I asked this same question of a yard owner when I was in California and he chucked a bit and gave me his reason for chrushing: "I can sell pieces and parts of any older car to collectors for a fair price (what his fair price was, he didn't say) but I have to store the hulk until someone comes along wanting a part from the time I get it till it's completely stripped of all usualbe salvage. There is a amount of space that I can use for anyother processing until its gone, and I might make a profit over the long term of $200 to $1000 but I have to factor in the cost of lost of that area, which decreases the actual profit quite a bit. Or I find an industry who is having trouble making EPA standards (I'm assuming he meant Calif. EPA) and sell them the car outright for a pollution credit and make a profit of between $50 to $200 with no storage cost at all and I then sell the iron for $15 to $30 depending on the wieght." He also said that there is less hassle with liabilty if some one uses a part and the gets hurt ie, wrecks and some lawyer says the part was bad and tries to take his business and home because someone used a 40 year old steering part to go down the road at a hundered miles and hour. I don't know how true it was but the guy was friendly and willing to explain the problem and also let me have the part I wanted as long as I was willing to get it out of Calif. Jim |