PSA: Scrap Prices are Down, Cheap Projects Everywhere!

Last week, my wife asked me to remove a really old broken Sears deep chest freezer from our basement and our old fridge from a storage shed and scrap them. She's been bugging me for a while to do this, and I had some spare time, so I muscled them onto the truck and brought them to the local scrapper. I left with a $5 bill.

The guy said that scrap keeps falling every week, and it's the lowest it's been in ages. While this sucks for people looking to make some spare cash scrapping metal, it's good for us. Why? Because all those Craigslist derpholes that are threatening to scrap projects if people don't buy them are not going to get much! This is where you swoop in with a couple hundred bucks and buy all the cheap projects you can!

Seriously, go check out your local Craigslist and look at how many cars are trading around $300/under. You'll thank me later.

SilverFleet wrote: You'll thank me later.

Tell that to my front yard. Or wife.

Its glorious. For the first winter in 3 years im back in a sub 500 dollar daily including repairs and fluids. I missed a 300 festiva though :(

It's the worst when people are selling very nice cars on CL for $1 - so annoying and skews my precious bored-at-work-research.

it sucks for me.. we have almost 300 pounds in clean copper from a wiring project at work.. and it's not worth getting rid of at this point.

On the good news front, maybe there will be less houses missing all their copper pipe?

There's a pair of manual Volvo 244s local tempting me that would run less then 1500 for the pair.

Wish the local Craigslist people would figure this out. People think they can get $400-500 for a Jeep Cherokee at the scrap yard.

I just got $85 for 1900lbs of scrap that included a rolling miata tub... The high bid from local scrappers was $50, and that guy ended up not showing up.

I work at a shop that tows cars. We have several abandoned POS's that would normally go to the scrapper. We're now trying to sell them as parts cars with salvage certificates because they are barely worth $100 in scrap.

No, we don't have anything cool.

I snapped out a whole house worth of cast iron soil pipe. The carpenter thought it would be worth something so he helped me carry it out and into the back of his truck. I was all too happy to let him take it away because I still had to haul all of my tools, fittings and leftover new pipe home and wouldn't have fit all of that on top of the scrap. He took it to the scrap yard, and they wouldn't even pay him for it. They offered to let him unload it there, but no money.

I just saw running cars selling for under 1K. I'm shocked and amazed, it hasn't been that way in at least 3 years.

Wow. If you run a search with a minimum price of $5 and a max of $500 you get a nice assortment of beige dailies with automatics. Really, not so bad if you need a point a to point b ride. You could do worse than a $500 1999 Camry that needs a door handle.

For Bonus Points in Maryland, look for 1995 and earlier for the Historic tag option with no state inspection requried. "Why yes, Officer...I'm on my way to the Hyundai Owners Club Concours d'Seoul right now. They are always held on Tuesday mornings..."

Looking at this from a different perspective, I have a truck load of scrap to get rid of. Does anyone know why the prices are so low and if/when they will go back up?

I wish the DA's still selling their beat to hell junk hooptie for a grand or more would get the message....

Been seeing a completely flooded exploder, like to the roof, going for $400.....

bravenrace wrote: Looking at this from a different perspective, I have a truck load of scrap to get rid of. Does anyone know why the prices are so low and if/when they will go back up?

The guys at our local yard are saying the futures arent going up much anytime soon. May see a ten dollar a ton raise around the first of the year.

The flip side of this is that I got hosed a while back after paying $300 for an escort with a "blown head gasket" that ended up being trash and not worth fixing. I was offered $21 for it at the recycler, ended up selling it for parts for $120.

Scrap prices went thru the roof back when China was going thru a building boom. China's economy isn't going so well, so much less demand. Want an eye opener. Google world copper reserves. There are copper mines around the world just sitting on all time high reserves. Not much demand for copper pipe, so I don't see the price of copper scrap going back up for at least the next decade. In fact the price of copper pipe is low enough again, that its not a slam dunk to just use PEX all the time now.

I have a pretty epic scrap pile going at it will only get bigger. I remember cashing in at $60 per ton one year, then watching it climb slowly to $200. Won't make that mistake again, so I'm in it for the long haul this time.

when scrap prices give you lemons, race them

Well, this thread made me try the $5-$500 search on the local CL.

Found this: $500 ask 95 XJ6

Says its a manual transmission (I'll believe that when I see it) and that it only needs a fuel pump (again). But otherwise interesting. Bet you could tow it away for $300 or less.

it is quite impressive what you can buy for under a grand right now if you search a bit. Problem with Michigan is most are rust buckets. If craigslist could filter based on rust holes present or not, it would dramatically speed searches.

rcutclif wrote: Well, this thread made me try the $5-$500 search on the local CL. Found this: $500 ask 95 XJ6 Says its a manual transmission (I'll believe that when I see it) and that it only needs a fuel pump (again). But otherwise interesting. Bet you could tow it away for $300 or less.

3 of the photos highlight the leaping jaguar on the hood. That made me smile.

It would be awesome if sellers would return their prices to sane levels before scrap price boom . . .

Sorry, blown up cars aren't worth $1500. PAP will come tow it way for $75 . . .

Uh oh, just did the $5-500 CL search. All I can say is its a good thing I don't have a trailer...

Sellers probably base their prices off what other cars are listed at, and what the blue book price is. I wonder how often the blue book updates.

I have noticed that Kijiji prices have been dropping a bit lately, but selection has also gotten extremely tight. With the drop in oil, a lot of people are unemployed here and are probably 'downsizing' to the durable commuter crapcans that I love so dearly.

That said, I thought I would never see sub-grand prices again for running cars. I've inspected and passed up four in the last month.