Stripping cars - viable business model?

[AJS-]

It's not illegal to sell car parts. Even in England.

Sure if you had 10 cars rotting away and swaying over your neighbour's fence then they would complain and you would have problems, but plenty of people break old cars and sell the parts, and if it doesn't bother anyone then it would only make sense to dip a toe in the water with a few cars before you go for planning permission etc etc

I did especially well with an old Vectra V6 once. It was an absolute pig of a thing to get the bits off, but I got more for the various parts than I ever would have done for the car as a whole.

It's not just the big bits either - silly little things like switches, bits of trim or a mirror can be difficult to find, and will raise a few quid on ebay.

Specialising is good, but I'd also be opportunist. I'll bet there's old cars within 5 miles of your house that someone will be glad to have taken away and will have a couple of hundred quids worth of parts on them.

Good luck.

[V8mate]

JB! said:

V8mate said:

lost in espace said:

If I can get the car to the scrap man he can deal with a lot of the fluids, and presumably pay me for whatever is left of the car. I assume a scappy will take even a shell plus bits I cannot remove?

Waste oils can be disposed at my local tip along with tyres/rims, albeit on a non commercial basis. I was not planning on using torches or such like. Any fuel in the tank can be safely removed and stored for use.

Please keep the comments coming for and against, its still something I am mulling over at the moment before I committed to buying a trailer I wanted to check with the PH massive that I was not being a bit bonkers.

Stripping individual cars quietly in a close garage should not cause any problem for my neighbours.

The fluids will be the first thing you'll need to attend to, not the last and scrapyards will charge you to take away a bare shell as the revenue from it alone will not warrant the visit.

And don't take the guys at the tips for fools; they'll soon recall 'that bloke who brings round 4 tyres every week'.

Eric is right about running such a business from home too.

But...and this is a big but... assuming you ignore the law and get away with doing so, have you thought how the revenue stream will run against the time and expenditure stream?

How would you feel if you had fully dismantled four cars, cleaned and catalogued all serviceable parts, to have only sold one headlamp unit?

bare shells with no interiour/ mechanicals actually are easier to get rid of IME, as with nothing other than metal and maybe a windscreen, they can be sold straight to the metal merchants rather than having to dispose of fluids etc.

I don't disagree, but a bare shell on its own does not have enough inherent value for it to be collected without charge. You'd be lucky to get £10-20 if you delivered it.

[Eric Mc]

AJS- said:

It's not illegal to sell car parts. Even in England.

Sure if you had 10 cars rotting away and swaying over your neighbour's fence then they would complain and you would have problems, but plenty of people break old cars and sell the parts, and if it doesn't bother anyone then it would only make sense to dip a toe in the water with a few cars before you go for planning permission etc etc

I did especially well with an old Vectra V6 once. It was an absolute pig of a thing to get the bits off, but I got more for the various parts than I ever would have done for the car as a whole.

It's not just the big bits either - silly little things like switches, bits of trim or a mirror can be difficult to find, and will raise a few quid on ebay.

Specialising is good, but I'd also be opportunist. I'll bet there's old cars within 5 miles of your house that someone will be glad to have taken away and will have a couple of hundred quids worth of parts on them.

Good luck.

It is illegal (or at least against planning regulations) to break cars and run the business from a private residence unless the necessary permits and planning authority have been applied for and received.

[V8mate]

Eric Mc said:

AJS- said:

It's not illegal to sell car parts. Even in England.

Sure if you had 10 cars rotting away and swaying over your neighbour's fence then they would complain and you would have problems, but plenty of people break old cars and sell the parts, and if it doesn't bother anyone then it would only make sense to dip a toe in the water with a few cars before you go for planning permission etc etc

I did especially well with an old Vectra V6 once. It was an absolute pig of a thing to get the bits off, but I got more for the various parts than I ever would have done for the car as a whole.

It's not just the big bits either - silly little things like switches, bits of trim or a mirror can be difficult to find, and will raise a few quid on ebay.

Specialising is good, but I'd also be opportunist. I'll bet there's old cars within 5 miles of your house that someone will be glad to have taken away and will have a couple of hundred quids worth of parts on them.

Good luck.

It is illegal (or at least against planning regulations) to break cars and run the business from a private residence unless the necessary permits and planning authority have been applied for and received.

And you'd never get a Waste Management Licence at a residential address.

[Eric Mc]

The OP mentions the word "business" in his thread title so one must assume that he is looking at doing this properly and above board.

[lost in espace]

Eric Mc said:

The OP mentions the word "business" in his thread title so one must assume that he is looking at doing this properly and above board.

Eric I was thinking along the hobbyist line rather than a business at first to be honest, max one car every 2 months. However my main worry would be a car catching fire and damaging my house now I have had a think about it, try explaining that to your household insurance. It would seem possible to make this work, but there is no scaling up without great expense.

Thanks to you all for helping me think this through. Off to Tesco for an application form for me then.

[V8mate]

lost in espace said:

However my main worry would be a car catching fire and damaging my house now I have had a think about it, try explaining that to your household insurance.

Do your cars have a history of catching fire when they are drained of all fluids and have no battery attached?

[Who me ?]

Eric Mc said:

You intend to run this as a business in a residential area.

I would strongly suggest that you would not be allowed to under normal planning rules - either business or environmentally related.

If you go ahead anyway, you woyuld be open to prosecution, fines etc etc.

Got one across the road doing this ,usually on the back of a recovery truck .Up to a while ago he did it regularly ,with complaints going in regularly ,mainly on fire hazard grounds ,till council stepped in with threats of injunctions ( would have thought mention of tenancy conditions would be better).Would think if neighbours don't know ,or do know ,as a place locally to get some cheap spares - and it's not obvious - so as not to harm the house prices locally - you'll not get any complaints .

[randlemarcus]

Used to be a fair trade in parting out bikes - to the extent that you'd buy a brand new crated bike (no fluids, see?) and make a good profit. Worth investigating.

[Glassman]

Many years ago, I stripped a Fiat 131 and a Lancia Beta - I made more money from breaking them than I would have if they were OTR and in decent condition. I loved the achievement (and the cash) which was made easy by the fact that a lot of Kit Cars were built using the twin cam engine.

But to do it on a larger scale, especially in this day and age, I would think about it only if I had a suitable commercial premises to specialise in one marque.

There are BMW, Mercedes, Saab breakers (and many more) who all are very established businesses. As successful as they are / have been, it's not easy. Eric and V8Mate are giving good advice.

Edited by Glassman on Monday 26th July 22:09

[toasty]

randlemarcus said:

Used to be a fair trade in parting out bikes - to the extent that you'd buy a brand new crated bike (no fluids, see?) and make a good profit. Worth investigating.

+1 bikes are much easier to strip and people tend to crash them more. I speak from experience, crashing that is not breaking.

[Eric Mc]

A chap local to me fabricates chassis for Super Stocks in his garage. It is essentially a hobby but he does it on a fairly intensive scale. Ten years or so ago he caused a major incident when his garage caught fire. About 100 houses were evacuated (including mine) and we spent most of the night in a local church hall waiting for the all clear to go home.

The fire brigade ordered the evacuation when they discovered that he had oxyacetylene bottles stored in the garage. They were concerned they would explode or take off like rockets.

Edited by Eric Mc on Monday 26th July 22:19

[K87]

Eric Mc said:

A chap local to me fabricates chassis for Super Stocks in his garage. It is essentially a hobby but he does it on a fairly intensive scale. Ten years or so ago he caused a major incident when his garage caught fire. About 100 houses were evacuated (including mine) and we spent most of the night in a local church hall waiting for the all clear to go home.

The fire brigade ordered the evacuation when they discovered that he had oxyacetylene bottles stored in the garage. They were concerned they would explode or take off like rockets.

Edited by Eric Mc on Monday 26th July 22:19

Pretty irrelevant though really, you don't need oxyacetylene torches to break cars

[Glassman]

K87 said:

Pretty irrelevant though really, you don't need oxyacetylene torches to break cars

No, but they are used.

[The jiffle king]

Just a thought. To keep this within the boundary of the law and to run a test for you to see if this really would work, how about buying 1 car and breaking it, but use some of the pieces for yourself (I remember the chap on here who made a coffee table out of an engine) Then any parts you don't need, sell off as a private individual, but make a comprehensive study into how much time it takes, how much you make, postage costs, time to post etc etc.
Don't buy any more cars for your home address, but put together a plan to see if this would work for you as a business. It would certainly give you some idea of demand, you might make a couple of quid and your neighbours would not be concerned about many cars coming to your home address

I like the idea, some of the regulation would be challenging, but I would try 1 car but using some of the parts as replacement for my own car, or somehow use the parts for something else.

Good luck

[wombat172a]

How does this work with V5s and the DVLA?

So you buy a car with a V5, and break it. Or do you only specifically buy cars without V5s?

If it comes with a V5 do you sign it as a scrapper, or as an owner and then forever sign the car as sorned? Surely the DVLA will become suspicious either way once they see a large through-fare and demand you register as a trader/scrapper?

Or do you just buy the cars and not register the V5, in which case any previous owners will point the finger at you once they get chased up for tax/sorn??


I genuinely don't know how this works, but these questions are what I'd be asking.

[5harp3y]

V8mate said:

JB! said:

V8mate said:

lost in espace said:

If I can get the car to the scrap man he can deal with a lot of the fluids, and presumably pay me for whatever is left of the car. I assume a scappy will take even a shell plus bits I cannot remove?

Waste oils can be disposed at my local tip along with tyres/rims, albeit on a non commercial basis. I was not planning on using torches or such like. Any fuel in the tank can be safely removed and stored for use.

Please keep the comments coming for and against, its still something I am mulling over at the moment before I committed to buying a trailer I wanted to check with the PH massive that I was not being a bit bonkers.

Stripping individual cars quietly in a close garage should not cause any problem for my neighbours.

The fluids will be the first thing you'll need to attend to, not the last and scrapyards will charge you to take away a bare shell as the revenue from it alone will not warrant the visit.

And don't take the guys at the tips for fools; they'll soon recall 'that bloke who brings round 4 tyres every week'.

Eric is right about running such a business from home too.

But...and this is a big but... assuming you ignore the law and get away with doing so, have you thought how the revenue stream will run against the time and expenditure stream?

How would you feel if you had fully dismantled four cars, cleaned and catalogued all serviceable parts, to have only sold one headlamp unit?

bare shells with no interiour/ mechanicals actually are easier to get rid of IME, as with nothing other than metal and maybe a windscreen, they can be sold straight to the metal merchants rather than having to dispose of fluids etc.

I don't disagree, but a bare shell on its own does not have enough inherent value for it to be collected without charge. You'd be lucky to get £10-20 if you delivered it.

I scrapped my mk1 golf convertible shell. it had nothing left on it, no panels, no glass ... nothing.

phoned up local vehicle dismantlers (big registered place) 45 mins laster a low loader dragged it off my driveway and took the v5 to have it registered as scrap.

no money in the shell, but i made well over £1500 from the car (lots of modified / performance parts)

[Eric Mc]

Which you reported on your Self Assessment tax return

[JB!]

Eric Mc said:

Which you reported on your Self Assessment tax return

[Eric Mc]

It wouldn't be a requirement if it was your old personal car. Obviously, if you are setting up a scrapping business, it would.