Scrap auto parts business picks up amid downturn
LOS ANGELES -- It took Eduardo Rodriguez about an hour of sweaty work to wrestle a transmission part out of a Dodge Ram pickup, but he didn't seem to mind.
The auto mechanic cradled the grimy prize in his oily hands as if it were a bowling trophy. His task complete, he was headed to the cashier window at Pick Your Part, a yard where customers are free to yank parts out of wrecked cars on their own. It's located in an industrial section of working-class Wilmington, a Los Angeles neighborhood.
"Customers don't have enough money to buy a new part," explained Rodriguez, 20, of Hawaiian Gardens, Calif. He figured he was saving a lot for one of his cash-strapped customers who can't afford the best right now.
Lately, thousands of recession-weary customers and their mechanics are joining Rodriguez in the vibrant do-it-yourself parts yards tucked away on the outskirts of towns around the country. It's an interesting but relatively small corner of the fragmented auto-salvage business.
"In general, recycled automotive parts sales are up," says Jennifer Johnson, spokeswoman for the Automotive Recyclers Association, an industry trade group. "People are fixing their older vehicles rather than buying new vehicles."
Business is good for the Pull-A-Part chain, an Atlanta-based operation with 23 do-it-yourself yards in the South and Midwest, says Steve Levetan, senior vice president. "We're seeing more and more people."
At a time when homes are being foreclosed upon, jobs lost and cars repossessed, it's hard to argue with the economics of used parts. Levetan points out that customers can buy an entire used car door for $30. And there's "no (price) difference if it's from a BMW or a VW."
The same trend has been at work in the Pick Your Part boneyard in Wilmington, the last stop on the way to the crusher for more than a 1,000 wrecks at any given time. A forklift constantly replenishes the supply with freshly decommissioned clunkers while removing picked-over carcasses. On a recent weekend, the stock was diverse: from a mid-1960s Rambler American to a late-model, burned-up Range Rover.
