scrapping a hyndai elantra 2003

we have a car that my dad hit a deer with and its toast i was wandering what should i take off of it before calling a person to get it cause we can get at least 200 dollars from someone and they haul it away.

i know to take the battery leads,the fan motors,radiator which i already got,there is a motor on the left side i plan on taking that out if i can get to it if there is not a bolt on the bottom.

i can snip some of the wires from the top from what i can see. so about how much copper can i expect to get once i strip the wires i can see? see i want to get out everything without having to go under the car cause i cant and dont wanna get squashed by the jack going down lol. im more of a play it safe person. are all electric motors clasified as #1 copper being that its gotta be bigger than a #2 pencil are they all bigger than a #2 pencil?

the car does not run. i just want to take the things out that are worth the most like electric motors and wires anythng else?

to give you a general idea it kinda looks similar to this

https://www.google.com/search?q=2003...6s46MD3qFtS7M:



the motor thing im talking about looks like this its in the lower left maybe its the alternator? are there any other electric motors on a car?

https://static-attic.s3.amazonaws.co...470adfdaba.jpg

Originally Posted by hobo finds

lol omg im laughing so hard=) but seriously what will i get?

Looks like you are getting the good easy to get items. Just make sure the guy who is paying $200 to get it wont be pissed that the stuff is gone!

Originally Posted by hobo finds

Looks like you are getting the good easy to get items. Just make sure the guy who is paying $200 to get it wont be pissed that the stuff is gone!

lol yeah so have you ever gotten a car? what stuff do you take off that you can acess just from the top and not having to go under the car? about how many electric motors are in a car? how many pounds of copper are in battery lead cables? they look pretty small since its a car the one i saw on youtube was from a tractor and i thought oh boy lots of copper then i looked at the small leads on the car and got sad=( should i take parts of the engine off to?

Originally Posted by Patriot76

I do not know anything about laws in Indiana, but my yards require that the gas tank be removed from the vehicle, oil drain plug pulled, and transmission plug be removed as well, requiring getting under the car or flipping it over. Before I had the equipment to flip vehicles, I had to go under a vehicle and the emergency brake is set, the transmission is put into park or gear, the jack is used only to lift the car and jack stands or blocks are used to hold the car and the jack is removed.

It looks like there is a lot of aluminum that can be removed with a ratchet. Take a magnet to the covers and you will be surprised. If you do not want to completely separate the ferrous and non ferrous you could sell it as aluminum breakage. Breaking it down would yield you aluminum cast.

It sounds like you are breaking down the motors and might be interested in separating the aluminum. I sell my electric motors as is, unless it is aluminum cast on the outside then it is worth my time.

I cannot help you on the copper wiring, mine is just added to a Gaylord and sold when full.

thanks yeah i should take out the heater core and blower motor found that out on youtube people dont list on here all the stuff whti copper and aluminum from a car that you can just take out from the top and not having to go under the car. what kind of stuff do you get from the dashboard area?

Catalytic converter, battery, radiator, starter, alternator and ac compressor are what I usually grab. And not peacefully, I rip and cut and tug and whatever to get it off there. Just make sure your buyer wont dock you to bad for removing it. I buy cars all the time (I own a salvage yard) and if those goodies are gone I have to account for that and pay accordingly. YMMV.

If your hoping to get money having someone haul it for you you best leave everything in place. Most roll back guys around here will pay nothing for a car thats been stripped out, and your on the bottom of the list as far as who their gonna pick up today. Once a car is stripped of parts you either need to find the most reliable car buyer in your area to pay you for it, or a guy like me who comes with a toyota tacoma and sawzall, and takes it for free and then listens to all the complaints about how no one with a wrecker would take it because it was stripped. But if you do choose to strip it any way cut the Cat, if its got Aluminum rims take them, battery, alternator, ac compressor, rads, alternator, starter, window wiper motor, wire harness, if its got an aluminum engine pull that and the tranny, you can do all that except the cat without going under it but the cat could be worth $50 and takes 2 minutes to take off. If you strip the insulation of the wire harness your a fool. Takes too much time and you get nothing on the return. And like I said the car would then be considered light iron after all that so keep that in mind when no towing service wants to pay you.

Originally Posted by mike1

lol yeah so have you ever gotten a car? what stuff do you take off that you can acess just from the top and not having to go under the car? about how many electric motors are in a car? how many pounds of copper are in battery lead cables? they look pretty small since its a car the one i saw on youtube was from a tractor and i thought oh boy lots of copper then i looked at the small leads on the car and got sad=( should i take parts of the engine off to?

I can normally recover 3-5lbs of wire harness from cars. Wire harness goes for $.55/lbs at my yard, a bit more down the road if your in good standing with the owner and not just a drug money runner. And all together I got about $150 worth of parts off a scrap s-10 thats now my primary scrap trailer if that helps in your decision making.

Around here when people call to junk a car, usually the first 2 questions from the potential buyer are: do you have a title and is the vehicle complete? Then a value is given.

Incomplete cars are sold " over the scale." This means you get it there, pull it in, weigh it, offload, and than get paid. 3.00 per tire deducted also, if left on.

Check it out before you proceed to strip the car.

Ask yourself what you would pay for a stripped out car if you showed up with your tow machine.

Ask yourself what you would pay for a stripped out car if you showed up with your tow machine. - EDC76

I buy cars all the time (I own a salvage yard) and if those goodies are gone I have to account for that and pay accordingly. YMMV. - dsroten

All of scrapmanidustries post.

It all needed to be repeated again. I know here on my sandbar it's the same, if you call to have a car removed..title an is it complete are always asked.


Plenty of car folks on here tho, an a lot of them have threads with a ton of info in them. I'd advise you to check them out if this something you plan to do at times. Tater, the folks I quoted above an several others have a ton of wisdom on this topic an their threads containing said info are worth their weight in gold.


Good luck to ya whichever you decide you got some good answers here, even it's not maybe what you were looking to hear.

Sirscrapalot - The best advice I ever got was that knowledge is power and to keep reading. - David Bailey

Adding my voice to the caution against stripping a car someone is paying you junk price for plus removing. It's both rude to do so without letting them know in advance and likely to give you a bad name with that junkyard as well as lower your $ haul.

Originally Posted by JJinLV

Adding my voice to the caution against stripping a car someone is paying you junk price for plus removing. It's both rude to do so without letting them know in advance and likely to give you a bad name with that junkyard as well as lower your $ haul.

Not only is it rude to do this I've even seen some of the "less than reliable" roll back guys try to charge people a for service call and then still not even pick up the car. Even the most reliable car guy I've seen says when he gets jobs like that he'll roll up see the stripped hunk of junk, and then tell people he can only pay like $25-$50 depending on size. And he was saying how he might even stop paying all together on stripped cars because he looses money on some of em like that after expenses get paid.

After the first mentioned scenario alot of people generally try for months to get rid of their shell before stumbling upon The Scrapman Industries who doesnt have a big truck any more and comes with a sawzall to chop the car in half. 2-3 hours later i have a $100 load and about an hours worth of stories/complaints how the roll back guys wouldn't pick up their car.

Originally Posted by btkr

Around here when people call to junk a car, usually the first 2 questions from the potential buyer are: do you have a title and is the vehicle complete? Then a value is given.

Incomplete cars are sold " over the scale." This means you get it there, pull it in, weigh it, offload, and than get paid. 3.00 per tire deducted also, if left on.

Check it out before you proceed to strip the car.

the car places in the phone book some dont need titles

Originally Posted by ScrapmanIndustries

If your hoping to get money having someone haul it for you you best leave everything in place. Most roll back guys around here will pay nothing for a car thats been stripped out, and your on the bottom of the list as far as who their gonna pick up today. Once a car is stripped of parts you either need to find the most reliable car buyer in your area to pay you for it, or a guy like me who comes with a toyota tacoma and sawzall, and takes it for free and then listens to all the complaints about how no one with a wrecker would take it because it was stripped. But if you do choose to strip it any way cut the Cat, if its got Aluminum rims take them, battery, alternator, ac compressor, rads, alternator, starter, window wiper motor, wire harness, if its got an aluminum engine pull that and the tranny, you can do all that except the cat without going under it but the cat could be worth $50 and takes 2 minutes to take off. If you strip the insulation of the wire harness your a fool. Takes too much time and you get nothing on the return. And like I said the car would then be considered light iron after all that so keep that in mind when no towing service wants to pay you.

how do you tell if its a after market cat? i dont plan on stripping it all just the easy things like the blower motor the wires from the engine area and other easily gotten things i plan on leaving the engine alone do you strip the battery cables? how much does that copper weigh? is there any more things on a car that have motor like things on it? is there any brass on a car?