scrapping your car?

BostonB

TBH I never thought much about how a car is scrapped before I saw this thread.


Whats the most durable/reliable car? So least things to go wrong. But still usable/comfortable as a daily driver? Thinking along those lines, I wonder how something like a Elise will last long term? Ignoring the likelihood of crashes etc.

greenermetals

im dealing with new cars every day as scrap, and ive had 10 year old alfas, fiats citroens, renaults, all only fit for the scrap heap. on the other hand, there are marques that last, mercs, beemers, saabs, they will probably last forever, but what i find with a lot of cars, is that its not rust that gets them, its the constant small things, a lot of them electrical, window wiper motors, starters, alternators, valves, catalytic converters, bushings, drives that start going wrong all the time when the car hits 10 years old. after most cars hit 10 to 12 years old you cannot guarantee that it'll start every morning and maintenance costs will be constant.

This means that those who can afford to upgrade will, meaning more new cars.

anyway, my issue isnt with the life of the car, how long it lasts, its about what being done with them when they definately need scrapped. as i have said before, we dont sell parts, we strip the car down segregate at source and sell the marketable resources (aluminium, copper, some plastics, metals etc.) in them. some of the parts are exported to be reconditioned, an avenue that reaps far smaller financial reward than direct selling to the public. but once the part is reconditioned, the reconditioner offers a warantee over that part. so it doesnt matter to us what age it is when it comes in. it does matter to those that are selling parts to the public.

i have agreed that a lot of the recycling regs seem to be jobs for the boys, and agree that there has to be a more efficient way to reprocess waste. we are hamstrung by this legislation as much as the end user. i agree that a lot of cars are prematurely scrapped, i have said it was a sin on my previous posts. but surely it can be seen that a car that is scrapped must be dealt with properly?

BostonB

Is there much to scrap in an Elise, alu body etc.

greenermetals

tbh never done one. those cars that are really expensive will invariably be broken as much as possible for parts, if it ever would be taken off the road it would go to make up another one.

this is real reduce reuse recycling, but it is only because it is economically viable.

the reason cars get scrapped is because

a) the car is costing more to run than buying a new one, when all things are taken into account, such as spare parts, mechanical costs, loss of time due to unreliability.

and

b) the car is not sufficiently valuable to maintain, ie no niche value, being the last of its kind, or aesthetic value, looking nice to the owner.

the mass produced cheap and cheerful cars of the last ten years are the ones that have a limited lifespan. you pay less for a citroen saxo because it will not last as long as a bmw. it doesnt pay to keep spending money keeping these cars going when the newer version of the same car will cost less to run and maintain.

unfortunately, due to the scrappage scheme perverting the market, a lot of good cars with a lot of miles left in them are being scrapped. we had a lovely lexus l400 in here with leather interior, just driving it up to the depollution rig you could feel how nice a car it was, but the tax on it was way too high, the driver couldnt afford to keep it, and he couldnt sell it as nobody else could afford it. its now in a cube roughly 1m x 1m x 1.5m

its sad but its true.

BostonB

Of the 3 cars I've scrapped or sold instead of fixing, it was not because they couldn't be fixed. But that the cost of the fix didn't make financial sense. The cars didn't wear out. In one case it was partially a massive increase in insurance (not dues any claims by me). At that point, it simply made more sense to buy something else.

greenermetals

it rarely is because they couldnt be fixed, any part of a car, given enough time and money can be fixed, look at the state of some of these antique cars before the enthusiasts get a hold of them. the government often creates situations that punish people for holding onto things. whenever it becomes more expensive to keep a car going than to get a replacement, there will always be scrap cars. often it is not the fault of the car, or its owner, but car tax, insurance, costs of replacement parts, fuel economy, or more recently the scrappage deal that make it more advantageous for the owner to get rid of it.

the scrappage deal was not an environmentally driven piece of legislation. the low emissions things was only a there to placate the environmentalists and reduce protests against what was essentially a measure designed, albeit by artificial means, to create demand and therefore jobs.

part of the scrappage scheme was that the proper docs had to be in place, the cert of destruction. I was speaking to people in shannon the other day, (we have recently started deregistering vehicles online) and they say that there have been over 30,000 cods issued this year. This is only due to the scrappage.

what happens if the 2008 levels of 14,000 cods is posted next year? revenue are going to start saying, where are all these cars going? how much tax are we losing? the scrappage can be seen in this light as an intelligence gathering exercise, creating a precedent which the authorities will use in the future.

I think people need to be careful, the government are going to start looking for more tax from cars. dressing it up as environmental tax, they will insist on cars being taxed at all times. they may, as in the north allow you to declare that the car is off the road, but up there if you are caught on the rd after declaring it otherwise, automatic £1000 fine, no questions. Providing you do declare it off the rd, if its like the north you have to tell them where it is parked and consent to inspection. what happens if youve scrapped the car, it isnt available for inspection, and youve no cod to prove its gone.

Its doesnt matter that the car was too good to scrap, that you gave it to someone at your front door, the trail of documents end at your feet.

Just today we had a woman phone from sweden who has received notification of a fine for a car going through the m50 toll. she scrapped her car here in 2008. we were able to reissue her with a copy of the cod as proof of scrappage, and we also have her logbook kept here (we have to store them in fireproof cabinets for 7 years)

its all there, the documentary trail, the lack of money in public purses, and the political will to keep punishing motorists.

admittedly i have a vested interest, the more people do things through the book, the more cars come through our gates, but it is also in the drivers interests to do things right, or else it might bite ye in the bum (to quote my old ma)

greenermetals

in reference to your question bostonb, i dont know about lotus elises, but judging by normal cars that we get in every week, the best put together car (and by this i mean the hardest to take apart and smash up) are saabs (the old 900s). they seem to have an unbelievable build quality. even when they are baled, the baler cant get them near as small as other makes. i wouldnt put my family in any saxo, you should see them smashing up, theres nothing to them. old toyotas also have incredible longevity. mercs are better than beemers, but the best would be saab.

junkyarddog

greenermetals wrote: »

Just today we had a woman phone from sweden who has received notification of a fine for a car going through the m50 toll. she scrapped her car here in 2008. we were able to reissue her with a copy of the cod as proof of scrappage, and we also have her logbook kept here (we have to store them in fireproof cabinets for 7 years)

If you deregistered the car properly she wouldn't have had that problem.
The logbook should be sent back to shannon straight away,with a copy of the COD,keep copy of the COD for your own records,and the original cert to the owner of the scrapped car.
I work in a licenced breakers,We never keep the taxbooks.

greenermetals

nd-of-life vehicles (ELV) Directive

Are you getting rid of your old car?

You have an old car. It is clapped out and you want to get rid of it. So what do you do?

Firstly, you need to know about new regulations, which came into effect for all end-of-life cars from 1 January 2007. The Regulations introduce an EU Directive aimed at ensuring that old cars are depolluted and dismantled in a manner that doesn’t pose a threat to our environment or to human health.

The regulations place obligations on the producers (that is to say vehicle manufacturers/importers), dismantlers/vehicle scrap facilities and you the car owner.

In future, facilities dealing with end-of-life vehicles must meet stringent new environmental standards for the collection, storage and treatment of end-of-life vehicles. These facilities are known as authorised treatment facilities (ATF’s).

You should bring your old car to an authorised treatment facility (ATF) which will issue you with a Certificate of Destruction which will confirm that the vehicle is being depolluted and dismantled in an environmentally safe manner.

The facility will then notify the Vehicle Registration Unit of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in Shannon, Co. Clare and the destruction of your vehicle will be noted in the records of the National Vehicle File.

The only document you need to give the facility is the Vehicle Registration Certificate (RF101) or the log book for the car.


im afraid your company must be doing it wrong. the logbook must be kept at the atf with the yellow copy of the cod for seven years from date of issue. we also have to keep them in a fireproof cabinet.

junkyarddog

Nope.green form to car owner,white copy and book to shannon,yellow company records.
As specified by our local authority,but I find there can be differences in the interputation of the rules from aera to aera.

greenermetals

Waste management (End of Life Vehicles) Regulations 2006

Article 22


Notification of Certificate of Destruction to the National Vehicle Records.

22. (1) Where an end-of-life vehicle, or an abandoned vehicle that is a specified vehicle, has been deposited at an authorised treatment facility for appropriate treatment and recovery and that vehicle has been treated in accordance with the provisions of article 15 and the Second Schedule of these Regulations -
(a) if that facility is in the State and that vehicle is registered in the State, the owner or operator of that facility shall notify the Minister of the issue of the certificate of destruction and all relevant information specified in the Third Schedule and shall, notwithstanding anything contained in any regulation, retain that vehicle's registration document

We have to keep them for 7 years so that we can be audited at any time, i seriously suggest you think about your system.

greenermetals

in fact i was looking at the newer logbooks and it actually says on them that they must be retained by the atf

junkyarddog

greenermetals wrote: »

in fact i was looking at the newer logbooks and it actually says on them that they must be retained by the atf

I'll discuss the topic of retaining taxbooks with my boss when I see him,
but I'm genuinely interested to know how a car scrapped two years ago came up in the last owners name,and not the facility it was scrapped at,
possibly shannon at fault?

greenermetals

it mustve been a cloned plate, it was the same make and model of car, except that we had scrapped it 2 years before. she was phoning us from sweden after getting a big fine in the post. i dont even know how they tracked her to sweden. i can only imagine it mustve been a mistake by shannon. the lady that deals with all that is in after 9, i'll ask her what the craic was and get back.

one thing i do know is if it was down to a civil service mistake, it wouldnt be a surprise

greenermetals

posted a new thread on this junkyard, cos i had heard rumours of the like of this thing happening before, its m50 fine on scrapped car.