If you've followed my blog for a while, you'll know I visited a scrap yard filled entirely with cars in the fall. You can click here to read the last post I made regarding it.
My father and I returned twice this past week. Our first visit was to hunt for emblems and our second was to find wheels and tires for our cars. I want to discuss our second visit, since it was more action packed, but I do have a picture from the first visit depicting the same row of the scrap yard as I had featured in my post from November.
The image from November 2023.
The image from March 2024.
If you can excuse the angle being slightly off, because I had the idea split second and we were nearing closing time, you can see one notable difference. One of the cars has had most of its front removed! Not as interesting of an image on it own, because the front blocks most of the other cars from view, but the change over time is very telling. The red car closest to the camera also now has its hood down, and the yellow car seems to have tilted some. I really enjoy seeing the changes that happen over time, it shows that these cars are still able to be recycled like the rest.
We spoke with someone in the yard yesterday who had been searching for a door handle for a vintage Dodge van- I believe a Tradesman- and after asking many other places, they were able to take one off an NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) ambulance. Yes, an ambulance that had been raced and then retired, we can assume. That's the beauty of the scrap yard and recycling.
I want to preface this story by saying that when I use the term "wheels" I'm referring to the steel/aluminum wheel and tires, since that's how we dealt with wheels yesterday. My father and I got a really good haul, since prices on wheels can be crazy expensive. Our other finds were cheap too. I picked up a few emblems; a late 80s Camaro Z28, a 90s Buick Skylark, a 2000s Saturn, and a 90s Toyota Tundra. My father got a new wiper arm for his 94 Buick Roadmaster too.
Our search for wheels started with a 90s Buick Roadmaster my father had seen on our previous visit. The price of wheels went down this year, since tire and wheel used to be charged separately. However, they've been combined, making these steel wheels on the Roadmaster wheels more valuable. They weren't all in good condition, so we only ended up with three.
It's standard for the yard to remove all but one lug nut from each wheel so they can be easily removed and bought by customers, but for whatever reason the Roadmaster's wheels had all of their lug nuts. This became a problem because it took more time to remove them than expected. One of the wheels was even stuck because one of the lug nuts had been stripped- meaning the edges of the nut had rounded out, making it hard for tools to grip it. My father was unable to remove it, and ended up deciding to only take three wheels. Two from the car, and the brand new, full sized wheel that was kept in the back as the spare. It had a good tire on it too, so in the end it was still a win. These wheels aren't going on his 94 Roadmaster though, they're going to the 94 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser wagon instead. The patterns for the wheels fit, and the Olds needs the new wheels much more. Although we didn't complete this process all at once, I won't drag you around the yard like we did with the first two wheels.
After the Roadmaster, we looked for all of the Generation 7 Honda Civics to see if they had any wheels we could put on my Civic. We were looking specifically for aluminum wheels, since I'm not a huge fan of how steel wheels look. The hubcaps on my Civic are pretty beat up, but there's another problem. The Civic uses 14 inch tires, a size that's becoming extinct. So it was time to get a larger wheel size, a 15 inch or 16 inch. These'll still fit in the wheel well and hopefully improve my handling. The Civic isn't a huge fan of the rain, and since I'm still a relatively new driver, I'm still struggling to control the car smoothly in the rain. It won't make my ride any smoother, but cheaper tires is a plus.
So we searched for the Civics along with other Asian cars. Many Civics has three good wheels, some factory, some didn't fit my car. The Civic has four lug nuts, and most cars have five. So after coming up short in the Asian car section, we had returned to the General Motors section after I saw some wheels I liked. Noticing that the lug nut pattern on most of the Chevrolet Cobalts matched the Civic's, we started searching for Cobalts with interesting wheels. In that search we found the Saturn Ion and it's very unique wheels. After rolling one over to a Civic in the yard, we confirmed the wheels would fit! These are 16 inch wheels, and we had to take from two different Ions to get four. The tires don't match, but we'll get new tires that do match.
After returning home, my father found that these wheels new or rehabbed condition can sell for $200 a piece. These wheels aren't in perfect condition, but they're usable and have the center cap, which is valuable in itself. They look great on a Civic, too. I'm very excited to put these on the Civic.
When testing the wheels on the Civic in the yard, my father discovered it had two brand new front struts on it. Front struts for my Civic aren't cheap since they have an extra arm-like piece that's not longer used on most cars. So to find them new in the yard for extremely cheap was a gold mine, and my father was able to remove them in just about twenty minutes. The struts on my car have almost 150,000 miles of wear on them, since they haven't been changed since the car was new. We'll still need to replace the back struts, which is much cheaper, but we had good luck finding those new front struts.
I'm very excited about our finds. This yard sells by part, not by weight, so many of the parts we found were much cheaper than they'd be new or found online. I'm very lucky to have this yard nearby, and grateful to my father for going with me and giving me his car knowledge. He does all of the hard work, but I'm always willing to help when something needs to be done, because it is my car and I want to learn. We spent seven hours out yesterday, and we took 19,000 steps. For comparison, I work retail at a local antique mall, and I'll get 18,000-20,000 steps in on a 7-8 hour shift.
It's been wonderful visiting the yard again, and if you want to see pictures from the yard, I'll be posting them on my car photography accounts in the coming weeks. You can find links to all of my social media pages on the About page. I'll link all of my car photography accounts below:
Have a wonderful week and if you're getting any nice weather like I am, enjoy it!
-Rosetta 💖