General
Look At American Imports As An Option
We have talked about USA export salvage before but someone in the UK mentioned to us not long after, that the correct terminology should have been American Imports, as clearly the customers buying are not exporting but importing. OK, so we stand corrected, but not matter what the terminology there is no doubt of the selection of American Imports both salvage and normal running cars that are available a prices well below the prices in the UK.
On saying this, we are talking about selected makes and models, as ceratin cars made in the USA are in fairness not that good and will have no appeal, so any search for an American Import should be done on a “what is in demand” process to ensure that you can resell the vehicle, at a later time.
Amercian import salvage givs you even more flexibility on price, remember in the UK, you pay VAT on the total cost of the vehicle, so you save on the purchase of the vehicle and then again on Vat paymenst when the car hits the ports. The selection is amazing from VW camper vans, in demand anywhere in the world to custom options with huge wheels and bouncing suspension, and then there are the classic cars both built in the USA and some originally imported from Europe.
The total cot of delivery and import taxes should be considered in all cases, you may save on VAT if you buy a car made in the UK, where VAT was paid to the UK at the time of purchase. Anyway check out the options, which constantly change.
Auctions For Cars And Some Front Doors
Sometimes the best deals for buying a salvage vehicle or any car for that matter is not a dedicated auto auction but more general auctions like closure houses up and down the USA and the UK. Here we can buy the whole contents of a business that may have included a fleet of vehicles plus computer equipment and even furniture.
A recent aution was for the contents of a home improvement store, riht next to 5 delievery vans, some in good order and some only fit for salvage was a huge amount of home DIY materials from electric drills to dozens of front doors. Standing next to the bosses Mercedes was a batch of composite doors in several colour and designs, right next to UPVC and wooden doors that would look good on the front of any home.
The point is, somtimes there are not a lot of car buyers at a general aution and so prices remain low and as there is no second auction of good that don’t seel, you get that vehicle for a great price.
In this example we have used composite doors as an example but clearly many buyers went away with some useful DIY products to help them improve their home, including myself who ended up buying 3 front doors, for reasons I don’t want to discuss here.
There can be a downside, when the vehicle on sale are gigh in demand and the auction is well advertised and you end up with 5 potenial buyers for one car and hence the prices go high.
USA Export Salvage
Much of the salvage that goes though the USA auto salvage auction system cannot be given a new title so therefore either finds itself scrapped for auto parts or sold to other countries where it has its own way of testing cars and often shows no history except that the car was previously regitered abroad.
There is a good and bad sode to this type of business , exporting salvage. The good side is that some makes and models are much more expensive outside of the USA, which means they do become cost effective to repair, where in the USA they could be deemed as non repairable. Certain German models for instance can be cost effective to export from teh USA repair to a good standard pass the local roadworthiness test and everything be good business. This is also applicable to the breaker market also, as the parts on these cars can also be worth a lot more in other countries.
The bad side of this business is where non roadworthy cars are exported ot countries who do not have the safetry standards in place they do in the USA or say the UK. Certain countries could export a a salvage car from the States which is just unsafe and non roadworthy and bodge up the based stuff and then take a dangerous car on the road.
A new company that is deciding to help foriegners buy salvage cars from the states is Salvagesparefinder that also does UK salvage. They now have become a broker for Coparts and let people buy usa salvage without any dealers licence
How Excavators Become Salvage
As we have mentioned before salvage is not just about cars and vans, but also excavators, diggers driven with steel and rubbers tracks. As these machines are built to withstand the toughest of conditions questions are often asked, how do these tracked vehicles become salvage and end up in auctions around the world?
Well we have some footage that will help explain this. Talk about a lack of health and safety, this excavator is sitting on an edge of a building site trying to know down a building, watch what happens next and you will get a clear idea of how these vehicles end up in auction with some damage to them. In many cases these building companies claim on their insurance to get a new excavator or relevant steel or rubber tracked vehicle.
Its Been Confirmed Cars Are More Expensive
We mentioned this a few posts ago that the recession may send the prices of cars up with the lack of vehicles against the demand. Well it now has been confirmed by CAPS the company that publishes trade car price, stating that your car is increasing in value even whilst it is standing on the drive. Some vehicles that were extremely unpopular just 12 months ago, have increased in value the most with some 4×4’s increasing in value over £3000, not a small amount. This obviously has been compounded by the low prices last year.
This obviously affects the salvage market, as clearly more profit can be made from each car repaired. Many who have been used to really cheap salvage prices at auction now have to recalculate their actual costs against profit, with some just not wanting to pay more for cars. You tend to get used to prices dropping but not increasing. In fact this is the first time since records began that second hand cars have increased in value, except for some classic cars, or supercars.
Of course a pending question is how long will these high prices stay with us. For example it takes time to repair a salvage car, in this time is it possible that prices could drop back to normal levels again.
Recession End Knocking prices Of Cars Up
All the figures show pretty much worldwide that there has been growth in many economies and even though we are not likely to get back to normal for a while, things seem to be improving. When this type of news occurs, then consumer confidence rises and this may be a factor to why many vehicles at auctions are going higher in price than expected.
There are many customers leaving pre bid amounts at the salvage auctions only to find vehicles seem to be realising higher prices. It also could be many have delayed any big purchase for so long now, that when even a glimpse of an improvement in the economy send prices higher.
We have noticed in the UK a shortage of salvage cars for sale, probably due to the holiday period where cars have been delayed from auction until sufficient staff are back into the salvage yards to service the sales and quantity of cars.
The new car market has only seen a very small increase in new sales, as it is difficult to measure if the scrappage scheme is working, as the growth experienced in Germany has just not happened over here. Anyway, if you are after a bargain, get out your glasses guide and recheck you prices, just to make sure you can buy as much as you could 6 months ago.
Wear Parts
You have heard us talk about the excavators on sale as salvage lots bit recently there seems to be a lot of wear parts available too. Instead of buying the full vehicles in one go, there seems to be a market for second hand wear parts from these salvage vehicles that have found their way into salvage auctions.
I suppose these auction sites and yards need to get their money from any source available and one thing is for sure there certainly is a market for used wear parts, probably because of the value new. One wonders whether they find themselves going straight onto an excavator or whether there is some more margins being applied as these wear parts are sold on again.
The trucks that are required to transport these large items around is also impressive, although again there must be some involved in the shipping back to the warehouses where these parts will be stored. I very much doubt these wear parts will be left outside for the world to have access to.
There wee suggestions that maybe dedicated auctions should be put together consisting of wear parts and all excavator spares including rubber tracks which have a limited lifespan. Hey if it save money, we are all for it, after all that is what salvage auctions are for.
Mini Excavator Salvage
It is not just cars you get within salvage auctions up and own the USA and the UK but often building equipment also and recently quite a lot of mini excavators. So long as these are safe, these can be good for resale as they just need to be put on a trailer and transported to where they can used. However you need to be careful because getting holds of mini excavator parts can be tricky especially of you are after used parts.
Take rubber tracks for instance. 3 days solid and still no joy, these type of parts are probably better buying new anyway, but when you add the cost of the new rubber tracks to the cost of the salvage unit, the price starts to rocket up. Although quite easy to fix, the absence of good used parts, or even an online part service like they have with car parts, make the job harder.
So the advice is clear, if you are going to buy machinery like a min excavator, then first do your homework and find out where you can get these parts. If you can’t, then you need to factor in the cost of new excavator parts to the price you are prepared to go to at auction.
How They do It In Canada
We often talk about car auctions in the UK and the USA and how the internet has changed how we buy anything via an auction. But here is a video on how to do it in Canada, clearly they have American influence, or is it the other way round we are not sure. But this is a TV advert on how to get people down to the car auctions and to get a good buy on your next car.
It is called the video
Polish Salvage Site Just Released
There has been a demand for salvage from Poland ever since they entered the European Market a few years ago and had access to cars sold in these countries, something they did not have prior. In fact in certain local countries such as Germany it seems the salvage market is past its peak with prices driven high by the influx of Polish buyers.
The polish for car salvage is Samochody Okazja even so there seems to be very few sites in Poland written on this subject probably because of the lack of vehicles or systems to dispose vehicles in that country compared to the UK or USA.
A new site called salvagesparefinder.pl has been created to help those who only speak the polish language to locate salvage at first from the UK, but then also in the USA. This will mean that Samochody Okazja will be far easier to research and locate whilst sitting at a computer in Poland.
This site needs support so why not tell the world of the new service about to be offered to the internet surfers of Poland, buying Samochody Okazja cannot be easier. There are plans also to employ Polish operators on the phone all depending on the demand for the service. Lets see how it gets on.