"Curses; foiled again"

I went to a bid opening for some 40' city buses yesterday. I purposely bid low, assuming one of the yards that I buy cut-out engines from would be a bit higher. I really don't make any money on the scrap end of these deals any ways. I was disappointed that "my" yard did not place a bid and another yard's bid was much higher than mine.

I talked with the winning bidder and thought we had an agreement in principle to deal on the engines. I called him a couple of hours later and it was a different story. It seems he doesn't want to (or can't) process the buses at his small yard. It sounded like he is going to do what he has done in the past; have them towed from Milwaukee to a processor in Chicago where they just get shredded.

A while back, I had a customer looking for bus parts, so I suggested he call the processor in Chicago. He did so and was told they would not sell any parts.

With the towing cost; the winning bidder will be into the buses for about $80/ton. Shred is $85-$100/ton around here right now. I can only figure he might make $10-$20/ton X 14 buses X 10-12 tons net/bus, so maybe around $3000 on the deal. I would have given about $5000 for the 14 engines and he still would have had the bus bodies to scrap.

Still trying to figure out how I could pull this one out of the ####er. I hate to see a deal get away.

My thought goes toward what might be the mindset of the winner of the auction.

He my be concerned as to what the condition of the bus might be once you have removed the engine. Will the bus be tow worthy or something the DOT cops would pull over and check. Those guys are VERY interested in anything that looks less than perfect. Also the towing company could have similar concerns.

Also he may be concerned about not getting a full return on his money quickly. Doesn't know you have cash in your pocket.

Try to do just one to convince him you are serious and capable. 73, Mike

On 40 bus's the high bidder will get paid out on steel and aluminum, nice payday considering those bus's are 60% aluminum.

Sad the tire casings, Allison automatics and engine cores are being shredded, but have my doubts that they get shredded as the yard will pull them to max their profits.

I've dismantled a few diesel highway bus's and wrecked out a bunch of electric trolley bus's plus one English double decker none of which were fun but all had nice paydays.

Not that much aluminum on modern city buses. The old GM's were built like airplanes with aluminum bulkheads and stressed skin. These buses are steel tube birdcage construction. The only aluminum is in the extruded window frames, glued on skin panels, etc., with some stainless and copper tube/wiring. Probably only about 200-400#'s on the whole bus but that is balanced by the large amount of plastic, plywood, etc.. I do believe the processor is pulling and selling the engine cores, if for no other reason than their machine may not handle them. And there are a couple of big core buyers/exporters in Chicago.

Transmissions are German Voith units. Only used in buses and no market for cores. Believe me; I've tried moving them in the past with no luck. So, only breakage weight there.

I talked to the winning bidder last week. Asked him if he would consider flipping the batch to me. He said "You know what I paid. What do you have in mind?". I offered him $1000 over his total bid, thinking he might counter at $2000, which I would have accepted. His only response was "You're not even close" and he would not put a number out there.

Two other scrap yard owners that I talked to said that there wasn't much margin for the winning bidder. I think a couple of things are in play here:
1. the buyer already committed the weight to the processor and didn't want to pull the plug on that.
2. he is making some money, if not a lot, without touching the buses.
3. he doesn't want some small-time player (me) playing "his" game. Not the first time I've run into that.

Oh well; there is another batch of buses going out next month. I'll have to try something different.

In the future you may want to look at the axles and other related items :)

Not sure I follow.......If you were willing to pay the guy $1000 more than he won them for why not just bid the auction higher??

Sealed bid sale. If it was an open auction; I would have bid higher and, at the very least, taken the other guys profit out of it.

Axles and other stuff: low floor buses with MAN planetary axles. Very expensive hardware but unique to city buses, so limited resale.