices if you decide to sell vehicles to a scrap yard, but if you are only selling one car or truck, then you should call around and get the current price from a few local junkyards, salvage yards and scrap yard to see who will pay you the most that day. The more you wait the less your vehicle will be worth, cars go down in value all the time, the older it gets the less its value. Yes there is also value in the scrap metals but for a company to scrap a car of its metals they need to invest a lot. draid fluids, remove plastics, seats, or any nonferrous materials and shred or crush the vehicle.
